Fool Me Once, Shame on You Fool Me Fifty Times, I'm a Freaking Imbecile

Anglers are mourning the death of a carp in Britain. Strange really when you consider that it must happen quite a bit. Especially if there are anglers around. Ah but this was no ordinary carp. This was the famous Two Tone; 65 pounds in weight and 45 years old when it died. Apparently catching it was the holy grail of carp fishing. There was a picture of it and it looked rather like a fish shaped barrage balloon. Two Tone seems to have been quite a good sport about the entire angling business, he generously allowed himself to be caught about fifty times in his career to the great joy of the angler in question.

I think Two Tone answers any lingering questions we might have about the intelligence of fish. Caught fifty times? Somebody wasn't really trying. Either that or Two Tone had a sick fetish for having a sharpened bit of metal stuck into the roof of his mouth and being half suffocated. Not my idea of a good time but there's nowt as queer as fish.

I tried fishing once or twice when I was a child but fortunately I grew out of it. Fishing is one of those pursuits I don't really understand. Oh I understand some parts of it; sitting on a riverbank or in a small boat, a rod over the side and a hat over my eyes. That all sounds very pleasant indeed but frankly I could do it at a swimming pool. If I ever actually caught a fish I'd probably have a panic attack, although probably nothing like the panic attack the fish would have. There I'd be reeling, dragging, slipping and probably falling overboard while the fish stares at me sardonically and says "You're new to this aren't you?"

Maybe I am but I'm not the one impaled on an inch and a half of steel smart arse. Some animals are just made to be victims and most fish fall into that category. Another victim animal is the bird of paradise. The bird of paradise is a magnificent creature, beautiful, colourful, striking. Humans took one look at it and thought "wow, wouldn't that make a great hat." Birds of paradise are now protected from the rampages of the international hat conspiracy but for cultural reasons Papua New Guinea tribesman are still allowed to kill some. What do the tribesmen do with the dead birds? They strip the feathers off and make headdresses out of them. Hats, again.

At some point we have got to argue that our culture needs to be protected as well. Our culture just happens to include ravaging eco systems, hunting bears and foxes and making clothing out of pretty much anything that moves and a good deal that doesn't. Next time you get caught chainsawing down a magnificent redwood simply point out that furniture is part of your cultural heritage and demand a government grant. I've never quite understood why ancient cultural traditions are so important to other people but our own have to take second place to laws on the environment, equal opportunity, transportation of convicts and the utterly unreasonable ban on burning witches. Let's face it if traditions were so terribly important I for one would be squatting on a hillside near Inverness freezing my arse off and trying to pinch somebody's sheep. Thanks, but I think I'll pass.

The correct definition of tradition is "Something our ancestors did because they didn't know better". Many traditions had great value back in the day of course. In Australia there was an Aboriginal tradition of knocking out one of the front teeth on achieving manhood. This wasn't just pointless sadism, in a stone age society people tended to get tetanus quite a bit and making a gap in the mouth allowed sufferers to be fed after they'd got lockjaw. A thoroughly sensible piece of preventative medicine for the time and place. Now we have antiseptics and there really isn't a good reason to go around knocking out healthy teeth unless, of course, you're a dentist. Traditions have their place and that place is a long time ago. Sure you can keep some of the more visually appealing ones that might bring in tourist dollars. Britain, for example, does almost nothing else. What you shouldn't do is take it seriously, or expect anyone else to. Build new traditions instead and have a private chuckle at the mess you'll be getting your descendants into if they try to follow them.

Two hundred years from now when the remnants of the human race are huddled in the Antarctic jungle fighting off the dinosaurs that returned as a result of runaway global warming I very much doubt if you will see too many of them carving ipods from stone because their ancestors carried them. Fortunately with all the rising sea levels at least the fishing should be good.

Birthday Greetings #10

Happy birthday to Karl I, last Habsburg emperor; although considering the Habsburg's penchant for survival possibly one should say, the last so far. Karl was born in 1887 and didn't seem a particularly high prospect for the throne since he was the great nephew of the incumbent emperor. A series of particularly grisly deaths lifted him up the chain. Firstly the emperors drug addicted son blew his brains out in a hunting lodge (along with those of his mistress) and then the next heir to the throne made the mistake of inspecting troop manoeuvres in Sarajevo. Suddenly Karl was heir to the throne and since the emperor was older than god at this point elevation couldn't be long in coming.

Before taking on the imperial dignity however Karl had to do his duty as a soldier which for a Habsburg meant commanding an army corps during the First World War. One suspects his war service consisted of pinning on medals while his staff tried to work around him but whatever he saw of war he decided he didn't like it much. In late 1916 the old emperor Franz Josef finally died and Karl ascended to the doomed throne of a disintegrating empire. World War I was going like crazy and the Habsburg empire was buckling under the strain.

Opinion is divided as to whether Karl was a thoughtful and insightful man attuned to the needs of his multicultural empire or an overpromoted nincompoop who thoroughly deserved what was about to happen to him. Which ever was the case Karl was well aware that to have even a hope of saving his inheritance the empire needed peace. Now! Unfortunately rather than approach openly he got his brother in law (who was serving in the Belgian army) to sound out the French about the possibility of a separate peace. During these negotiations he cheerfully ratted out his German ally and put it all in writing. The French government publicised the negotiations and Karl was summoned to the presence of Emperor Wilhelm of Germany for some condign grovelling. With all hope of peace gone Karl's empire was shackled to Germany and as the war went increasingly badly the unique Habsburg combination of oppression coupled with incompetence loosened whatever bonds may have kept his subjects loyal.

Finally in 1918 it came. Turkey and Bulgaria were already beaten, Germany was tottering and the Habsburg empire simply came apart at the seams. The various nationality groups declared themselves independent (or simply behaved as though they had) and pretty soon Karl had difficulty commanding attention in his own throne room. Advised by his last prime minister to get out while the going was good Karl issued something that was definitely not an abdication and left. Very few people seemed to notice he had gone.

Karl hadn't given up though. Technically Hungary was still a kingdom (although since his departure sadly lacking in kings) and with the backing of a group of royalists he attempted to take over at least this part of his inheritance. Sadly Admiral Miklos Horthy (Hungary had neither a navy or a coastline but whatever) who was running Hungary at the time (technically as regent for Karl) refused to give up his post and Karl had to slink out of the country in disgrace. Karl was exiled to Madeira and died there a year or so later of pneumonia.

The Catholic church has since beatified him and he is now the Blessed Karl, apparently because he cured some nuns varicose veins. I've got to say the quality of miracles required for beatification seems to be dropping off somewhat.

Since Karl never technically abdicated the House of Habsburg (very quietly) considers themselves to still be entitled to the throne. In response the Austrians implemented the Habsburg law which bans any member of the family from setting foot in Austria unless they renounce their claims. Keep your eye on that bunch. The Habsburgs aren't finished yet.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Plastic Surgeon

I did a whole pamper thing over the weekend. Massage, facial, manicure, scalp massage all very nice. I spent the afternoon feeling thoroughly metrosexual. Or at least I would have if my clothes hadn't been second hand. The facial was a bit of an ego shaker however. I'm not the best looking person in the world (sometimes I have difficulty being the best looking person in my flat) but as the facial doing person reeled off a list of hideous blemishes that I hadn't even known existed I wondered if the elephant man needed a stand in.

Sadly it would appear that the fresh bloom I had on my cheeks when I was young has faded and now my yellowed eyes peer out of my sunken, greasy hide while blackheads and broken capillaries fight for dominance over the wreckage of my features. Then she smeared some stuff on my ravaged face, buffed my talons and now I'm beautiful again. Or at least I will be if I buy a bunch of moisturisers, lotions, creams and spend slightly longer doing my face than the average drag queen. Actually she got off lightly, I'm booked in for a pedicure in a couple of weeks and whoever does that is going to have a heart attack. Not even I try to pretend my feet are the best part of my body.

As a crack team of dedicated professionals tried desperately to hold the advancing tide of age at bay I lay there and enjoyed being pampered. All of the above took two and a half hours to complete and I can't help thinking that as age rolls on one would have to spend more and more time in order to look less and less good. By the time I'm fifty I'll be living at the salon and will only venture out for a five minute stretch when the masters of illusion have rendered me more or less acceptable to the public gaze. Then a sunbeam will strike me and with my skin melting I will flee back for another treatment.

At least that's one option, the other and more likely option is that I will reluctantly embrace my decay in return for having a few extra hours in the day. I'm not a movie star or a politician, there is no particular reason why the public should see anything but the unvarnished me (subject to local indecency laws of course).

People like to look good though, however they define good. Some people spend half their lives in a beauty salon so that the people they meet in the other half think they spend all their life in a beauty salon. Some people shave, tattoo, pierce, scar (that one's a bit creepy but I've seen it look good) or whatever and all with the same imperative; to present to the public the face they want the public to see. Is there any fundamental difference between the woman who puts on three layers of makeup before she leaves the house and the woman who runs a chain between the piercings in her ear, nose and nipples? I don't think so except that I'm more likely to ask the latter one out on a date.

Even I like to look good although I'm far too lazy to put any great effort into it. Occasionally I get halfway there more or less by accident and I feel quite pleased with myself. Most of the time I settle for being clean. I walk down the street in clean clothes, with a freshly showered body and I feel; average. Seriously nobody should get too excited just walking down a street. If the reaction of passersby is going to be the highlight of your day you have way more things wrong with your life than just make up issues.

I feel I have got off the track with this blog entry, I have wandered far from the path of righteousness and into the garden of self indulgence where I have picked blooms of moisturiser and danced in fairy rings of massages and manicures. Then I started rabbiting on about makeup and body piercing. I'm finding it difficult to remember what I was trying to say or even if I was saying anything at all. A quick review of the previous entries in this blog convinces me that I probably wasn't. I don't even know what a fairy ring is.

Entropy increases, things decay and nothing lives forever or even for very long. So what the hell you might as well try and look good when they nail down the lid. Or better yet get your teeth filed to points and scare the crap out of your younger relatives when they come to the viewing. Although with all the vampire movies around nowadays they'll probably hammer a stake through your heart just to be on the safe side.

So what is the point of prettying up our rapidly decaying bodies in the hopes that entropy will pass us by and move on to that couple in their sixties who have obviously given up hope? Well I'm typing this blog with my newly manicured fingers and I'm quite ridiculously delighted at how smooth and glossy my nails are.

Facebook is the New Necromancy

A friend of mine was recently tagged in a photo on facebook. A common enough occurrence but one I found a little creepy as this friend has been dead for several years. Now that facebook can reach beyond the grave I think it is time it was officially designated as a religion or possibly some form of dark magic.

I rather like the idea of facebook as an unholy power that can be channelled by crazed adepts chanting the right liturgies to recreate what was and what can be. Of course the price will be high, you will have to dedicate yourself to the service of facebook. It's corrupting presence will flow through your soul warping your perceptions and altering your appearance. Your face will be pasty, your fingers flattened from continual keyboard use. No longer will you speak to others or see them through human eyes but for those prepared to make these sacrifices the gifts will be great.

In the temple of facebook where the floor is slicked with the blood of sacrifices and the air is cloudy with ozone and the tortured remnants of long lost souls you will find the answers and the power you seek. Without touching your enemies you can destroy them; bare their most closely held secrets to the cold light of day. The sweetness of corruption will be your siren song luring the helpless and the weak into the web which spans the world. Once they are there they are yours; forever. Not even death will release them from this grip. The whole of human experience is your prey to feed to on. Suck the marrow dry without moving from your chair. You hover godlike over the doings of humanity and laugh as they scurry in the dust at your feet.

Ah but as you revel in your power, think on this. Facebook gives little and takes much. Your great power is merely a shadow, a reflection of facebook. It is a pale imitation of the reality. Of all the wretched beings trapped within the web none is bound as securely as you. Separated from life, bound by your oaths and your desires you serve facebook as helplessly as any slave. Without it you would wither and die, it provides your sole nourishment your one tiny link to the greatness of the universe. But you see only what it lets you see and know only what it sees fit to tell you. Know this necromancer; though you sit on a throne on bones and the puppet strings run from your fingers to the people of the world yet you are enthralled. You must serve and every benefit you gain increases your debt. A debt that will never be repaid.

But what the hell, its better than MySpace.

Domestic Tip #5

Don't use your tongue to test the heat of your spatula

Whatever the Weather

We had gale force winds in Sydney last night. I know the leaves fell off the tree outside my window. Elsewhere apparently the winds were slightly less innocuous with tree branches, garbage bins and the occasional roof littering various bits of the countryside. Seriously the weather is getting more than a little silly. Forget global warming, so far this Winter we've had global colding, global wetting and now global winding. Or rather we have had local examples of all those things. So far there seems to be no end of reasons for the trains to be late.

Don't you hate people who discuss the weather? On and on they yammer analysing every fluffy cloud and microscopic temperature change in the desperate hope that people won't realise that they have nothing else to say. People who write blogs about the weather are even worse. By the time they finish writing on a subject that interests no one but themselves the weather has changed and they have to start again. Personally when I start discussing the weather you will know that I have completely run out of things to write about.

Here are the people who actually need to know about the weather. Fisherman, meteorologists and anybody planning an invasion of Normandy. Nobody else needs to know about the sodding weather. I think I see a farmer or two nervously raising their hands in the background. You may think you need to know about the weather but you actually don't. If you already have a farm and are raising animals and crops then it is too late anyway. If you've set your farm up in an environment not conducive to farming (such as Australia) then the actual specific weather doesn't matter too much as you can just take it as read that on general principles you are screwed. If you haven't set up your farm yet then you don't need anybody to tell you about the weather either. What you need is somebody to smack you in the side of the head. There is a reason why the human race has been moving to cities for as long as we've had cities and it largely involves getting jobs that don't involve spending anytime at the back end of a cow.

We have plenty of farms that are apparently doing it tough etc etc. We don't need any more. Instead of going to the country and becoming a struggling farmer just stay in the city and go on the dole. It amounts to the same thing in the end but you don't have to worry about the weather. If you really have to worry about the weather; move. You're obviously living somewhere that wasn't meant to sustain human life.

Despite the total unimportance of the weather the amount of conversation it generates is amazing. Partially, of course, this is because most people are terribly unimaginative but also the weather is a nice neutral topic. You can talk for hours to almost anyone on the weather without getting awkward passages like;

"It looks like rain"
"I slept with your wife last night"

or possibly;

"I will drown your cities in blood and build pyramids of skulls from your loved ones!"
"Well you picked a nice day for it."
"Yeah, when we sacked Nisbis last week you should have seen the rain. Drown the city in blood, it looked like raspberry cordial. And don't get me started on the pyramids of skulls all right, two words; mud slide. At the end we just had a heap of skulls and they were all dirty."

I'm sure we've all had conversations like this. No? Just me then huh? OK, but my basic point is that the weather is something of marginal interest to almost everyone. It can safely be used as an icebreaker by the sort of people who would really rather be killing each other. So here is my point about the weather. Only discuss it with people you really hate.

PS the title of this blog came from a tongue twister in a childrens book I had as a kid

Whether the weather be cold
or whether the weather be hot,
whether the weather be fine
or whether the weather be not.

Whatever the weather
we'll weather the weather
Whether we like it or not.

Pass the Fermented Bear's Piss Please

A friend of mine has decided to go on the "caveman diet". This is apparently the latest in bizarre ways of feeding yourself that is supposed to result in weight loss, detoxification and general well being. Or to put it another way, it is completely stupid. In an attempt to be helpful I pointed out to him that the diet of the average caveman probably consisted of bugs, tree bark and whatever he could lick off the walls of the cave with perhaps a little raw meat on Sunday if the hunting was good. Sadly my well intentioned commentary wasn't received in particularly good spirit. If my friend isn't careful he will find himself downgraded to "acquaintance" or possibly even "victim".

The first stage of the caveman diet involves "grazing" on nuts and fruit during the day and then gorging yourself at night. I do that anyway except for the fruit and nuts bit. My friend implied that he would still be able to smoke and drink "in moderation" while doing this. I've got to say that this is one hell of a detox. Still in altruistic mode I pointed out that the only time a caveman would have smoked is when his greasy, rancid hair accidentally dangled in the fire and he probably wouldn't be drinking alcohol unless it was fermented bears piss. Again my attempts to be helpful were spurned.

The second stage involves eating nothing at all during the day and then stuffing your face at night. Is this a diet or are we just observing Ramadan? The only thing you can't eat is potatoes. Apparently potatoes were vegetata not grata for our neolithic cousins. You do get to drink water all day if that is the sort of thing that excites you. Stage three involves a sort of combination of stages one and two. The implication is that by this stage you will be craving healthy foods and thus leading a healthier life. In parentheses I should point out that all the water drinking the diet recommends is pretty much a detox process by itself.

What I really don't understand is why "caveman"? Cavemen didn't have a great or healthy life. They dined principally on whatever couldn't outrun them (berries, slugs, carrion) and died at an age when we would be leaving university. They spent most of their lives cold, scared and wretched (although I'm certain some halfwit will be found to wax lyrical on their rich cultural life and attunement with nature). Why doesn't somebody come up with a sensible twenty first century person's diet. Oh wait, they do. It's called a diet. Couple that with some exercise and unless you have an eating disorder or cruel genetics you should lose weight (or at least reposition your weight to its best advantage).

I do acknowledge the irony of me giving diet advice. I have a diet much closer to the caveman than most people I know. That is I eat whatever I can find within scavenging range. In times of desperation I lead a hunting party to the supermarket where I risk life and limb cutting a straggler off from the herd in the freezer section. I know what sensible eating and lifestyle choices are even if I don't take them. I am unlikely to ever consciously embrace an eating routine based on people for whom one slight shift in the weather meant starvation.

I think the caveman thing is a gimmick. In this modern (many would say post modern) world we hunger for the supposed wisdom of bygone times and the spiritual fulfillment that apparently only comes with believing something really silly. If bygone times were so damn wise how come the lives they led were wretched by comparison with our own. The average derelict living on Sydney's streets has a better lifestyle than a peasant from the middle ages and probably a greater life expectancy. In those days diet was whatever you could stuff in your mouth and detox was de poison you smeared on your arrows when you went hunting food.

As for spiritual fulfillment, when seven out of ten babies die in the first two years, plague wipes out your family and famine destroys your farm there can be a certain amount of comfort in knowing that there is a god, he has a plan and if you do your bit he will see you right in the end. Modern people don't need god, we have superannuation. And we most certainly don't need a caveman diet. Cavemen had a caveman diet and they are all dead.