Shielded Against Diseases

I stared at the drill bit coming closer and closer to my forehead.  It was difficult to tell whether it was the drill itself or the visible tremor in the hands of the heavily tattooed maniac holding it that was more disturbing.

"Guys, I'm really not sure about this."

"Oh for god's sake," snapped my tech support, "do you want a hepatitis vaccination or not?"

"Are you certain this is going to work?"

"Define certain."

I waved away the "surgeon" and fumbled with the restraints.

"Why was it necessary to strap me down?"

"Sometimes there's a little bit of thrashing around,  the occasional violent convulsion, quite frequently the patient runs out of the room screaming before the procedure is complete, or in fact started."

"Do any of you actually have a medical degree?"

"No but we've operated on a lot of doctors who do.  We've rarely had complaints."

I thought of asking "why not" but decided against it.

"Look, if you don't like getting vaccinations why do you insist on travelling to countries that need them?  And this is only for hepatitis.  Just wait until we get on to the rabies shots."

"There's no need for that," I assured them.  "I'm not going to be patting any monkeys and besides I happen to know that Thailand leads the world in the treatment of rabies."

Oddly my tech support looked a little affronted.

"It may surprise you to know that we have had incredible success with our new rabies treatment," they huffed.

"Really?"

"Clinical trials showed a 100% success rate.  Every political prisoner we injected contracted rabies."

"You conduct medical experiments on political prisoners?"

"Would you prefer it if we conducted them on people we liked?"

"Human rights are still a work in progress in Belarus aren't they?"

"I'll have you know that we currently have the fewest political prisoners in our country's history."

"That's good news, is the government becoming more liberal?"

"No, mostly its the rabies.  Do you need a tetanus booster while we're here?"

"All fine on that front," I assured them.  "My last tetanus shot still has a long time to run."

"That's probably just as well," they replied.  "Stanislaus is an excellent surgeon but sometimes he does forget to disinfect the drill between uses."

"Tell me why am I doing this instead of just going to a doctor?"

"Because we're ten dollars cheaper and have the names of the hottest ladyboy hookers in Bangkok."

I turned to Stanislaus, "Is this likely to hurt?" I asked.

"Oh hell, yes," he replied cheerfully.

"Better tighten the restraints then."

Well That's Over For Another Three Years

Well my homeland went to the polls last weekend and now the dust has finally settled it would appear that incumbent prime minister Scott Morrison has pulled off the greatest escape trick since Houdini.  All of the polling indicated that the Coalition were going to be crushed and instead they have been returned to power with an increased majority, which is to say they actually have a majority.


Various supporters of the losing side have been raving about how ignorant, racist, xenophobic, climate denying, fascistic and generally despicable the Australian population is and how short sighted they were in failing to realise the glittering magnificence that had been offered to them.  If nothing else its an interesting insight into what happens when a group of self obsessed narcissists finally learn the opinion of people outside their immediate social circle.  The leadership of the Labor party itself has been somewhat more circumspect.  There will, after all, be another election in three years and the leadership at least realises that you can't refer to the electorate as verminous scum until after you've removed their ability to select their own leaders.  Instead they went down the path of admitting that they hadn't explained their policies clearly enough.


Explaining policies clearly is an issue that bedevils both parties.  There are two major problems with clearly explaining your policies.  In order to clearly explain them you would first have to understand them.  Secondly if you did explain your policies clearly and in detail the likelihood is that people wouldn't vote for them.  It doesn't matter what the policy is there are always losers and unfortunate side effects and there are generally enough people on the wrong end of the policy to make getting elected on it problematic.


So the Labor party has done the only thing it can, replace its leader and (at least by implication) foist all of the responsibility for the preceding disaster onto his shoulders.  Never mind that it was the same party that gave him the job in the first place.


Over on the other side of politics Scott Morisson has a different problem.  Firstly there is a certain amount of triumphalism at the unexpected win.  That's understandable but should be kept in perspective.  The government has a majority of two.  One car accident will put them back into minority government.  The second problem may be of more long term concern.  As noted everybody thought the Coalition was going to lose this one.  As a result a large number of talented rats abandoned the apparently sinking ship in the lead up to the election.  This leaves Morrison in the unenviable position of appointing a new front bench out of people who honestly thought that working for a crushed and eviscerated opposition party was the best job offer they were likely to get.


Still the Morisson government can claim it has a mandate.  The only problem is that nobody really seems to know what the mandate is for.  Morisson essentially campaigned on tax cuts (Liberal Party 101 but a safe bet) and not being Labor.  He'll probably get the tax cuts through and I think we can all agree that he isn't Labor.  Apart from that its a little difficult to see not just what he'll do but why he went to all the effort of winning government in the first place.  What ever it is I guess he'll claim he has a mandate for it.  At least as long as all of his MPs drive safely.

Marion

Leichhardt is a suburb of Sydney traditionally associated with the Italian community.  Italian restaurants, shops and cultural spaces dominate Norton Street, traditionally the main thoroughfare through the suburb.  At least I presume they do, that's what wikipedia says anyway.  Hopping off the light rail at Marion you don't actually see any of this.  Winding its way, as it does, through the backs of suburbs means that it's rare that you actually get off it anywhere immediately accessible to an urban centre.  What you get instead is Marion Street which, if you follow it long enough, will indeed connect with Norton Street and, apparently, all things Italian except the Colosseum.

At least it will if you turn left after getting off the light rail.  If you turn right you wind up in Haberfield and may God have mercy on your soul.  Immediately available from the light rail station are various houses, a sports ground and a car dealership (German cars not Italian ones).  Oh yes, and the Hawthorne Canal.  The Hawthorne Canal got a bit of a shout out in the previous light rail blog entry and it has gone from strength to strength.  Up at Lewisham West it looked like a sewer someone had forgotten to cover over.  At Taverners Hill there was enough water to prompt the presence of the occasional confused looking ibis but here at Marion it really does look like a proper canal, albeit a rather shallow one.  It's easy to see why; puncturing the stone sides are a series of entrance pipes which deliver, let's be generous and call it water to the main canal and provide a generous channel of liquid for the eye's entertainment.

It isn't really a canal in the context of a man made waterway.  It was actually a perfectly natural creek that flowed northward until it collided with the Parramatta River (and in a somewhat altered form, it still does).  European settlement leapt eagerly on this source of fresh water and it wasn't long before the thing was a stinking open sewer.  In response to this the authorities lined the creek with stone and artificial banks giving it a distinctly canal-like appearance and a new name to boot.  Why exactly lining a creek with stone was supposed to have a positive impact on all the people pissing, shitting, puking and dying in it I'm not entirely sure.

In a small park near the station there is a sign giving the history of the creek/canal and making the somewhat censorious comment that stone lining a water way had a terrible effect on biodiversity and of course such an atrocity could never occur in these enlightened times.  The diversity might have taken a serious hit but there is at least some bio still hanging around in the form of the trees lining the banks, birds nesting (or possibly just hanging out) in the bushes and, in defiance of all probability within the canal itself.  I was standing on a bridge looking at the "water" when a series of bubbles broke the surface.  Peering closer I was rewarded with the sight of an entire shoal of little fish swimming vigorously downstream, apparently blissfully unaware of the impact the stone had had on their biodiversity.  Nearby was an official looking sign that had pictures of a fish, a swimmer and a dog all with diagonal red lines through them.  Presumably fishing, swimming and dogging were all prohibited at this part of the canal.

I'm not quite sure why it was thought that Marion was a good place for a light rail station.  Again I suspect that the builders simply slotted in the stations wherever they had the space but plenty of people got off at the station along with myself and they can't all have been writing blog entries.  The one thing I have never seen is a light rail train that was empty.

Obligation Fulfilled

I revelled in the darkness, an all encompassing shroud.  At the very edge of my awareness things I couldn't name twisted and writhed in a tortured parody of movement.  There was pain there, unimaginable pain and worse; misery and endless despair.  But the darkness cocooned me from the anguish, leaching away the torment and blending it with emptiness until it became the darkness itself.  Perhaps I writhed and screamed myself, if I did the darkness sheltered me from that as well.

A voice pierced my consciousness and with it a shaft of pure, blinding light that tore into me, stripping away my shield, leaving me naked and helpless.  I screamed, as much in horror as pain and the voice ancient and immeasurably cruel dug pitilessly into my mind.

"It's sunlight you twat, now get out of bed!"

Of all the ghastly multidimensional beings I could have sold my soul to I had to choose the one who thought it was an alarm clock.  Still my master had spoken and I scrambled out of bed to make my morning obeisance, touching myself in the sacred places and offering myself to him.

"Would you please stop playing with yourself.  That is not a sight I need to see before breakfast, or any other time for that matter."

I dashed my head to the floor,

"Oh grim and terrible lord, how may I serve you?"

"Stop grovelling and tell me why you haven't written a blog entry lately."

Frantically I babbled excuses; my correspondents were lazy and unreliable, my tech support was being investigated by the UN for crimes against humanity, my day job had been very stressful and the final season of Game of Thrones was on Foxtel.  I shouldn't have mentioned that last one.  My master hadn't watched Game of Thrones since they killed off Ramsey Bolton.

"Basically you couldn't be bothered," there was more than a hint of accusation in that grim tone.

Well, when you're caught you're caught.  I shrugged and stared at the ceiling.

"As always lord your insight is without peer."

"Shut up and write a damn blog entry.  We're halfway through May and you've done nothing."

"As you command it lord," I gabbled.  "I shall write a blog entry to entertain you in the grey wastes of eternity.  There will be drama, there will be heartbreak, trial and ecstasy."

"You're just going to slap together a few paragraphs of overblown rubbish based on this conversation aren't you?"

I stared at the ceiling again until he gave the metaphysical equivalent of a shrug.

"Oh for pity's sake just get on with it will you."

I rose to do my master's bidding when he spoke once more.

"I don't suppose I could persuade you to take your soul back could I?  I'll throw in someone else's to sweeten the pot if you like."

I'm Good at Dealing With the Consequences of Being an Idiot

I don't know whether I am the most practically disfunctional person alive or simply a creative problem solver.  Can you be considered a creative problem solver when most of the problems are caused by an apparent inability to function like a normal adult?


Half the rooms in my apartment don't have their own source of light because I have proved incapable of changing the necessary lightbulbs.  On the other hand the skilful deployment of table lamps and miniature spotlights means the lack of lightbulbs isn't really a concern.  Of course the lightbulbs in the lamps burn out as well.  My solution to that so far has been to acquire more lamps.  My home is like the portable lighting equivalent of an elephant's graveyard.


The latest evidence of my combination of genius and incompetence came as a result of activities on the football field (for the record the activity was football so don't look at me suspiciously).  I have developed a habit of suffering painful but ultimately trivial injuries while stumbling about lathered in sweat chasing a ball that everybody else is better at kicking that me.  Yesterday the trivial injury de jour was a stomped on toe.  There was blood and a mangled nail and if not particularly painful it was certainly an aesthetic disaster.


I decided that a little first aid was in order and I purchased some disinfectant on my way home so that I could bathe said toe, trim the battered nail and generally give it a little tender loving care.  As always whenever I made plans to do something even marginally practical there was a swelling of pride at my ability to look after myself and generally take care of stuff.  This feeling of self esteem took an immediate knock when I got home, put the disinfectant down on a bookshelf and promptly spent the next twenty minutes looking for it.


By the time I'd looked in the fridge and emptied everything out of the washing machine any sense of pride had pretty much vanished.  By the time I found the disinfectant (strangely on the first available flat surface I encountered after I walked in the door) I was pretty much over the entire process.  Nevertheless I had made the purchase and decided to proceed.


Arming myself with a dining room chair,  a roll of paper towel and a pair of, as it turned out, slightly larger than absolutely necessary scissors I took my much abused toe into the bathroom.  There the bathing and disinfecting went pretty much as planned and I started to feel pleased with myself again.  I took up the scissors and trimmed the battered and bloody parts of the toenail down to an acceptable level.  Unfortunately I had been steadying my foot with my other hand and while I was skilfully trimming the nail I was equally skilfully carving a centimetre long gash in the forefinger of the hand not actually holding the scissors.


What do you do when someone you're fond of makes an idiot of themselves?  You laugh of course and that's what I did.  Until I noticed that the blood was showing a decided reluctance to stop dribbling off my finger onto the fixtures of my bathroom.  A bandaid was in order and a hasty ransacking of my bathroom cabinet revealed that I did not possess such a thing.  It was then that I had my moment of genius.  With the assistance of paper towel, disinfectant and some surgical tape left over from a previous soccer injury I crafted a thoroughly functional bandage.  The surgical tape has also come in handy in the past to wrap Christmas presents.  Which only left me with the task of cleaning up what appeared to be enough blood to equip a decent sized murder scene.


I have made a vow to purchase bandaids so I'm prepared when something like this happens again.  Of course if I were slightly more functional I might make a vow to not get my fingers in the way of extremely sharp things in the future.  Knowing me I think preparing for an inevitable disaster is probably a somewhat more practical approach.

Another Blog Entry Almira Won't Read

Of late I have taken to bathing in goats milk.  I feel like a cut price Cleopatra wallowing in the decadent luxury of anointing my body with fluid squirted from the nipples of a passing ruminant.  I need only a degenerate military thug as a lover and  the sound of an ill-ruled nation falling to pieces in the background to complete the image of historic romance.


OK I haven't exactly been bathing in goats milk but I have been smearing it over my body.  Adorning the soap dish in my bath is a large chunk of what the wrapper proclaimed to be goat milk soap.  I must admit, the precedent of Cleopatra notwithstanding, I've never really thought of milk as a cleansing product.  When milk is presented to me in large solid lumps my mind immediately thinks of butter rather than soap.  Despite this the manufacturers obviously expected me to rub this over my body in an attempt to clean it and, in deference to the word "soap" on the packaging, I obediently did so.  I can't help suspecting that if the manufacturers had put the word "feta" on the packaging instead I would cheerfully have crumbled the same product on my salad.


This goat milk soap was (according to the label) made in Australia.  I'm pleased to see Australian goats getting employment opportunities in these difficult times but I did have certain questions.  Such as how did goat milk (which I presume is as runny as any other kind of milk) wind up as a large white lump?  The answer was in the small lettering on the label which discreetly proclaimed the presence of certain vegetable materials in the soap as well.  I have a vision of a room filled with terrified goats and random plant clippings while workers are frenziedly squeezing goat udders and pureeing vegetables and slapping the resultant mess together into something semi solid that can be wrapped in plastic and inflicted on the unsuspecting public as a cleansing product.


Why is goat milk considered a cleansing product anyway?  Are goats particularly clean?  And why goat milk rather than goat bile or goat blood?  When I was a child soap had the texture of scented sandpaper and one could imagine the dirt being removed along with the outer few layers of your skin as you washed.  Nowadays apparently you can rub pretty much anything on your body and come out "clean".  I strongly suspect that most modern soap doesn't really work at all.  You stand in the shower and the trickling water washes your body clean.  The soap and the lathering is really just to give you something to do while you're in there so you feel as though you're making a contribution.


As I stand in the middle of my bathroom goat and plant detritus trickling off my supposedly clean frame I can take comfort in the fact that I have at least reached ancient Egyptian levels of hygiene.  What the goat thinks about the whole process is open to debate but I'm glad I'm not the one who has to explain what happened to the milk when hungry baby goats start demanding dinner.

Taverners Hill

I didn't have particularly high expectations of Taverners Hill as a light rail stop.  After the excitement of Lewisham West's classy modern apartment blocks and well presented flood warning signs I just didn't think Taverners Hill would measure up.  Particularly since they only called it Taverners Hill to save the embarrassment of calling it Lewisham North West.  I was about to be surprised.


The first sign that things might be looking up was the Greenway, which had deteriorated into an oversized pile of lawn clippings at Lewisham West, had rebounded with a vengeance.  Trees, bushes and ferns lined the side of the track as I approached to such an extent that the ratio of living plant material to dumped rubbish was comfortably over fifty percent.  Mind you my expectations sank again as the light rail burst from verdant green and rattled over that ghastly ribbon of carbon monoxide and shattered dreams more commonly known as Parramatta Road.  Taverner's Hill light rail station is essentially an extension of the bridge that carries the track over the road and doesn't hold out much hope of an improvement.


However improvement there was.  Once one descended from the vertiginous heights of the station to something more approximating ground level (ie, ground level) things picked up straight away.  The ambitious drain that had paralleled the light rail's course for the last couple of stops had really come into its own and was now a genuine (albeit brick and concrete walled) waterway with a trickle of liquid right in the middle to prove it had a reason for being.  It even had a name, the Hawthorne Canal.  With the enforced space came a narrow but genuine profusion of trees and other greenery with a bicycle path running through it.  Signs indicated that if you were ambitious enough you could bike to Balmain and unlike a path for cars there didn't seem to be any issues with pedestrians using it as well.


The trees didn't drown out the noise of traffic but they did mute it somewhat and gave the impression that a full scale city was somewhat more than a couple of hundred metres away.  It was also pleasantly cool which was handy for someone who had rather overdressed for the weather and had, until now, been sweating in a rather thick football jersey.


I need to digress for a moment to talk about ibis.  Ibis are a quintessentially Sydney bird.  Their natural habitat is in marshland but on the occasion of the installation of the first rubbish bin in Sydney they emigrated en masse to the city.  These shabby, scabby, filthy, moulty, feathered bin rats are an iconic part of the urban landscape.  They are perfectly adapted to their environment.  They have long, curved bills for rummaging in garbage bins, their grotty off white colour scheme makes it impossible to tell whether they're dirty or clean (my money's on the former) and their size and wingspan gives them the heft to compete with pigeons, rats, small children and anything else that might challenge their dominance of the garbage piles of Sydney.  Like the ravens at the Tower of London strange legends have grown up around them.  It is said that if the ibis ever leave Sydney all our rubbish bins will overflow.


I mention these aerial plague spots because as I wandered along the bike path amongst the trees I saw a couple of them in something vaguely approximating their natural habitat.  They were wading through the canal prodding at the mud disconsolately with their beaks.  They seemed slightly bewildered and every fibre of their body language screamed "what the hell happened to all the garbage bins?"  I left them to reconnect with the nature they had been so desperate to leave and climbed back to Taverners Hill light rail station.  Normally at this point I mention that I went to Newtown for lunch but it was 11.30 in the morning and I was feeling tired so I went home and went to bed.