More Aussie Humour

While taking my obligatory daily walk, I usually listen to music that I’ve downloaded to my phone, but for the last few days I’ve varied things by listening to “Triple M”, an Aussie commercial FM station.   Of course, they carry adverts, which are frequently highly localised and delivered in a strong local accent, wherever one happens to be.   I’m inclined to ignore the content, but I learn a lot of dialect.

Yesterday, however, I was much amused by one for a new Ute – a Mazda I believe, though I could be wrong – which had a delightful political throwaway buried in the exaggerated Queensland Strine.   Describing the virtues of the new vehicle, at breakneck speed, the guy said –

… and as for grunt, well, this baby delivers 412 Newton-metres, which is more torque than you get at a Climate Change Convention …

Quite made my day. 🙂

One is Marginally Miffed!

One likes to chip one’s two bits in
Even when they’re very thin
To add one’s insult is delight
Even with no dog in fight!

The fact that two face maunders on
On histories long upon and gone
Forgotten in the daily round
Consigned by humans to the pound

Some kind soul should pity strife
And tell him soundly  GET A LIFE!
Suggest to him an antidote
Not ALL his life to be a SCROTE!

Sorry about the last line, a bugger to rhyme with antidote!

PS Some of us are 12 hours behind or whatever but we do like to be able to contribute!  Otherwise we become read only, not a lot of fun in that is there?

What is it with the press?

I am fed up with the ridiculous reporting by the press and their continual idiotic following of celebrities and pointless information.

In today’s Telegraph there was an article about a village where metal thieves had stolen a number of iron/metal gates from peoples drives overnight, so far okay, then as an aside “the village is near to where Kate and Pippa Middleton grew up” who bloody cares, it is a pointless line that detracts from the story.

In the same way I was born in the same universe as they were is that news NO.

It appears to me that the press have decided not to create another Diana with Kate, but they are doing their best to make one of of Pippa by having her photo in the papers at least 4 times a week.

I hope she avoids tunnels and drunk drivers.

Out of the House

Politics isn’t my usual fare. Still.
Delving into the world of American politics and its constitution one fact caught my eye. It concerned the term that a House of Representative member serves: two years. Two years? Even a non-political follower like me knows that this is quite a small amount of time to be in power. There’s not much you can do in two years. Four years seems to be the average length globally for general elections and stuff like that. Four years is plenty of time for policies and plans to bear fruit. And if not- Goodbye, you’re out.

A two-year term means that if you want to be re-elected you spend most of your time on the campaign trail. Continue reading “Out of the House”

Economic Performance

If you had purchased £1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have £49.00 today.

If you had purchased £1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you would have £33.00 today.

If you had purchased £1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you would have £0.00 today.

But, if you had purchased£1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you would have received £214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle.

A recent study found that the average Briton walks about 900 miles a year.
Another study found that Britons drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year.
That means that, on average, Britons get about 41 miles to the gallon!
Makes you proud to be British, doesn’t it?

Germania

Long, long ago various Germanic tribes began migrating from their northern European homes pushing ever further and deeper into the lands once settled by Celts replacing them with no lack of brutality. This went on for some time before the same peoples, seeing the splendour, affluence, and modernity of Rome decided they wanted a bit of it for themselves and moved en masse into the empire. At first the new settlers didn’t cause too many problems. Many were welcomed as warriors by an empire that was simply not able to inspire its own people, especially in the empire’s cultural hearth, to take up arms. Eventually, however, they overwhelmed the weakening and increasingly rudderless empire causing its eventual demise in the West. A more brutal fate would await those Romans who had assumed that they could hold out in the East when a more ferocious people emerged from the steppes of Central Asia. Continue reading “Germania”