Sunday, October 28, 2007

My My...At Waterloo, Napoleon Did Surrender


Hope the outcome for Nelson (er....my Dad has just pointed out that it was the Duke of Wellington not Nelson....history is soooooo yesterday) will be the same for Kevin! Here's Jock and me at Waterloo with our Kevin07 shirts. Shame the RV was in the way. We've sent it to the Kevin07 website, so look out for us on the web. (And thanks Mad and Jamie for supplying the t-shirts!)

Whinge...
I can not believe Malcolm Turnbull. For one thing, we have an Environmental minister who refuses to say whether he believes the Kyoto Protocol should be ratified or not and secondly - he leaked the cabinet discussion during an election campaign! I think this could really damage the Libs.

Hoorah...
Labor definitely won the second week of campaigning - only four to go. I likened it to being 13 points up in the final quarter of the grand final with 7 minutes to go. Jock then added that this scenario doesn't cater for a football team punching members of their own squad in the head and giving the ball to the opposition. I think this could have been true for campaigns of yore, but not this one. I think it's the Libs who look undisciplined.

Whinge....
Except of course stupid Joe MacDonald could surface during a stop work meeting once the temperature's reached 25°C rendering it too hot to work and reveals all of Labor's dirty washing.

Hoorah!....
But of course, before this happens, one hopes a Labor heavy (or should I say a Labor Heavier) would have tied him to a lamp pole with his braces in a far away place or maybe given him a one way ticket to Cuba where he can bang on about the revolution whilst smoking cigars.

Whinge....
Piers Ackerman really gives me the shits. It's one thing to sit on the special chair reserved for right wing columnists from trashy dailies during Barry's Insiders program, it's another thing to be so blatantly pro-Howard that you start blurting spin from Liberal adverts. I'm happy to hear the views of conservative commentators, as long as they're putting their argument forward rather than regurgitate ad nauseam Liberal spin.

Hoorah!.....
Thank goodness for Annabel Crabb and Karen Middleton.

Wine!..
Had some lovely wine and beer at Jamie and Jeannie's in Belgium this weekend. Met the gorgeous Jasper and it was just lovely to hang out at their home chewing the fat all weekend.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Cone Head


This poor wee fella was playing Harry Potter when he got this traffic cone stuck on 'is 'ead. Silly duffer - but look at all the fire fighters it took to pull it off!

It took thirty minutes for the fire fighters to arrive and another 45 to remove it from his head. If only they had used the
Alohomora
spell from Hogwarts. Hawaiian “Aloha” means “hello/farewell” and Latin “mora” which means “obstacle”. So...Farewell obstacle, hello nasty 21st birthday story!


Monday, October 15, 2007

Kevin 07


It's all happening! And I'm not there to soak it up :(

Here's some cyber badges I made for Facebook with my friend Killer's new application. Facebookers can upload a badge and stick it on their profile. Better still, you can make your own and others can use it. What delicious fun!

And my mate Flicka got her pic in The Australian today by raising her jumper and showing off her Kevin 07 shirt to John Howard as he drove to the GG's house! Good onya Flicka!

Jock and I have decided to go to London for election day. Here's the outcome in order of best to worst case scenario:

1) Labor and Rudd win government, Maxine wins and Family First, John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Costello and that evil conservative preacher boy Tony Abbott lose their seats.
2) Labor and Rudd win government, Maxine wins
3) Labor and Rudd win government, Howard retains his seat
4) the Coalition win government and Maxine wins
5) the Coalition win government and Howard wins his seat

I don't even want to contemplate number 5 happening....

Jock and I have been given Kevin07 shirts and I think we'll wear them to Belgium when we visit Jamie, Jeannie and Jasper.

Friday, October 12, 2007

The Election - 24 November - Bring It On!



Sorry for being AWOL...I've been to Australia and back again and it's been difficult to be in a headspace to write my blog. What a difference 18 months away makes. In a nutshell - Perth seems really expensive and John Howard and Kevin Andrews et al seem absurdly racist.

Firstly, can I just say there must be an awful lot of people missing out on the economic boom. I walked out of Sainsbury's today with three bags of shopping totaling 10 quid. That's $AU25. The equivalent canvas bags of shopping in Perth, including standard items such as El Paso Taco Kits (Hot), capsicums ("peppers" in the UK, where the equality agenda has pushed through the glass ceiling of capsicum colour - yellow ones are the same price as green ones), non-evil chemical-leaching-into-urban-waterways fabric softener of dubious quality and buy one get one free ginger snaps would have cost me in Coles around fifty bucks. So I now believe that the UK is actually relatively cheap when it comes to groceries.

Which brings me to the notion of "working families". Working families are the ones paying the price for the lack of dividend from the economic boom. With the election being called for 24 November, I sincerely hope that Kevin Rudd's "working families" does not become the "ladder of opportunity" so over-used by Latham (who???). I believe "working families" has become a euphemism for the following:
  • Cashed up bogans with offspring who have their own televisions and game consoles in their bedrooms
  • Bigoted folk who last voted Labor when Dennis O'Connor and "winged keel" were part of the everyday Aussie vernacular whom now vote for Howard because "boat people" no longer means hanging around Freo in deck shoes waving Aussie flags
  • Single parents on workplace agreements that were not generated by a mining company
  • Any family with an income that's above the disability pension and below, say, um, like, $300,000
  • Swinging voters
  • Flying pigs
Basically, "working families" means people who are not very very very rich and people who are not on guest visas working for Manpower. I just hope that the people whose hearts the ALP need to touch consider themselves "working families".

I think Howard's five point plan (it's the economy stupid, families with a mum and a dad and baptised kids are best, fridge magnets for all, the environment RULES OK! and black people are now cool too) is too little too late and I hope Australians see it for what it is - a last minute attempt to tap into the public mood to win over the public.

I think it will be very difficult for Rudd to win - but I hope he can do it! Bring it on Australia! I wish I was there - I'd spend every waking second campaigning.