LONDON: Kevin Rudd’s historic offer to auction Alistair Darling’s eyebrows for the IMF might just save the global economy, agrees Payton L. Inkletter.

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

31^st March 2009:

Tuesday: I slept for thirteen hours, and even then had a headache brewing when Missus Inkledickyback woke me up. She would have sought my assistance if she needed it at any time during the day, she assures me, as she is but one day into recovery from the back injection, but fortunately the facet joint injection has not been anywhere near as painful for her as the nerve sleeve root injections of the past. And she is reporting a slight reduction in her right leg pain, to our relief, for we were beginning to think she wouldn’t get any.

I managed to coax enough life into my system to go and pick up Pa pree and take him to Dewsons’, then brought him back here. He helped Janny prepare some evening vittles, while I did a bit on the poota before watering the Sansevierias out the front. I chatted to Miche next door, to learn that the fambly is visiting Macedonia in May. I sometimes cannot believe how big his son has grown since they moved here years ago; also, he has nothing to worry about paternity wise, for the boy is the spitting image of him!

I came back inside to watch My Beloved and The 7.30 Report. It was a pleasure to learn how well the members of Sydney’s Symphony Orchestra regard their new principal conductor, Vladimir Ashkenazy, both for his skill and his approachability. As for Charles Zentai in David Webber’s report, Kerry O’Brien opened the story with the information that Zentai had undergone a lie detector test, and I wonder why we weren’t told the results of it?

Having wrested the remote controls from the little people, we watched the second half of Jenny Brockie’s Insight program‘Blocking the Net’, about the problematic Australian Government internet filtering plans. Stephen Conroy, Minister for Communications, can have the job. If only it was a near perfect technology with imperceptible effects on speeds…; that would only leave the problem of what to filter, and what to leave…

During this program I answered the phone – an extremely rare event – and it was Meg Deeler ringing from her room at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, and we had a chat, her with a very soft voice, about how she was going. She has another two chemotherapy sessions to go, and has had about four so far. Poor thing is all I can say. She wished us well, and particularly Janny with her back procedure pain. And she waxed understandably lyrical about the unstinting support Murrah has been and is, in these exceptionally trying times.

I then left the delinquents to watch their favourites on the commercial stations, while I connected up to the back room antenna lead near the computer the huge (by our standards) TV that Hee Peggy very kindly gave us last week – and which I forgot to mention in last Thursday’s diary – due to his receiving a projector come TV from his parents. I wrote at the computer and titivated around until Foreign Correspondent, which I was able to watch ‘live’ in the back room rather than record it as is the habit of late while the little people watch their soaps and such. Prabowo Subianto’s bid for the Presidency of Indonesia was the topic of Geoff Thompson’s report ‘Indonesia - The Farmer Wants a Country’, and what a mixture of extremes it presented! I admit to not concentrating when Mark Corcoran introduced tonight’s program, and so I didn’t catch whether we were being given a singular or plural intro. I wrote a bit more until Lateline, which again I watched immediately rather than recorded, while the delinquents went on with their must see viewing. I skipped the last story on Lateline to deliver Pa pree back home, but it all took so long that I missed part of Lateline Business, but got the rest of it in.

Tony Jones interviewed Lindsay Tanner, Finance Minister, and I always enjoy hearing him, for he has such a moderate air and gentle way of sharing his opinions. Not a happy subject, that of the dire economic global and national woes. The next story was sad for other reasons; Ehud Ya'ari, the Jerusalem Report’s associate editor commented on the new coalition patched together by Israel’s Prime Minister elect Benjamin Netanyahu. What a mess that part of the world is in, riven with hatred and prejudice of the most pernicious kind, that being religious prejudice. And wow, Avigdor Lieberman is to be Foreign Minister. Iran has vowed to annihilate Israel, and is closing in on becoming a nuclear weapons state. The problems get worse.

Then Ali Moore captivated me as always on Lateline Business, after the dash to Pa pree’s and back as already mentioned, and it was not with relish that I learn that the Chinese Government backed Hunan Valin has the go ahead from our Government to buy 17.5 per cent of Fortescue Metals Group. And this dismay of mine has nothing to do with the ‘Chineseness’ of the issue, rather the risky foreign influence upon such an Australian asset. The last story I’ll comment on for now is the ultimatum given by Barack Obama to General Motors and Chrysler as covered in Michael Rowland’s report. And a good move it was to force General Motors’ chief executive Rick Wagoner to go; to be in that position for so long, while your company doesn’t create anything the world wants to buy when the consumer finally sizes up to the reality that we’ve all seen coming, well, that’s writing your own swan song; or am I being too harsh? Maybe it really was utterly beyond imagination that foreign dependency fossil fuel guzzling overpriced tanks were going to create more problems than they were going to solve, eventually.

Letterman’s last act was really good: Adele has such a wonderful voice, and her backing musicians were so good. Hey, has CBS’ website been redone?

After putting the alabaster dragon to bed I watched my recording of last night’s Lateline, and Tony Jones had some questions of Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, not about those unbelievable eyebrows, but rather about Kevin Rudd’s lovefest in London, and the G20 strategies. Charlotte Glennie’s story on the problem of pregnant women drinking alcohol in Halls Creek had some typical academia type complaints, you know, the kind which happen to be out of sync with the real world.

The first to make a fool of himself with his mouth was Professor Mike Daub, of Curtin University, followed by Dr Janet Hammill, an indigenous child health specialist of Queensland University; not that any of the things each said did not have merit, but they weren’t very useful in this context: Daub’s were the worst, given that The Australian Hotels Association has organised Halls Creek liquor licensees to sign up to new measures to try, in this real world of drinking rights for all Australians 18 and over regardless of race and gender, to stop pregnant women drinking alcohol. Shit Daub, it’s a start, and yes, you’ll find self interest in each of the liquor sales businesses: tell us something new that also doesn’t apply to every business on the face of the earth. I’m not an advocate of drunkenness, but I happen to know that it’s a highly complex social issue, and if the AHA has got a plan to try to reduce the abuse of alcohol by pregnant women, then let’s work with them. I’ll bet the liquor licensees would rather all pregnant women of any colour were voluntarily already not consuming their goods, because it’s all a great headache for a business to wipe, wash, powder, and nappy the bottoms of its customers who won’t wipe, wash, powder, and nappy their own, all the while under threat of legal consequences. And I view the alcohol issue as very different from the tobacco issue in society, and why? simply because they are very different issues.

Well, it was just as well that I next watched my recording of last night’s Lateline Business, for Ali Moore soothed my ruffled feathers, she was the tonic I needed, and wow that lady is an asset for Aunty. Aunty, whatever you’re paying Ali now, double it! Now talk about professional and elegant, what about that sit down interview in the studio with John Price, Climate Strategies Managing Director? (John, I hope you put your clothes in a dry cleaning bag and packed them away never to wear again when you got home.) I tell you, Ali Moore could persuade me to knock back anaesthetic for an impacted wisdom tooth extraction, and give the money saved to a down on his luck Hell’s Angel bikie for another ‘You’re me Bitch’ tattoo on his arse, and I’d thank Ali for helping me take the opportunity to be generous. She was so wonderful, in control yet unthreatening, and looked so graceful and refined. Her hair was pulled close, and I was mesmerised by that honeyed voice of hers. Price could have been saying anything, even recommending no-lose sector-wide targets for developing countries, it would have all been just the sound of tinkling brass for me, with Ali modestly dressed and yet primed to thrill, leading me like a lamb to the Bessemer Pot.

I did a bit more at the computer, before going on a late late walk, trying my utmost to forget about my headache, white comforters notwithstanding, on this cool night. On my return I rustled up some Weet-Bix grub and a cocoa so strong it could keep a South American – or do I mean African? – economy afloat, before writing more. And before I knew it, it was daylight, and then some. I hope the conflicker virus is not in my system. It takes my antivirus scanner almost a day to scan my hard drives, and that’s with a couple disconnected! For this reason I don’t scan the whole system very often, and when I do the brute of an antivirus program disables my wonderful Netants program, which has collected several hundred gigabytes of Librivox audio books for me, and has thousands of chapters in the queue always. The first time it did this I took ages to find the program again online, as it is so old, and paradoxically, in the process of finally getting it I got infected so seriously with viruses, while AVG was installed and running, that it ended up causing me to have to do a complete system reinstall, that is, from scratch baby! Last September to be exact. So now I have a copy of Netants 1.25 on a disc off the computer. While I write I’m trying to load the www.confickerworkinggroup.org site, but it won’t load, so I assume everyone else in the world is trying to load it as well right now.

I did a dual posting of this diary, and watered some of the bamboo outside, before finally hitting the sack about ten as the alabaster dragon rising, aroused in fact by my arrival, and deciding she’d slumbered enough. Her back and leg pain is still slightly reducing, which is a mighty big bonus from the facet joint injection… er, well, no, not a bonus, rather the whole point of it.

+paytontedwithlove+

ELCHO ISLAND: “Well may you hypnotise chooks, but nothing can make them dance!” a generally ungovernable Payton L. Inkletter tells a sceptical Yolngu

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

30^th March 2009:

Monday: Uppulah in German! We staggered up at nine, and got ready for the trip to Sterling Radiography over in Balcatta. We shot around to Pa pree’s, to find him walking our way, but he asked to be left at our place due to a most upset digestive system that had kept him up much of the night. Echoes of what made the last back injection for Janny fail two and a half years ago – diarrhoea and vomiting soon after the injection, for two days, causing it to fail; the last thing she needed was to run any risk of catching a gastrointestinal complaint.

We got to the radiology clinic 15 minutes ahead of the appointed time, and, with the assistance of a valium tablet 45 minutes ago, and rescue remedy several times since last night, Missus InkleI’msickandtiredofmybadback had a facet joint injection in her lower back, the first of three recommended weekly as it turns out. She expected it to be another nerve sleeve root injection like the previous four or five she’s had over the years, but her doctor had in fact not referred that this time to our surprise. So it was quicker and less painful for her, but she’s not sure it’s going to attack the real pain she’s suffering from. The next few days will make it clearer, as also a follow up appointment with Dr Hoffman. Cyril and the Sterling Radiology’s administering doctor, were superb and compassionate as always.

We went home via the Girrawheen shops to get some Imodium for Pa pree, and put Janny to bed about half twelve. She slept, apparently, till about three. I meanwhile had, after cleaning up the kitchen, left for Bob’s, given that Pa pree was here to attend to Janny.

I got to Bob’s before two on this mild to warm late March early autumn day, and he was surprised to see me ‘early’, and in fact hadn’t finished shaving. We drove to a quiet, to start with, Swan Aquatic, where Bob pranced around in the water like a water boatman. I did not plan to spend much time editing and adding to my old printout of Venty Still, but it’s what I did for most of the couple of hours there, getting sucked into my own story, as well as doing some careful Venties’ population increase calculations over twenty five years from 2013 to 2018.

We finished with a cup of tea and walk at Fish Market Reserve after a drive. Now that daylight saving is over it was very dim by the time I left Bob’s towards a quarter to seven. Janny was resting in the lounge with Pa pree when I got home, and I watched most of My Beloved with them, and then Kerry O’Brien’s The 7.30 Report. He interviewed the wonderful Bill Nighy, and at last Kezza appeared to have that thing on his head looking tamed and sedated.

I ate my delicious scotch broth vittles and cheese scones during tonight’s offering on Australian Story, ‘Judging Nick D'Arcy’. Janny said she perceived a dishonesty in D’Arcy’s story about the moments leading up to his elbowing Simon Cowley. I think it would have been good for Cowley to give his version of those moments also. Anyway, disqualification from the Olympics should not have been in any doubt, and it was the right decision. It thus sends a strong message to all of the serious consequences for personal ambitions of such behaviour.

The next two and half hours were spent watching the ‘two hour’ Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala on Ten, thus necessitating my recording of Four Corners and Lateline’s Standard and Business for later viewing. Some of the comedians were very good, some average, some crude but very funny, some just crude. However, my vote for the night goes to the Chooky Dancers, for they were very funny, and there is nothing better than any group or individual sending itself up, the more particularly when there is a history of preciousness, which point arrived long ago for the Aboriginal representatives of our country. Of course they simply joined millions of other groups and individuals of every colour and kind to this day who take themselves way too seriously. I returned Pa pree about eleven, and did a quick bit of tweaking of his computer’s antivirus program.

Janny and I caught a bit of an Aunty repeat about gay Muslims, which was rather sad, no, very sad for them, during the ads and after Letterman, which was a repeat. However, I had not seen the musical act with Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt which was good, nor the interview with the interesting oddball Demetri Martin. Now I want to give Channel Ten an apology, for I think I might be owing them one: many times I have sprayed them in this blog for screening repeats of Letterman without the TV guide informing us that they were to be repeats, and I have also assumed that for some budgetary reason we mugs here cop the repeat, while a current show is aired elsewhere. Well, it takes me a long time, but maybe I’ve got it this time: I notice on the ‘Upcoming Guests on the Late Show’ site at http://www.nt2099.com that the repeat I have just spoken of is put down there for Friday 27^th March, and normally we get these Friday shows three days later on Monday, which is fine by me, but it was on many weeks back I happen to know, because I watched the start of it at the time. So it appears Channel Ten is broadcasting just what CBS is broadcasting each week. A million apologies Channel Ten, and I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me my outbursts; slipping in a (Rpt) into the TV guides would be nice though…

I did some writing of this diary, struggled a bit with health problems, and finally hit the sack, deciding not to go for a late walk, in order to be close by in the house in case Janny needed me after her back injection today. So I softly slithered in beside the battered bobtail about three o’clock.

+paytontedwithlove+

ELMSWOOD: When I hear Phillip Adams argue the case for atheism, I am torn between wanting to analyse his reasons, and cuddle him: Payton L. Inkletter

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

29^th March 2009:

Sunday: The chalky chameleon ‘woke’ me about half one to let me know The Babies had called in and wanted to see me, but I had already heard a car door close in my light dozing state. It was a treat to see them; they had been on a shopping safari to the Malaga Markets, looking for an aquarium, and had apparently, according to Missus InklesIhatecrocodiles, bought some crocodile meat; I haven’t the heart to tell them what it really is they are paying a high price to buy…

After their about one hour visit I returned to the cot, and got myself up before five for a tinkle, and decided to try to stay up, despite being primally tired. I woke up gradually in front of The Box, watching a recording of Tuesday night’s Foreign Correspondent, the story being Stephen McDonell’s ‘The Big Smoke’. (Well done by the way, Mark Corcoran, for keeping his utterance of ‘Foreign Correspondent’ in the singular for I think now two weeks in a row!) McDonell did a good job with this one, and I feel for the millions of Chinese struggling to find work from the rural areas. And on the face of it, that fellow, ‘General’ Zhang Quanshou, is helping a lot of young country folk look for jobs, and eat with a roof over their heads until they get one, so good on him; and yes he gets a portion of their earnings, but then something has to be exchanged in most human situations. McDonell sure holds his own when speaking in the Chinese tongue with the locals.

Mum phoned a little later, and we caught up on the latest happenings and non-happenings. Niece Elizabeth is back from Vietnam, and niece Marie hasn’t had her baby yet, perhaps 8 days overdue now!

I delivered vittles to Pa pree, then shot outside for a half hour frenzy in the failing light (the end of daylight saving has put things back into the ‘genuine’ perspective), fertilizing and whatnot, before My Beloved. I watched the first story, ‘Mind Power’, on Sixty Minutes, by Liz Hayes, and how wonderful and hope inspiring that was! This one benefit of computers alone should silence the luddites I occasionally have the tedium to endure with their lamenting of computers’ ruination of society. I must have fallen asleep for a fair while, because I have no recollection of the next story, and woke up to see part of Liam Bartlett’s story ‘The Pirate Coast’, and this was because I was battling with sleep still. However, this gives me the chance to comment further on Bartlett’s story last week ‘Killer at the Wheel’. I have since read his two page spread (pages 22-23) in last week’s W.A. Sunday Times on the same subject. Bartlett continues to remind us, if any such was needed, that what he has in good looks he certainly doesn’t match in intellect, or put another way, while his lamp is fairly bright, there are much brighter lamps on many a street corner; Sixty Minutes has in him more of a poster boy than a deep well.

He pontificates in the article against fools like our Western Australian driver Benjamin Butler whose drunk driving killed baby Gracie Moorby, who he says should be charged with murder, allying himself with Kathleen Rice of Nassau County New York. I have written some days back that I have no problem with making the penalty match the consequences of drunken driving, but it is just stupid to call these tragedies ‘murder’. Bartlett doesn’t realise it, but he further makes a fool of himself when in that article he says ‘Yes, a lot of readers of this column will recall at some stage, getting behind the wheel of a car, knowing they have probably had too many drinks. I’ve done it myself.’ Applying the ‘call it murder’ logic he champions in this very article, he should, on that admission, be charged with attempted murder, which charge is very seriously viewed by the legal system.

Bear with me: to injure someone while driving under the influence, using Bartlett’s logic, is one form of attempted murder, while to drive from A to B under the influence without injuring anyone is still attempted murder. The former, again by Bartlett’s logic, would be similar to taking a gun and aiming it at someone, firing, and hitting them, not in self or anyone else’s defence; the latter would be to do the same but miss; both of these are attempted murder. And it doesn’t take a great mind to realise that there is no relevant similarity between the gun examples and the driving examples. Murder sensibly requires intent Liam. But I’ve long noticed Liam Bartlett won’t be remembered for intellectual brilliance. Years ago when he was a morning DJ on, was it ABC Radio’s 6WF?, he lambasted a local council for being so careless as to prune trees completely out of the proper cycle of flowering, growth, and so on. The bull at a gate didn’t realise that the jacaranda trees to which his spray was referring have a totally different flowering and leafing cycle to most other locally grown trees, and the council had in fact pruned them at the ideal time.

While pulling up Sixty Minute’s web pages just a while ago, I have had the displeasure of battling with a terribly intrusive advert called ‘DKNYMEN’ offering a free sample, and which floats stubbornly in front of the ninemsn.com.au domain pages, with the ‘X’ button cleverly hard to find away from the body of the advert. When the ‘X’ was clicked the advert doesn’t go away, it instead shrinks and becomes translucent in the top right corner. Whoever okayed it, may you live in interesting times, and may your financial fortunes wane. May visitors leave your site never to return. I will do my utmost not to ever click on such adverts. The TV channels don’t seem to have learnt anything from their mistreatment and taking for granted of their audiences all these decades on ordinary television. If Nine went down, would the world end? No. Ten? No. Seven? No. Don’t mistreat us. You are privileged if a person visits your page out of the trillions; don’t treat us like monkeys.

I revived, and caught most of George Negus’ Dateline on SBS, a program I’ve not seen for ages. I would like to have caught the beginning, for it appeared that on the lead story ‘The Last Bite?’ by Nick Lazaredes, it appears that Chinese scientists claim they can lick malaria across the entire world using an extract from a herb called the Artemisinin plant. Well, wouldn’t that be a boon if it could happen soon, like yesterday!

I did some watering outside under lights, then charged back in to watch ‘The Atheists’ on Compass on good old Aunty. Of course that hoary old hard case Richard Dawkins got a mention or three, but so did a few others, including the cuddliest best mannered atheist in the world, Phillip Adams. These folk all had interesting things to say, but nothing at all convincing to my mind. Not one of them has anything profound to offer to the subject of the nature of reality. If they do, they would offer it on a program like this, surely. I hope to eventually offer my profound analysis of the subject in The Dawkins Deduction, if ever I can find the time to write it. By profound I mean going to the deep foundations of the atheists’ arguments, the theists’ arguments, and testing them rigorously against some of the ‘must sensibly be’ aspects of the nature of reality.

Poor Janny was most tired by now, and so I helped get her off to bed, with her big day of being penetrated with a terrible long (stop it! really, you people…) spinal needle coming tomorrow, and she understandably is not looking forward to it. I took some time tackling some health issues before writing this entry, dual posting it, and then mustering up the photons to go for a walk.

Which I did manage on this slightly windy night. It was cool due to the wind, and so a lot more pleasant. My word the piggies who visit the park behind Dewsons’ on Sundays were very messy today! By the time I got back my energy levels were very low, and I could not muster the wherewithal to write any more. A hot mug of skim milk and a read of the paper it was then, before taking my life in between the low thread counts about five o’clock and surrendering consciousness beside the rapacious reptile.

+paytontedwithlove+

OXFORD: “Watch me make 68 reasons to extend my fistic phenotype into Richard Dawkins’ improbable ego!” says a blindly delusional Payton L. Inkletter.

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

26^th to 28^th March 2009:

Thursday: I needed the over twelve hours sleep, yet even so it made little difference to how I felt. The highlight of this day, as always, was the visit by the Babies Ink&Peggletter, although is suppose I should mention the fact that, at least for Missus InkleI’vegotthosebedroomeyes – lookoutPayton!, there was another highlight, for during the afternoon she dragged me into her boudoir (or perhaps I had not even managed to escape it after being awakened from my slumbers) and ravished me repeatedly and without mercy.

After being cast aside like a banana peel, I helped Missus InkleI’mthemostsatisfiedwoman – ineitherhemisphere to vacuum and prepare for the Babies’ visit for din dins, on the evening of this warmish day. First they had called in to Pa pree’s to return his computer which Baby Peggletter had very kindly worked on for many hours to restore to working order. The WinXP system had seized up for reasons best known to it. We enjoyed a delicious meal courtesy of the efforts of Janny, and played ‘Taboo’, which happens to be a big favourite of mine. Baby Peggletter and I let the girls win.

The Babies returned Pa pree about eleven, when they left for home, and Janny and I watched some of my regular programs, being the tail end of Lateline, and then Lateline Business, before Letterman. Leigh Sales did another one of those interviews where the beautiful lass positively glows, this one with Tom Friedman. Now if ever a person should be happy with the interview he got on Lateline, Tom Friedman should be, for Leigh kindly gave him very long slabs uninterrupted to tell it his way, and I tip my hat to her, for he was doing a very good job of articulating his viewpoint. He got to promote his latest book, ‘Hot, Flat and Crowded’ also; I am impressed already by the title, for he uses the Oxford comma, bless his literate socks. He had some good advice for Obama, namely to give his people a fireside chat like FDR did. Friedman has a good sense of humour. He was spot on with the four letter word analogy for Cheney and Bush regarding ‘conservation’.

I went for a late walk, and eventually got to bed, after the usual health problem hassles, not too long before dawn.

+paytontedwithlove+

27^th March 2009:

Friday: About eleven saw this child of the imagination arise, but Missus InklewhoopygutsmadeworsebyByetta had to stay in the boudoir slumbering till almost one o’clock, to try to control her nausea. I did a few jobs indoors, watered outside, and then showered and left for Bob’s on this hot day, high thirties Celsius no less.

He was surprised to see me half an hour earlier than usual of late, and we trained to the city, where he had a ball collecting his freebies, purchasing his couple of treats, and then his takeaway lunch, which he had down in the beautiful Supreme Court Gardens. Some big turkey court case was ending, with a million folk leaving the court, and a Channel Seven camera man hanging around like a curious squirrel. I managed to check out the progress of a couple of new culms on the last remaining Bambusa balcoa clump not far from the front of the court, and they have made great height since four weeks ago, and are huge in girth. I look forward to one day having my own attain such splendour. We caught the Blue CAT for our cruise around the city this time, and Bob was very happy with that. As usual he was a constant chatterbox, yet staff tell me he often doesn’t say boo at home. Thus I am an outlet.

I left him back at Guildford about seven, and got petrol on my way home, noticing that we are in an upward trend again with fuel prices. I caught much of Stateline with the frilly knickered lizard – Janny, not Ms Carmody – and we felt like lynching Matt Birney, who Rebecca Carmody interviewed regarding his planned ‘Yes’ campaign for daylight saving. The Collectors was a top show as always, but is it my imagination, or did Andy Muirhead look like he had had a hard night on the hops the before the day’s filming? My Janny didn’t guess the Mystery Object; once she was almost 100%. I was most impressed with the artworks Lucia creates, laboriously, from rubbish; they look great, particulary the colourful patterns from cans.

I had to grab a couple of hours sleep, but not before catching some of the program on SBS about the highly laudable approach of the Fletcher Jones clothing company toward their staff. I recorded the latter part of it and hope to watch it sometime. [Back from the little bit later update: the good old useless piece of crap that’s our Panasonic DMR ES15 DVD Recorder decided to spit the dummy again at the completion of its recording, and I had to lever the effing tray open with a screwdriver to get it to eject the disc! Whether I’ll recover the recordings with the computer I don’t know, but can only hope…]

By arrangement Janny woke me from a deep slumber in time for me to watch Lateline, and I suffered along with poor Leigh Sales as she interviewed that precious former Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer. It seems only yesterday the Christopher Pyne-like creep was prancing around the global stage; and then in the lead up to the election of 2007 he was found fulminating often against the audacity of the then Opposition for daring to suggest they might have a go at governing Australia. As for his very possibly correct assertion that ‘Kevin Rudd's main interest in life is how he plays out on the evening news’, the problem is, that doesn’t differentiate Kevin Rudd from Howard, Turnbull, Downer, you name him or her; we are talking modern politicians after all.

I also watched Letterman, and because I have not been specific most of this week with his show, I will make mention here of the things this week I would normally note on the day:

Letterman’s marriage episode was most enjoyable, and I like the way he appears to have sprung it as a big surprise on most everyone. He was funny when he pretended that things feel different now that he’s married. I think the following night he had as his guest Mary Tyler Moore, who sure looks a bit frail these days, and may have some nervous system disorder from her behaviour, poor dear. She asked Dave where his ring is, and I wish I could remember his answer. Also a repeat this week was the show I missed the week U2 were on every night, their last night in fact. I can only say that Bono reminds me of a little penis high on sugar, with a partially permanently retracted foreskin, necessitating its need to wear sunglasses. He owes so much to the rest of the band.

Christina Applegate was a brave sport talking about her double mastectomy, poor thing for having to undergo that. Brian Kiley was a funny fellow, with witty humour, but his delivery and speed needs working on, or, at least, this appearance on Letterman could have benefited from such. Hugh Laurie proves, effortlessly, once again that he rarely meets his intellectual match, and I was not aware of what a tiny budgerigar is Norah Jones! If she was any tinier, she’d have to perform behind a giant glasses lens. Jim Gaffigan was another new one for me, and I would like to see some of his comedy, judging from his short time in the seat with Letterman. Was it my imagination, but did Jason Segel have unusually pink hands? He said he was nervous, if I recall, but Janny and I both noted his hands seemed to be unnaturally reddish, as if he was not too at ease. Speaking of being ill at ease, wasn’t that pretty creature Blake Lively this week almost very funny when she divulged that she was obsessing, and always does, about health matters, such as blood pressure and a million other things, and Dave identified with her (it is entirely possible I have the wrong gal, but it was a young woman this week on Letterman, I do know that; checking out the Letterman website I’m faced with not recalling the woman I think it was looking like Blake Lively, but then that’s not a reliable guide, believe me ). [Back from the future update: I did perservere on The Late Show’s site, and it is not Blake Lively to whom I’m referring, rather it is Sarah Paulson! I also learned that she is, in the words of, should, I imagine he be asked, Stephen Fry, ‘a pussy basher’.]

I went for a late walk, and but before doing so I sent a long email to Baby Inkletter in extended reply to a partial correlation she found between an aspect of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ doctrine and another religious source. Most fascinating what has found its way into the Bible despite it being so much of a fallible human work.

I got to bed before six, but not a long way before, and the frilly knickered lizard was bright and chirpy, not finding sleep easy at that time, so we chatted while the soft and warm little thaing cuddled me, and I don’t blame her one bit.

+paytontedwithlove+

28^th March 2009:

Saturday: Not only is it Sarrerdi folks, but it’s the last day of the stinking effing THREE year effing stinking daylight stinking effing saving effing stinking trial; Matt Birney and John D’Orazio may you live in interesting times. The chalcedony crocodile woke me at one o’clock as agreed so I could take the little people all over the countryside shopping, which expedition began at two o’clock, when we picked up Pa pree and headed north to Alaska, no, I meant Spotlight at Joondalup, before back to the DVD shop at VideoEzy Girrawheen for Janny’s essential supplies – in fairness to the chalky chameleon, she’s only been once or twice there this whole year to date, and she’s expecting to be laid up for days when she gets the million inch long needle in her back on Monday, and wants some movies to watch while she convalesces – before calling in at our local Dewsons’ for the final shop till they drop onslaught. I remained in the car the whole time reading and minding my own business. Oh well, such is the lot of the long distance taxi driver…

I did a tad of writing once back, then spent an hour outside in the back garden doing catch up work, for I’ve done so little this past week. Before I knew where I was it was seven o’clock and My Beloved time, followed by some Funniest Home Videos during the sport. I left the delinquents to themselves after watching the beginning of an animated wonder on free to air called ‘Hoodwinked’. I wrote away on the past several days of this here diary, before returning Pa pree to his place after ten o’clock, where I reinstalled his sound card drivers and setup his printer again since Baby Peggletter got his poota running again.

I broke down on my return home and ate too many chocolate coated peanuts with a cup of tea, before heading back to the keyboard for another half an hour, then watched my second ever ‘Ripping Yarns’ with Janny. This one was about an escaping British prisoner of war in Germany in 1917, and as was the last, it was a hoot. Michael Palin is a natural.

Once again, after smothering the alabaster dragon with kisses following buttering her trotters with spikenard, I left her reading in bed and returned to finally finish getting this diary up to date. I then had to attend to some health problems, in preparation, hopefully, for a walk on this slightly devil windy night… Which did happen – a good walk, although I was mighty pushed to keep up any kind of pace worthy of the name.

A lovely hot shower was just what the doctor ordered upon my return, and I’m currently, having just finished said shower, and spoken to the rapacious reptile up for her tinkle and reheating of the wheat pack for thigh pain relief, and enjoyed a teaspoon of my delicious Jingilli Devine cold pressed and super chaste olive oil, back at the keyboard preparing to finish this very paragraph and make a dual posting or four to my blog pages. I could sleep, but I have much more writing I’d like to get done on Venty Still.

Oh, before I leave this page, let me put a copy of my Letter to the Editor of Western Australia’s Sunday Times, which didn’t get published last week, about daylight saving:

Letter to the Editor:

Nail on the head, Mal McFetridge! (“Try WA’s system,” TST, March 15). Why should one ‘yes’ referendum institute daylight saving forever, while three ‘no’s aren’t taken for an answer?

Maybe social engineers like Matt Birney and John D’Orazio should have made the trial ten years, or even twenty, to amortize the cost of the referendum, and rub their disdain for us the more into our faces.

Payton L. Inkletter (address supplied)

For the billions of daily visitors to my blog who aren’t from Western Australia, the aforementioned politicians foisted a three year trial upon us before a referendum coming in May, having just completed the three year trial today. We have in my lifetime voted ‘No’ at three previous referenda after single year trials. It is estimated that the referendum will cost ten million dollars, and no other questions are being put to us.

I must admit to being happy with the extra hour turning our clocks back this night has given; it’s the only plus I think daylight saving has.

I didn't get to Venty Still, which doesn't surprise me, but it does frustrate me. I became too tired to write, so I made myself a hot mug of skim milk and read the paper. 'Twas after eight when I slid in beside the frilly knickered lizard.

+paytontedwithlove+

FRANKLAND: “Frankly, this Jingilli Devine cold pressed extra virgin olive oil may have fallen from heaven, it’s so nice!” Payton L. Inkletter enthused

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

24^th to 25^th March 2009:

Tuesday: I cut it very fine, but I needed the shuteye so badly it just had to be; mid morning when the alabaster dragon arose, I postponed my wake me up request from eleven till twelve, and then when I went about trying to rejoin the land of the awake, I forgot that I had to have Missus InklesIseedoctors – morethantheirownwivesdo at her doctor’s appointment by one, instead of the half one I was running on. About twenty to one she enquired how I was going, and then I got the shock that I had half an hour less than I thought. So a number of things I planned to do were rapidly shelved, including the denudation of a twenty four hour shadow.

We drove around to Pa pree’s and picked him up, but he was a couple of hundred metres on his way already, then Janny was delivered to her quack’s on time. It took a while, and I read in the car. When they returned, Janny had a referral for a nerve sheath root injection for her L3 vertebra area. Then it was in to the shopping centre, where the delinquents shopped till they dropped. I read in the car for a while, before venturing in myself and shopped in four places; I hasten to add, I’d give the job to others if it were that simple. I got two litres, on sposhull, of a local cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, Jingilli Devine by Frankland River Olive Company Ltd, and I plan to take maybe as little as a teaspoon a day, to try again what I began years ago doing for up to a year, after listening to Mel Gibson recommend it, on Letterman, for reducing blood cholesterol levels. I don’t recall the quantity he recommended, but I’m likely to go with but a teaspoon, due to the cost of it. I particularly wanted to choose Australian, and Western Australian if possible, but I could find but the one brand in Coles and Woolies from my home state.

Talk about live writing! I just got up from the keyboard, went out to the kitchen, studied the instructions under the carton, and set up the little tap at the base of the box – it’s like a wine cask – then carefully poured a teaspoon and straight down the hatch it went; it was delicious, with a slight afterburn, but I’m tough, and that’s how I take most things of a medicinal nature. For example, my cocoa imbibing method is the stuff of legend, and it is often recounted at The Campbell Barracks, when the commanders of the Special Air Services regiment need to inspire the boys with courage above the usual extremely high level they exhibit normally. So, if I enjoy a very long life and annoy a lot more people, Jingilli Devine might be to blame.

From here I drove the little people to the local Dewsons’, where they continued their orgy of quantitative easing, before we finally got home just after five in the late afternoon. Another precious several hours gone west…

I emptied the car, checked email, and crashed for an hour in bed, but slept for only the latter half of it, before the frilly nickered lizard woke me for My Beloved. So Barack Obama and his team have just given cause for the Stock Market to make its fifth biggest jump ever? Is that what I heard, or something like it? Toxic debt, and let’s hope these stupendous rescue packages aren’t all not a toxic bet.

Murmerings of making bikie gangs illegal in Australia: despite the protestations from some in the legal and civil rights fraternities, this could have been done years ago, as it still could be now. I believe in making ‘special’ laws if need be, with clarification of why they are special attached to them, for these very difficult cases. In other words, make it plain with the law just created that it is an imperfect temporary answer to a convoluted situation, and not to be taken as an example or precedent to extend to all other areas. Our state police some years ago did a most foolish and gutless thing when they allowed a local chapter of some group of bikie thugs to escort a coffin to Karrakatta Cemetery without their helmets on. Little wonder they become a law unto themselves when they are pussyfooted to by our law ‘enforcers’. And how amazing that there is always some lawyer prepared to defend the indefensible on the behalf of some bikie or group brought before the courts. Not to suggest that every charge is legitimate, but a hell of a lot of them are quickly ascertainable to be completely sound by the average reasonable citizen, yet high powered highly paid stoop-to-anything lawyers manage to get them out of some of the most incredible trouble.

Kerry O’Brien’s The 7.30 Report had a disturbing story by Sharon O'Neill about the death of Belinda Griffey in Nepean Hospital, which never admitted negligence, but did concede a breach in its duty of care; I wouldn’t mind that nuance clarified to me. What the report didn’t tell us, which medically is interesting, is what caused Belinda’s sodium levels to drop in the first place? One wonders how many Australian folk are dying due to mistakes in our dysfunctional hospital system?

I particularly enjoy it when Kerry does a non-political interview, and I think he does also. Tonight he aired his chat with the Williamsons, and I thought it a rare moment of potential humorous table turning on Kerry when David asked ‘Was Kerry on the list?’ in regard to a real list of potential men Kristen might bear to sleep with (she admits to working her way through two on her list of five).

Having wrested control of the remote from Pa pree earlier, I was able to switch over to the latter portion of Jenny Brockie and her superb Insight program, which tonight was on obesity, titled ‘A Gutful’. Has anyone else noticed how much Professor Boyd Swinburne of Deakin University resembles a Galapagos turtle? That aside – and I think they are gorgeous things by the way, and wouldn’t hurt an ant, unless they stepped on one – Professor Swinburne was spot on with his charge of conflict of interest against the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, Kate Carnell; more’s the pity she squirmed her way out of actually admitting it – rather she denied it. Such behaviour drops the respect quotient one could otherwise enjoy; I would admire her somewhat if she would be big enough to admit the conflict, but insist she continue in the conflicting position and committing to be all the more vigilant. Not ideal, but at least honest.

I departed, and left the little people to watch one of their favourites, ‘Packed to the Rafters’, while I tapped away on the keyboard. I recorded Foreign Correspondent so as not to stop the delinquents from seeing the end of Rafters (who remembers the days when commercial television had time fidelity?) – but this reminds me to comment on last week’s program, which I watched some days later for the same reason. How awful to see that brute and very small human being Robert Mugabe wax fat while the latest scourge to wallop his subjects is cholera. Full marks to reporter Andrew Geoghegan and his team for taking the risk to go undercover as tourists to bring us this expose. And wasn’t Dambisa Moyo’s condemnation of the deleterious effects of decades of aid to African nations compelling? Philip Williams’ London interview with her was an eye-opener; her observation that the political elite’s Swiss bank accounts are definitely some of the major beneficiaries rings awfully true. I hope her book ‘Dead Aid’ is well read and critiqued, and if there’s merit in her arguments for the time limiting of aid – and I strongly suspect there is – then we may be able to see the reduction of the ‘self perpetuating aid industry’ and ‘glamour aid’.

‘Packed to the Rafters’ had finished, so I drove Pa pree and his container load of shopping back to his place. On my return I did a bit more at the computer, this diary specifically, before dashing back to watch Lateline, and part two of the Suzanne Smith story on Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. How sad is the story of Elizabeth Russell and her son Seth born with FAS. There are so many factors able to remove potential from the unborn baby that we can do little about, but here’s one that has a simple cure in theory, while difficult in practice, given the entrenchment of drinking from, and before, the age of adulthood, right when our young women are at the beginning of their fertility. The tricky part, even if every pregnant woman willingly left alcohol alone once aware that she was pregnant, is that initial period when she doesn’t know, and especially if she wasn’t trying to get pregnant. How horrifying a statistic is the one from Halls Creek, with 21 times the Western Australian average for FAS!

The following interview with a gracious Professor Sterling Clarren, the CEO and Scientific Director of the Canada Northwest Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Research Network, was frightening, for he gave Tony Jones the facts of the damage that alcohol can do to the foetus once it has made a placental connection to the mother’s blood stream. Who knows how many children are born with even only mild symptoms that will limit them for the rest of their lives? Pun intended, it was a sobering interview. We truly are our brother’s keeper to some extent, and our behaviour and choices always have some effect beyond our own inner world. Every one of us born without any FAS effects are in at least a small way obliged to live in such a way that it lowers the likelihood of others being born with it. In short, responsible drinking, if we drink at all, and a heightened awareness of the sensitivities of the developing foetus.

I watched Lateline Business as well as Letterman. I went for my late walk. I got to bed on towards dawn.

+paytontedwithlove+

25^th March 2009:

Wednesday: The major part of this day that I will long remember had to do with a development flowing from a visit to my mother:

Janny and I drove to pick up Mum from sister Mary’s in East Victoria Park, and due to some health problems of mine we were towards an hour later than planned, but Mum was understanding. We went to find a local park to have a sandwich lunch, and in the process drove through the back woods of Wilson and surrounding areas, quiet streets we’d never seen before. As Murphy’s Brother’s Law would have it, the park we chose to sit under some beautiful peppermint trees had just nearby a deep sewerage infill project in full swing, which, while it did not entail smell, it did entail noise. Nevertheless, the time was actually very nice in that park, devouring Janny’s delicious sandwiches, of which she did not avail herself due to Byetta restrictions.

I then took the ladies to Textile Traders in Cannington, which proved to be a bit of a dry hunt, so the items Missus Inklematerialgirl wanted will have to wait for another safari. For some reason the idea suddenly occurred to me, on this lovely mild sunny late March day to visit our old home in South Perth, for it is decades since I went past it, and I could not remember what it looked like. So we drove there, not too far away, going through Bentley’s Silicon City where Hee Peggy must work, to get there.

And once there, I was surprised it is on a corner – so much for anything I remember, and the house next door is now a vacant block. We began taking some photos of Mum and me, and Janny and me, and Payton the Koala Bear, with the old house in the background, when the occupant of the house came out and pretended to check the mail. I let him know I was born while Mum and Dad lived here five hundred years ago, over fifty one to be more precise, and lo and behold, after asking an identifying question about my brother, who apparently did just this kind of thing in relatively recent times, he asked “Do you want to take a look around inside?” I couldn’t believe it, and played down the idea not wanting to put him, John, out, but then took him up given the genuine friendliness of his offer.

It was the first time my mother had been inside the house since December 1959 or January 1960. I was but two and a half when we left there, so I have no recollections of the inside at all. Much of the interior is the same, and Mum remembered it. Some renovations have altered the kitchen area, and another room or two. John has been there for about 15 years, and his research found that it was built in 1928. He gave us over half an hour, and it was most kind of him. He is a Western Australian born and bred man, a little older than me perhaps, with his family hailing from the Katanning area.

After this most unexpected bonus, we took leave of the new custodian of our old home, and I took the ladies to the shopping centre in East Victoria Park where we helped Mum do a ‘big shop bin come up’ in Coles. By the time we got back to sister Mary’s, she was home, and we spent a nice time catching up, and not long before we left for our home, after seven, Michele arrived home from work, and we had a pleasant, if brief, catch up with him. Maximus Coccioli was beside himself to see his master. Elizabeth is in Vietnam, taking a party on a tour. And not long back from the Grand Canyon at that.

We arrived home tired, and settled in for the big night on Aunty TV. The comedies, The New Inventors, The Gruen Transfer, and the premiere of ‘Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure’, which I’m happy to say I found funny, and will try to catch them all. I even saw Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton on ‘At the Movies’ giving us their ten cents’ worth on the latest films. They each spoke well of and marked well the Nicholas Cage ‘Knowing’, yet the Babies Ink&Peggletter, who saw a special showing of it courtesy of tickets from Pa pree, said it wasn’t very good.

Of course I saw Lateline and Lateline Business, as well as Letterman. I did not go for my usual late walk tonight, as I was far too exhausted. I was not feeling exactly too well, with a vein quite prominent on my right forehead, signalling perhaps that pressures were high internally. I got to bed early, about two o’clock.

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