INNALOO: Never send to know for whom the poo smells; it smells for thee, a philosophical Payton L. Inkletter concludes his ponderings upon the throne.

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

28^th April 2009:

Tuesday: Another lovely mild yet warm day from Paradise; more’s the pity I slept through most of it. I surfaced finally, after the usual tinkle breaks, at half four when the blasted mobble rang. It was my darling daughter, so that was the only good thing about the disturbance. Missus Inklegreatdaughterherself took her father, Pa pree, shopping and on an Op Shop crawl a bit before half one. I returned to the cot and tried to do mind exercises while resting more, until the terrifying sound of the Swift pulling up out the front signalled the end of my blessed solitude. Two ugly possibilities entered my stressed mind: if alone, the rapacious reptile might demand her dues of me; if not alone, I would be in the company of the little people…

It was the latter! I was in the company of the little people, a fate sometimes worse than a drive across the Nullabor in a Volkswagon Beetle with seriously inbred Tasmanians. Janny got changed and updated me in the boudoir of the day’s kills: a number of very nice clothing items for her from said Op Shops, and some she would do some alterations upon, using her dressmaking talents. I lingered in the cot after she left to make refreshments for the pair of them, and finally emerged after half five to face the day. About a maximum of one hour’s faint light left, and I ended up spending half of it attending to emails and a very thoughtful and detailed comment from Gladys Hobson regarding the sufferings from war and more burdening so many of our fellows, posted to my ‘Gallipoli’ posting at ‘In other news…’.

One ‘small’ job I did attend to before My Beloved was the fitting of one of the two new car seat covers which Pa pree had bought for the Swift a couple of weeks back. I think the job should be a punishment for white collar criminals; it’s so hard to thread the ribbons and tie them up under a tiny pokey seat in a tiny pokey car. So my hopes to do both evaporated, and the passenger seat I did get done I know I didn’t tie up correctly. Hopefully it’ll stay on with some degree of decency, or else a Tarago will blush seeing the Swift undressing.

We had our vittles watching My Beloved, with more details about the very concerning Swine Flu outbreak. How fortunate I and my family are to be in a wealthy country so relatively well prepared for such things. And Richard Pratt died today: there is yet another excellent example of the human condition: a man with some typical flaws, evidenced by his mistress Shari-Lea Hitchcock and love child Paula, and his price fixing shenanigans in business, mixed with his inspiring philanthropy.

I stayed on to see Kerry O’Brien host ‘The 7.30 Report’. I was pleased by the progress being made by Djarragun College, Gordonvale, in Peter McCutcheon’s report; a mere 31 years ago I visited Gordonvale south of Cairns, when I was still an idealistic starry eyed youth, before meeting and marrying the bodacious bungarra who beat it all out me. And what a good role model Noel Pearson is, not only here as school patron, but in many places and ways elsewhere. Also Kerry did an interview with Chris Richardson from Access Economics, whose tie was about the shade of that thing on Kerry’s head, and it was a good and pleasant interview, for Kerry doesn’t have to summons any of his inner mongrel to the fore like he has to with many a politician, to try to extract crucial information. How true the point of agreement between Chris and Kezza that both sides of politics will pretend that certain budgetary constraints won’t exist until after the next election, such as much middle class welfare.

I retreated to the back room at this juncture, that is, the end of Mistah O’Brien’s half hour, to leave the delinquents to watch whatever fairy floss they would prefer to watch, and put on the huge (for us) telly that Baby Peggletter gave us, and watched Foreign Correspondent. Mark Corcoran announced the program in the plural again, but a twinge of guilt pierced my mind body and soul as the thought occurred to me that perhaps he has a slight speech impediment, and the complaining I’ve been doing in this diary for ages about his apparent inability to know the precise name of his program would thus reflect upon me as the callous bastard I obviously am, or so certain close family members will vouch for. Gulp! Hey Mark, if this is the case, forgive me please. I could go back and edit out the entries where I highlight this pronunciation glitch of yours, but I won’t. I will just throw myself at your feet and beg for compassion and forgiveness. If you don’t have a slight speech impediment, practice how to say your program’s precise name ya lazy bastard!

Anyway, tonight’s program by Andrew Fowler, ‘Pirateland’ was good to see for an exposition of the other side of the ledger; every story has two sides, and while I don’t condone the piracy in any way, I understand more the pressures of poverty that contribute mightily to the folk, many former fishermen, turning to piracy. So once again, thank you Foreign Correspondent for informing me so well on things.

I wrote at the poota and posted the already written text from days ago for the ‘Gallipoli’ entry to this blog, as well as a reply comment to Gladys Hobson’s comment, before watching ‘Lead Balloon’ in comfort on the Player recliner in the lounge, Missus Inkleshe’sabonzagirl having driven Pa pree home some time earlier, saving me the task. Janny doesn’t find the show worth watching; I do. After this half hour of comic relief I dashed back to the poota briefly, then put the insolent iguana to bed, for she was very tired, having not slept well last night, and then I actually sliced up 3 Fuji apples and shaved cheddar cheese for myself, even made a moccers coffee for myself, in preparation for SilverToes and his Lateline. The highlight for me was the studio interview with Senator Nick Sherry, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law, discussing the review being conducted into superannuation policy. I’ve said it before and I say it again, I have a lot of admiration for Nick Sherry. He is serious, considered, and constrained, but then I think I understand why. Now wasn’t that a powerful point he made about fees! “But these operational issues and the costs and the fees are critical to the way the system delivers. Because as I've said, one or two per cent off into fees, effectively reduces your long-term savings by about a quarter, by about a quarter.” Yes, the cream skimmers, whose onus it is to justify their value, can make that much of a massive difference to the maturation funds for a worker! And bless Nick, Otto von Bismarck even got a mention!

The lovely Ali Moore perked me up as she always does, and her interview with National Australia Bastard, er Bank’s CEO Cameron Clyne had her use the term ‘rude health’. I was rather piqued in the stimulative sense of the word, and very glad Ali chose to present that view of his company’s books to the wank…er… banker. Forgive me all who find my crudeness here confronting, but bankers have long lost the respect of the common man in the land down under. Ali would have been within her fair rights to have doused Cameron with a glass of water at the end of the interview if she so chose, but of course that gal has no inner mongrel, just inner kitten, two weeks old, and who was ever hurt, or even offended, by a two week old kitten?

Letterman was his usual funny self, and I enjoyed his second guest, the late life realized ‘pussy basher’ (to quote Stephen Fry speaking to Cher on Parkinson about her daughter) Carol Leifer, who was refreshingly funny and intelligent. She was promoting her new book ‘When You Lie About Your Age The Terrorists Win’, which I suspect would be a witty read. And I found the finishing act, The All-American Rejects, were talented and impressive entertainment. From this television fest I retreated again to the computer back room, and kept writing this diary in fact, while listening a bit to Barack Obama’s podcasts from Radio National of his audio book, ‘Dreams from my Father’; there’s one talented President. His voice is easy to listen to, and the fact that he wrote the book is quite something.

Another still night, not a breath of breeze, cool, what an April we’ve just had! I dealt with a health problem, then embarked on a walk, after two, on this beautiful night. And blow me down, if fifteen minutes into my locomotion I didn’t pass another fellow, older than me, walking in the opposite direction. It’s very late, remember, and I never encounter wrinklies like myself; I do encounter young folk now and then, often drunk – them that is. As I passed this fellow, I realized I know him, old Barry the former pamphleteer from over fifteen years ago, although I’ve waved to him from cars a few times since. I wondered if he recalled me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if not, due his reluctance to engage, even eye contact, in the dangerous circumstances of a dark and lonely stretch of pavement with no one around.

In the Dewsons’ vicinity a pair of police in an unmarked car pulled up and questioned me, and got all my details up on their whiz bang dashboard poota, and we had a friendly chat. “Payton Inkletter”; “Do you have a middle name?”; “Yes.” “It’s very late.”; “I have trouble sleeping. Nice and cool in summer for a walk.”; “You seen any cars here?”; “No, I’ve only been here a few minutes though”; “Blah blah blah.” Later I returned home by a back street route through a tiny park and up a quiet cul de sac loop, and who should I encounter again but old Barry the former pamphleteer, in a particularly dark section of the neighbourhood, presumably returning from his nocturnal wanderings, and again he didn’t look my way, out of fear I’m sure, and he wasn’t aware I was the same good looking fellow he passed half an hour ago in a different neck of the woods. When I realized it was he, I simply called out, quietly, “Hello again!” I’m sure the sleeping folk all around had no idea about this meeting of arthritic marsupials on the tarmac bordering their homes.

I returned to the keyboard on my eventual return, and while preparing to upload the text of another posting I’d already uploaded the headline for the other day, because it had me discussing our Optus internet plan details in it, I decided to go to my account page and try to check a particular detail. In the process I mistakenly upgraded our plan to the next higher one, costing another forty bucks, effective almost immediately, despite the 24 hour suggested waiting period. So I got straight onto the phone to try to reverse my mistake, even though it was almost half four in the morning, and got through to one ‘Basand’, a wog if ever there was one: a very nice wog though, and I commended him for his professionalism in a later email I wrote and sent to Optus. (Long term followers of Fool’s Paradise’ sites are not surprised by the political incorrectness to be encountered here and there in my writings, as there is even a warning at the top of this site and the Main page regarding this, as well as an exploration of the subject on the Main page, toward the bottom. And hey, some of my best friends are wogs.)

It took the fine young wog towards twenty minutes, but he was able to report that yes, he’d got it reversed, and we were back to the current 15 Gb monthly data plan. [Back from the future update: about twenty hours later (1 a.m. Thursday 29^th April) my usage chart in my accounts page still shows me on the new 30 Gb plan, which calls into question even more the honesty of the Optus crew dealing with me this morning. If Basand was able to have our plan back to the previous one within 20 minutes, why hasn’t the reduced limit back to 15 Gb been reinstated on my usage page?] Naturally I was happy. Almost casually in the ensuing conversation he mentioned that the difference of $40 would be on my next account. I took a breath and explained that the whole reason I immediately contacted Optus to try to reverse the upgrade, which he just had, was to avoid the extra charge. He acknowledged this, and it transpired that his supervisor had ‘already’ okayed a $20 credit on my next account, meaning that it would only cost me $20 extra. My protest that I would not have any extra high speed data allowance, as he had just cancelled that, only elicited the information that ‘it was 60% likely that I would not be charged the extra $40’. I don’t know about you dear readers, but this all stinks of big business pushing its customers around, playing funny buggers. Basand is just the poor dupe employee doing his bosses’s bidding, I’m sure, and I silently didn’t buy the excuse implied that the order that had gone through was irreversible. Curious that the increased data limit could be reversed immediately! And if old supervisor face could okay a $20 credit, he/she could okay a $40 credit also, in my humble opinion. However, I kept these thoughts to myself, not wishing to hassle the poor wog pawn forced to bully customers like me. I thanked him for his efforts, genuinely, for he was a most pleasant and polite fellow.

So I found the complaints section on the Optus site, and composed a letter and sent it, asking for a complete cancelling of the fee, especially in light of the fact that I won’t be using any of the data costed into the price of the upgrade. Rest assured my billions of faithful daily readers, I will keep you informed of the result, if you don’t fall off the perch from the tension in the meantime. Anyway, for now let’s just agree that these large telcos are bastards. I could share several more of these bullying tactics we and our friends have experienced at their hands over the last twenty and more years.

I saw the dawn light filter through the bamboo leaves out the back window here, as I wrote on the issue, let me label it ‘patriotism’ for the sake of brevity, that The Babies differed with me at the meal we shared the other night with the Chocsons. I had given it much thought on my walk earlier, not taking my talking book so that I could think upon it. During the morning, which unfolded quickly, I had the frustrating experience of several more phone calls to Optus…

+paytontedwithlove+

CHERNOBYL: Yes, your yuppie jams glowed in the dark, but what of those toasted with neutrons and gamma rays on that sad day? asks Payton L. Inkletter.

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

26^th April 2009:

Sunday: I woke about two, and was unable to sleep, despite being very tired, so I returned to the cot and listened for a couple of hours to my favourite talking book on the iRiver T10. Missus Inklethere’ssurelyaspecialplaceinheavenforher had worked her butt off for hours preparing for the evening meal with The Babies Ink&Peggletter, the Chocsons, and Pa pree. I did my late little bit, mopping around the kitchen and laundry, and was still doing this when The Babies arrived early, and Janny having not long returned from picking up Pa pree. The Chocsons were a little late, with Reeve having begun a honey harvest of his hive late in the day, and needed the extra time to complete the job.

But it was not long after seven when we merry band of revellers settled in together for a very enjoyable evening of nice food, soft and fruit drink, and conversation, till after midnight. Reeve broke the news that he will be starting a new job on Barrow Island for a three month trial from Thursday, on a two weeks on two weeks off roster. We covered a lot of ground in our chatting, including the observation by Chocci Chocson that they have the same DVD recorder as us and that theirs plays up something terrible (funny thing is, they had the identical model to our Conia brand and model before our current one, so it’s either a case of great minds thinking alike, or fools seldom differ, more likely this latter); Chocci related the exact same endless looping that our useless piece of shit that passes as a DVD recorder, namely the Panasonic DMR ES15 DVD Recorder, after recording a program and closing it off; the whole experience renders the machine simply a player; it’s too unreliable as a recorder; my advice to Panasonic in case they don’t enjoy seeing bad press from their customers for one of their products: don’t put your badge on crap, whatever the selling price. Some music oiled proceedings, and the occasion was over too quickly. I failed to convincingly justify my position, mainly with The Babies, united they were, on a matter: I maintained that it is not a contradiction to feel more for the loss of 10 Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, as an Australian, than for the combatants on the other side being killed, while simultaneously caring about all humans who are suffering or worse. While it was not the forum to adequately conduct the reasoning, I was trying to explain that all humans are normally born into two families: their next of kin family, and their national family, and loyalty to both is right under most circumstances. Maybe The Babies will engage me further some time and we might achieve some convergence. [Back from the future update: within about a day an email did come from Baby Inkletter presenting further material in defence of The Babies’ position, so I embarked upon some deeper thought and a written analysis of the subject; stay tuned in later diary entries for when it’s done and sent, and the response… I am honoured somewhat that they feel safe to tackle some heavy matters with me, and I am very pleased that we are tackling these discussions in a civilized and mature manner. The excitement for my billions of daily readers must me excruciating.]

I was way to weary to walk yet again, and I had to enlist the assistance of white comforters to ease my headache pain enough to join the commode dragon about two in the morning.

+paytontedwithlove+

GALLIPOLI: “Forgetting is what we damn do best,” laments a cross Victorian amid his tears, torments, and nightmares, to a wordlost Payton L. Inkletter

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

25^th April 2009:

Saturday: Health problems didn’t make my long sleep so comfortable, but nevertheless, I managed a mere 16 hours’ sleep! And as most always, I did not feel so great for it. This week I have had a 17 hour, a 12 hour, and a 16 hour sleep on three of the days, but the tiredness sets back in, if it leaves at all, within a few hours almost always. It’s Sarrerdi! And it’s Anzac Day (a rather grey one here in Perth), that happy and sad day to commemorate loss and courage, values we have and lifestyle we enjoy, and the human condition. Sadly the world is still wracked with war and the threat of war, terrorism, hatred, and intolerance of anything and everything between peoples.

Missus Inkleoneinamilliondaughters picked up Pa pree and went on a shopping and visiting marathon, while I devoured the huge platter of sliced Fuji apples and shavings of cheddar cheese, washed down with Moccers coffee, that I pleaded with her to make for me before she left, claiming I didn’t know how to slice apples nor shave cheese, let alone how to make instant coffee. She acceded to my plea, with grumblings, and read the paper while enjoying the bounty, in glorious solitude. Health problems did their usual interfering with an otherwise pleasant interlude.

Next I tackled writing this diary and sundry poota jobs, before rushing to the kitchen some hours later when I heard them pull up, the delinquents that is, and made it look like I’d been busy cleaning up for some time. Of course the saltwater chickodile didn’t have to vocalise the fact that she knew I’d really been doing my own thing. I remained for towards an hour returning the kitchen to its former glory, which was the last time I cleaned up, a mere day earlier.

I had a tiny bit of time outside in the twilight watering the very thirsty bamboos and putting buckets of scraps into various worm farms, then retreated back inside to write more at the computer, before My Beloved with the little people and our vittles. I returned Pa pree to his place before nine, and tested his computer, which is playing up again, before disconnecting it and bringing the tower back with me, for The Babies Ink&Peggletter to take tomorrow to work on.

I returned to computing, until the chalcedony chameleon lured me into the lounge with a big plate full of freshly boiled chestnuts, and I watched much of Foyle’s War on Aunty with her, while I ate those very delicious filling nuts, although I perhaps expended more calories peeling the leather off them than they donated back in their substance. Michael Kitchen is wonderful as Christopher Foyle, and don’t the Brits keep proving they do better drama than anyone else, as well as comedy, excepting, of course, we Aussies!

I gave the Sheila Monster a back and back of bad leg massage with the Homedics percussion massager in bed, then tucked her in with a kiss, and returned, after midnight, to this writing job. The computer is doing its usual playing up, crashing Firefox windows and freezing, and generally reminding me why I fell out of love with Bill Gates within moments of first using Windows 95 a thousand years ago. (Yes, I am aware that Firefox is not a Microsoft creation, but the WinXP operating system whirring underneath is, and if I can possibly blame anything that goes wrong upon Microsoft, that’s my immature prerogative, so leave me be!)

Health problems yet again prevented me from going for a late walk, and this is now approaching a week since I had a full walk, for the Pa pree bin out walk of the other night was a quarter the usual length. I downloaded some Radio National broadcasts podcasts whatevercasts for Baby Inkletter, and did this and that, and before I knew where the time was it was daylight. I took a risk and entered the boudoir and bed of the voluptuous vole about half six.

+paytontedwithlove+

CHATSWOOD: Longing for the Sales, Payton L. Inkletter, better Late than never, beeLines Leighward to the ABC Shop, looking for A Moore lovely business

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

18^th April 2009:

Saturday: As I said last entry, sleep was eight hours away, even though dawn had arrived. Oh, shoot! it’s Sarrerdi! Yippee, we Inkletter’s love Sarrerdis, not for any religious reasons, no, but just because another week’s obligations have almost bitten the dust.

I’m writing this particular entry a day and a half later, so already I’m battling to recall the particulars of how my eight hours unfolded, but I think a kitchen clean up was definitely one job, and watering the back bamboos another. What did take time was my decision to phone Optus and get the lowdown on an upgrade to a higher data limit, and after a million transfers as well as the usual wrestle with a computer generated female voice at the outset, I left with information that was tempting. I promised in last Thursday’s diary entry that I would let my daily billions of readers know what I ended up doing or not doing, so you waited for it, and now you will know…

I upgraded! I spend twenty more scarce bucks to get another 13 gigs of high speed data before I’m throttled back to 128 kbs. The beauty of this arrangement is that I can downgrade any month to where I was before, without affecting our two year contract, and only have to pay for the month or months of extra data at twenty extra smackeroos. So I’m risking little, and having the joyful experience of fast loading of pages for much longer, and continuing my Librivox audio book downloading 24/7. One of the last chicks (I’m not sexist…) I spoke to at Optus offered to email me the latest bundle plans from Optus called dinglehopper-YAS!FUSION-kickmalarky (or similar), which I accepted out of politeness. However, when I opened the pdf document and took a gander, I began to get very very interested. Apart from not knowing enough about non GSM mobile phones yet, the top deal for 129 buckminsters a month seems right up our laneway. The upgrade I just took today brings our bundle cost monthly to 109 buckminsteroos, and the phone side of things is lousy, in our considered opinion. But if we take their Unlimited Broadband usage plan for 129 little ones, it seems all the phone calls we are ever likely to make are included, and are unlimited as well. Except non GSM mobbles, and the problem is, I don’t know yet how we would know in advance if we were to phone such a mobble; more to find out. I did read the fine print and got a shock, passed out, and had to be revived with the fumes of Cutty Sark to learn that on the cheaper 4, 10, and 20 Gb broadband plans it is easily possible to find oneself up for an extra 300, yes, 300 smackeroos a month if 2 gigs of excess usage data from the broadband side is consumed above the limits for those plans. Charging at 15 cents per Mb, 2000 Mb, which I could bring down in hours if I unthrottled my dedicated downloader Netants, and 300 extra bucks goes to Optus thank you very much. Only after this draconian trap does the throttle back of speed kick in, and no further data charges apply. And I note that in the fine print the total cost of $300 doesn’t get a mention, only the $0.15 per Mb for the next 2 Gb; very f-----g clever Optus! Anyway, I’ll make another call to the refined bastards and learn what I can about non GSM mobiles, and if Australia has them, how to know in advance, or failing that, see if they can be blocked from being connected (I’ll bet not, and not for technical reasons – too lucrative!), or if they can be recognized by prefix. Rest assured, I’ll eventually update the billions of you fine folk who check in here daily for the latest edge-of-the-seat happenings in the lives of the Inkletters.

My sweetheart Missus Inklebarelyconcealedlust made me a huge platter of sliced apples and dragonfly wing shavings of cheese, er, no, that’s tomorrow, today it was chunks of baked ricotta, and a mug of coffee, and we nattered in the lounge while I consumed these victuals. Finally the Sheila Monster tucked me into her boudoir just after two, and she set off to the shops, the DVD library, and various places. Later after her eventual return one of the Deeler sons came and picked up the second meal Janny had made this week for them while they struggle to cope with Meg’s cancer treatment. I didn’t quite sleep the whole time, hearing Janny’s return, and calling out like a baby, she came and smothered me with kisses again, checked my nappy, retucked me in, and this time, maybe about half three, I finally fell into the intoxicating embrace of Mistress Nodette, my nightly lover whom the alabaster dragon tolerates…

+paytontedwithlove+

MIRRABOOKA: Tall storey or true? New shul now two floors high beside Masjid Al Taqwa: chance for big rapprochement bin come up? wonders P.L. Inkletter

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

17^th April 2009:

Friday: The blasted mobile phone, which I have often had fantasies about inserting it, without Vaseline, up the jacksie of its owner, rang, waking us both up, while the landline was off the hook for the obvious reason of trying to get some peace and quiet. This mobble, which we dare not ever turn off, in other words, it’s on 24/7 and assiduously policed by Missus InkleIdarenoteverturnitofforelse, has woken us up a thousand times, and disturbed us a million. The phone call wasn’t from the owner, but enough folk know the number to cause it to be a daily disturbance most days.

I had barely had three hours’ sleep, but the start was enough to put paid to returning to sleep. I dragged myself up, and began a kitchen clean up stage two, to finish from last night, while the alabaster dragon did return to her slumbers. I also managed to water the bamboos and lawn outside, on this rather warm mid April day. A bit after midday Reeve Chocson arrived in his Rodeo, with Pa pree, and we loaded them up with vittles for a hundred – well, about ten for dinner tonight that Janny had cooked – and sent them on their way down to Balingup, where they will attend the Balingup Small Farm Field Day, and stay with Margie Kismikkin at The Homestead at the old Universal Brotherhood farm. Janny and I were to go, but Janny’s bad back pain and spinal injection recently put paid to the idea. Babies Ink&Peggletter were leaving about midday this very day also to stay at The Homestead as well, to attend the field day also.

There was joy all round to see Reeve, and to farewell the happy travellers, even inner joy unbridled in certain present. After the dust settled from all that temporary excitement, it was back to the grind to prepare to go to Bob’s. I made it by half two, ‘early’ by recent standards, and we trained on this warm sunny glorious day to Perth city, to begin Bob’s round of freebie collections as well as purchases, including his late lunch which he consumed in the beautiful Supreme Court Gardens. On the way to the corner shop in Pier Street, run by some rather sour faced Asian folk – they rarely ever smile at us, despite my attempts to break the ice, being happy to take Bob’s money but glad to see the back of us – I had a funny thing happen to me: I was just passing a group of pavement tables and chairs occupied by sundry folk supping on bits and pieces, when I sneezed, but if only that was all, for I passed wind as an equal but opposite demonstration of physics. I was glad I was in stride, and was past their eye contactable angles, if indeed they heard my resident Y-front cane toad, and naturally I didn’t look back. Next stop Barrack Street Jetty, and while Bob went to collect a travel brochure – as he does every time we come to the Jetty – I told him I’d be waiting in the little park between Swan Bells and The Lucky Shag (yes, some millions of my faithful readers out of the daily billions will recall, back in 2007, my fictional newspaper report about Vasily Copiscow and his watering hole, The Lucky Shag).

There are only two bench seats in the little grassed garden, and both had a single occupant, and my first instinct, as it always is, and as most folks’ is, was to not sit on either, so as to leave the first-in occupants in peace and comfortable; however, I suddenly decided to sit on the closer one to The Lucky Shag on which a man, younger than myself, was sitting. I politely ignored him for social reasons, you know, to not appear like some leech about to bite him for a dollar or a cigarette, and then after half a minute I looked at him and said hello. He reciprocated, and by his accent I discerned he was likely not from this land, and I told him so with a question about where he might be from. He insisted he was from here, but then opened up, and informed me he was from Cornwall four years back, and was waiting for friends – he was early – to have a drink at The Shag.

Before long, he let me know his wife killed herself but two months ago, and it was quite a shock to me. He was 42, and he found her. No children. A big struggle to get back to some sense of normalcy, and his friends were very supportive. I discussed, as carefully as I could, the things he had been through, and in fifteen minutes I bid him farewell when the Blue CAT arrived, Bob’s and my second purpose for coming to The Jetty. He was genuinely grateful for my time, and I realised why I sat there against my normal practice. Life is dangling on a tenuous thread for us all.

I got home after returning Bob back to Guildford a tad after seven, and I watched My Beloved, Stateline, and The Collectors, while eating vittles, with Janny. There was a subtle mood of freedom in the air. I then asked Janny to put me to bed for a couple of hours, as I was whacked, and I rapidly slept, and the next moment, two hours was up and the ribald racehorse goanna was rousing me to let me know it was time for Lateline. I staggered into the lounge, and rapidly revived upon laying dilating pupils upon the lovely Leigh Sales, in her wind up night for the week of her and SilverToes’ program. I found Ms Sales’ interview with the Managing Director of Kissinger Associates, Joshua Cooper Ramo (that is a movie actor name in the making if ever there was one!), and the author of 'The Age of the Unthinkable', really interesting, and she asked him very sensible things, and then what a pleasure when Stephen Long joined Leigh in the studio for the long and short of the economic lowdown from the fastest economic gun in the Antipodes. Stephen’s ‘bamboo shoots’ analogy for the glimmers of economic hope in China struck a particular culm with me, being a bamboo lover extraordinaire. What a nice experience to listen to two very intelligent and capable younger people discuss important matters so well. And I was not disappointed – Stephen gave Leigh his smile extraordinaire at the end.

I recorded Letterman to watch another time. Don’t ask me exactly what transpired in the next many hours, for I cannot accurately recall, except that I spent many hours writing and posting diary entries, various poota bits and pieces, a late late walk, and before I knew where the hours had gone, it was dawn. Yet it would be another eight hours before my head hit the pillow…

+paytontedwithlove+

CARLTON: “I excel when fostered by elders, party liberally if allowed, encourage turning rice into saki, and listen to JO’K,” says Payton L. Inkletter

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

16^th April 2009:

Thursday: Almost eleven hours sleep made little difference to how bad I was feeling. The scurrilous skink didn’t quite get to wake me, for I was rousing. A promising exchange degenerated to a domestic, but it was déjà vu for the millionth time, and while I’m far from perfect, I do know that conflict management ability is like most others: skill increases in direct proportion to practice. If practice is assiduously avoided for decades, then skill won’t tumble from the sky, score a direct hit, and be absorbed unconsciously, thus doing away with the need to devote time and effort to its acquirement. But having understanding of these things is for me worse than the loneliness of the long distance runner. And anyway, what would I know.

Missus Inklegivemethefairytale picked up Pa pree and visited the local Dewsons’, before returning for the planned din dins with The Babies, who arrived a bit after half seven. I had got a bit of watering done outside, for the little dash of rain the other day is fast fading into a forgotten dream. The local Mormon missionaries, Elders Tilden and Cooper, called in just before eight to pick up their own vittles that Missus InklesI’mabiggerlandmarkthantheperthtemple had cooked for them, as a thank you for cleaning and polishing the car today, at which time she also treated them to lunch. They did a magnificent job; I don’t remember the Swift ever being so clean and gleaming.

We had a very nice meal, but Baby Inkletter laid down the law that I had to eat a small main course so I would have room for her cheesecake dessert, which as it turned out was a wise limitation, as it was so beautiful to munch upon, if not cool to sip. We played some Absolute Balderdash, which Baby Inkletter won, but she was tired and a bit grumpy, so we didn’t play for as long as usual.

Baby Peggletter unveiled his third portrait of Baby Inkletter, which he worked on entirely on Good Friday, and we were blown away by its beauty and its accuracy. I reaffirmed to Janny that our daughter got her mother’s beauty and her father’s brains, and we can all thank God for that, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her dad’s looks as well. When The Babies disappeared into the kitchen to make cups of tea and prepare said dessert I snuck the painting onto a hook on the wall, in an unsuccessful attempt to keep it here.

Everyone left by about ten, and I watched the latter half of Q&A on Aunty, and was struck by the pathos of John Elliott trying very hard to be a caricature of John Elliott. I was revived to see the lovely Leigh Sales front Lateline (why is it I seem to enjoy Lateline a little bit more from Wednesday night on?; no offense Tony, but you’re not very hot), and her interview with James Wolfensohn, Chairman of the newly forming Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute and former World Bank President was valuable to listen to. He made the very crucial point about the difference to the rich countries such as Australia of the economic downturn and to the poor countries, a difference of comfort reduction for us, and survival for many of their citizens.

Later I watched Letterman, and tonight was another of those occasions when I’m reminded how lucky I am not to be a woman. Drew Barrymore was bizarre to look at, simply because she tried to play the part her ostentatious garb convinced her it demanded. The way she held her right hand off her hip to copy Sophia Loren at the Academy Awards earlier this year looked so unnatural, and the only time the interview worked for me was the odd occasion when she put both her hands in her lap and held herself normally. Her hair was far too severe for her head and face, poor thing, the lipstick too stark. She would have been a delight in a track suit, or some simple frock. Sorry to all those who are convinced I’m sexist or whatever; thank God I’m a man! I wouldn’t be a woman in the world of all history to date if I could possibly avoid it, given the unrealistic expectations upon them to be visual objects they’re not.

Much later I went for a late walk, and returned to do stage one of a massive kitchen clean up. I attended to various bits and pieces on the computer, including spending ages trying to apply a headline ticker html script one kindly Avindra G. had told me about at userscripts.org, but I still don’t know what I’m doing, which is nothing new.

I had been rationing my internet connection for the last ten days since my new month began on the seventh, not giving any bandwidth to my Librivox book downloads, and thus I had high speed web page loading until… yes, my lousy 2 gig limit was reached after midnight, when I noticed pages taking forever to load, and yes, I had been throttled back to 64kbs until the seventh of next month. The m-----f-----s at Optus want another twenty bucks for an additional 13 gig monthly at broadband speed. I think comparable countries overseas get much better deals; this is copper ADSL I’m talking about too, remember. And if I’m reading the upgrade plans online correctly, another 15 gig on top of the next 13 gig would relieve me of an additional 40 bucks, could you believe! This does seem bizarre, to pay $20 for another 13 in total, but, wait for it, $60 for another 28 gig in total! No, I can’t believe it either! This is what the web page at Optus is offering me: ‘You are currently on the 'yes' My Home Classic $39.99 plan (that includes, my readers, 2 lousy GB monthly data allowance). Choose from one of our flexible pricing plans to ensure you get the most from the Internet:

'yes' My Home Professional $99.99 $99.99 for 30GB data allowance;

'yes' My Home Freedom $59.99 $59.99 for 15GB data allowance.’

All you Yanks and Poms must think we’re idiots down here for putting up with it. (I’m sure there are other perks in the upgrade plans such as a million email addresses and maybe a throttling back to 128 kbs instead of 64 kbs when the data allowance is reached, but if you’re only in need of the data allowance with speed, it’s an expensive way to get it.)

[Back from the future update: it’s just two days ahead of this entry, Saturday in fact, or as we compromised folk around this dwelling call it, Sarrerdi! I have just spoken to two people at Optus, one on the internet side of things, and then one on the phone side of things, having of course to give my DOB, vital statistics, fingerprints, weight, and all that (the name’s Dong, James Dong…), and while I couldn’t understand anything either of the English-is-my-second-language Asian women said, partly due to my bad hearing, I did glean that the next step up to the ‘Freedom’ plan has a throttle back to 128 kbs when the monthly allowance is reached, and that I can downgrade at anytime without penalty, or any effect on our existing two year contract with our phone+internet bundle. Now despite my tirade a few lines back, I’m interested! Coz, dear reader, even though I still believe it’s all a giant rip-off, everyone is doing roughly the same ripping off here in the Antipodes, so to whom can we go for a significantly better deal? And I’ve got to thinking that once I reach my 15 gig data limit (which I easily will with my Librivox audio books downloads and the million things Baby Inkletter keeps requesting) and get throttled back, simple mathematics suggests that web pages should load twice as fast as they do now when throttled. If it doesn’t work this way, then I risk at most twenty bucks, because I can downgrade the following month. So stay tuned to find out if I do upgrade. You doubtless will be on the edge of your seats, and probably have disturbed sleep until you learn what happens…]

It was a bit after six when I finally got to crawl in beside the irritable iguana.

+paytontedwithlove+

TELLURIDE: Well may Tomathon Cruise hide in the periodic table as well his able, but nothing will save him from the critics, says Payton L. Inkletter.

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

14^th April 2009:

Tuesday: Insomnia got in the way of a continuing badly needed sleep, so I got up and left the slumbering salamander to have the boudoir to herself, and search me if I can remember much of just how the morning and early afternoon transpired from about seven till two, but I do know I spent much time at the keyboard, and some time fertilizing and watering the bamboos outside, as well as attending to the worm farms.

The weather is of the typically glorious April flavour for Southwestern Australia, although several degrees warmer than average. My bamboo, that of it getting enough H2O, is loving it.

As for the time I spent at the computer, I know I continued struggling to try to tame a headline ticker from ‘wolverinehacks’ for ages, wanting to apply bold font and such, as I’ve since learnt to do with the iwebgator ticker. It left me very frustrated, a feeling of had countless times at the foot of the computer monitor, and not least since joining blogspot in 2007.

Missus Inklekindnessincarnate cut up a huge plate of sliced pears pears with coffee for me, and I watched Aunty’s Midday Report news, some Dr Phil, and then the great bulk of Oprah Winfrey’s visit and chat with one Tomothy Cruise at his Telluride home. While I’m no fan of Mr Cruise, I felt he was very genuine when he spoke of his two older adopted children, describing them as ‘very good people’ and such. I am sad for him that he’s apparently bought Scientology’s dogma, but then essentially no more than the billions of our fellow humans who subscribe to a variety of other dogmas containing much that’s nonsensical. I advise all thinking people to cherry pick the ‘religions’, and if Tom cherry picked Scientology and left the lesser fruit, then I’d have little concern.

Now if I thought I could retire unravished, I needed to think again, for Missus InkleIcan’tresistmyAdonichusband soon lidded over with those bedroom eyes, but began her carnal knowledge of me in the kitchen, try as I did to escape, but as regular readers know, escape is a pipe dream – she is too wily for me to pull that one off (those of you who are now in a tad of mental turmoil, wash your minds out with soap and water!). The next thing I knew the ravishing of me was continuing in the boudoir, and so I dutifully delivered her of her expected cut, that being a series of earth moving multigasms, thus, after being cast off her like an empty packet of chocolate coated peanuts (low GI), I was then able to sneak back into my side of the cot and surrender to the embrace of the much gentler Mistress Nodette. I have been this woman’s sex toy for decades, and it doesn’t look like letting up anytime soon.

By arrangement the satiated salamander woke me a tad before seven, to watch My Beloved and be plied with vittles, Pa pree joining us. Janny had taken him shopping to the local major shopping centre after draining me of my sexual energy earlier in the afternoon, and it is a great relief to me that she is able to do some driving again, since her facet joint spinal injection. I do so loathe being the mug taxi driver for the delinquents.

What a pleasure to see Ali Moore fronting The 7.30 Report while Kerry the Great is off gallivanting, probably around the globe sussing out the best plastic surgeons. You know, one handicap Ali has in this time slot and on this program, is that she has too low a mongrel quotient, or MQ. She is superb hosting the Lateline Business program, where she doesn’t have to grill squirming pollies or other sundry bastards to try to get the truth they’re hiding, but she is too sweet to effectively nail a mongrel. Now Kerry O’Brien on the other hand, ‘Kezza’ to his mates, Kerry the Great to other journalists, Mr O’Brien to the rest of us, Kezza has mongrel to spare, or put another way, is possessed of a high mongrel quotient. Who remembers his legendary interviews with Prime Minister Howard?; it was ecstasy to behold Mr O’Brien ripping slabs of chicken out of John Winston Howard, which he did on multiple occasions. And then what a gentleman he was when he did his last interview with the Bennelong Bastard prior to the last Federal Election, where Maxine McKew nailed the silver spooned bastard at the ballot box; Kezza almost gave away a hint of sadness for the prey he’d been mauling for years, sensing that the old bull bettong was about to have his thin hide nailed to the dunny wall.

I have little recollection of just exactly what I did for the rest of this night, but it did involve watching some of Lateline at least. Tony Jones tried in vain to get a straight answer from Opposition Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop on whether her side’s asylum seeker policy was a copy of the Pacific Solution of the Howard Government. Note that Tony Jones scores highly on mongrel quotient, like his mentor Kerry the Great, but Tony bothers even less with niceties than Mr O’Brien. Undoubtedly Silver Toes and Kezza are really nice blokes, unlike the mongrels they find themselves interviewing, and I surmise that they must psyche themselves into mongrel mode prior to certain interviews, a kind of meditation to call forth their inner mongrel. Now forgive me my sweet Leigh Sales, but she can do this a bit also when the occasion might call for it (Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon is still in counselling after his encounter with Leigh last week, and experts hold hopes that he’ll be back to normal before Christmas… 2010), but my darling Ali Moore finds it harder.

I skipped having my walk, given that I was so weary, the second night in a row to miss my constitutional. I think I hit the sack around three o’clock, but I didn’t sleep well.

+paytontedwithlove+

ROUBAIX: Paris-Roubaix cobble won by Payton L. Inkletter for being the 1st Malvern Star to finish: “Nobbled, I hobbled on: if I can’t, then vegemite!”

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

12^th April 2009:

Sunday: I had a lot of difficulty falling asleep, and hardly had I when the alabaster dragon woke me, informing me it was half eleven. I dragged myself up, and before much else, almost in my birthday suit, I did a cowboy watering of a couple of my prize clumps of bamboo, already having dropped a thousand leaves under the onslaught of a hot dry easterly wind. This first half of April has been many degrees Celsius above average here in Perth, and dry, and a tad weird, which, I understand, is the meteorologically correct term.

Back inside, the race was on to beautify myself, teeth, shower, titivate, and then not only had the wrinklies already arrived, they being Pa pree and Umple Dais, but they were fairly quickly followed by The Babies Ink&Peggletter. What ensued was a showering of said Babies, Umples, and Pa pree with chocolate and chocolate wannabes such as carob, then a delicious cold meal put on by Missus InklesI’llbecookingformyownfuneralwake, with the desserts brought up in the rear (doesn’t that sound terrible) by Baby Inkletter: two tasty cheesecakes. Baby Peggletter showed us the portrait of Baby Inkletter he painted in two hours early last week, and it was beautiful, almost breathtaking. If I could paint like that I don’t think I’d be wasting my time here writing about it. We played a board game called ‘Cathedral’ not long before The Babies left, and it was good fun and not as easy as it might have looked.

I returned to the cot about five to try to sleep, which again took ages, and then, by arrangement, the garrulous gecko woke me just before seven, and I pleaded with her to let me skip My Beloved and sleep on, until Compass. So I missed Sixty Minutes and Dateline; meanwhile, the chalcedony chameleon had driven Pa pree back home not long after I hit the sack. Now, Compass: last week I commented that I wondered whether British theologian Robert Beckford in his ‘The Real Jesus: The Hidden Story of Jesus’ would have the guts to tell us his opinion of the nature of Jesus, and unless I missed something, he didn’t, ending on a noble enough note to the effect that it’s more important to follow his life than believe a particular dogma concerning his nature. In the absence of the transcript and no recording of it, I might have this a bit mashed up, but assuming I’m roughly correct, this still places Beckford in a safe place, not showing his hand regarding his belief about Jesus’ nature. Anyhow, that’s his prerogative; the two part program was an informative look at a variety of theories regarding Jesus’ life, and his nature is what it is regardless of any of our beliefs about it. And if high precision of doctrine, at this stage of our universe career, is essential, we’re all stuffed! For what it’s worth, I’ll show my hand regarding my belief of Jesus’ nature (and I may be wrong): I believe he was a divine being, a Creator Son, who chose to have a bestowal on our planet; I believe he had existed for an incredible, by our standards, length of time before he incarnated as a human baby; I don’t believe in the immaculate conception-virgin birth doctrine; I believe that he put down his life at the Crucifixion and took it up again at the Resurrection shortly thereafter; I don’t accept the atonement doctrine; I believe he lives now on a more advanced sphere (literally a physical world); I believe that he has phenomenal creator powers; I don’t believe he is the Infinite Son (second person of the Trinity-Godhead), rather a son of that Son; I believe he will revisit our planet in person, but it might be far longer away than popularly believed in Christian circles; I could go on…

I got interested in the Paris-Roubaix on SBS, and watched maybe half of it, including returning to watch the Belgian Tom Boonen win the race for the third time. My word the French live in far more beautiful country than perhaps they deserve! No, that’s not fair Payton, but my how beautiful the countryside of that place is, and if you want a breathtaking view of it, watch the French cycling races. During it I timidly entered the rapacious reptile’s boudoir and massaged her with the Homedics percussion massager, which gadget I now strongly believe Missus Inkleoutforsix would rescue from a burning building ahead of me.

I did some reinstalling of the Adobe 9 Reader, then went for a late walk, minus the iRiver T10 mp3 player due to the wind, on this warm dry easterly wind riven night. My word some of my fellow humans who share this part of the Antipodes with me are messy bastards! I regularly pick up rubbish from the park behind the shops and fill several shopping bags each night, sometimes within metres of the three bins around the park. The other night some brain trusts had taken several dozen bottles OUT of one bin, and smashed them all about in the white sand of the children’s playground. Tonight in my collecting, a number of beer bottles had been smashed with a muffler from a car into the lawn of the playing field, presumably where these Einsteins will continue to visit most every day to booze and generally entrench themselves as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. What a pity glass wasn’t able to be picked up magnetically. Undoubtedly some will stick in their mongrel arses, and who’s complaining?

I got back and made myself a cocoa so strong it would make the Campbell Barracks SAS boys faint with fear at the mere thought of imbibing it, MINUS sweetener, and tackled this diary. My head feels strange, and I hasten to add ahead of the certain guffaws, stranger than usual. Still the devil easterlies are wreaking their mischief outside. And it has just gone five, with the first hints of dawn but an hour away…

+paytontedwithlove+