Posts
Be all that as it may, meanwhile:
'In other news…'
Friday: The big heat, the big dry, on it rolls, there are four month old babies born in Perth
Anyway, a mere 41 celsius was clocked up today, and the legendary toughness of Australia
A happy find was in our letterbox: 'Seduction by Design' had arrived, the second of Gladys Hobson's 'Awakening Love' trilogy.
I prepared for taking Bob swimming, and after taking the usual several hours to get to feeling capable of leaving, I set off for and got to Guildford not long after 3, which Bob, bless his soiled jocks, considered early. We arrived at a moderately busy Swan Aquatic, and although the humidity was low outside, the oven like heat made the indoor pool area like a giant sauna. We finished our time together down at Fish Market Reserve, with a walk along the river bank near dark followed by a cup of tea for Bob, and a cold cup of water for me, due to not being able to face the trauma of drinking anything hot. I was impressed with Bob's self control tonight, for he suggested he leave the crisps I bought him from the vending machine to eat later at home. The river bank had far more people lolling about, fishing, drinking, relaxing, recovering from the oppressive heat of the day past but not yet over.
It was after 8 when I made it home, and The Dear Leader and Missus Inkletter were fed and watered, watching Aunty's 'Sleuth 101'. The devoted Devonshire cream lovingly fed me, and then took The Dear Leader home. We watched 'Hitler's Bodyguard' on SBS, and instead of going for a walk with the shrinking violent, I watched the news on SBS, for the cautious cauldron had been told by her brother, Umple Dais, that he'd heard a police request that locals not walk at night for a while due to two knife point hold ups of local perambulators, within about a half and a whole kilometre of our house in the last couple of nights. I will encourage my wife to resume walking with me at night from tomorrow, for the sake of her health, and play down the problem; typical of all anti-social behaviour, it unduly punishes the majority. In my several years of walking alone after midnight locally I have had perhaps but three or four anxious moments, but a few dozen encounters where confidence carried the day such that anxiety did not arise.
I have a soft spot for Moving Wallpaper, despite its regular moments of over the top crudity, so Aunty won my next half hour, and in fact the half hour after that, and the half hour after that too: The Graham Norton Show had that iconic comedienne talent, Catherine Tate on board for his riotous brand of light relief, but that was after Lateline:
The (Leigh) Sales Graph: I say, that blue and white striped shirt that Ms Sales wore tonight, while being less formal than I think the program calls for, looked so good it more than made up for the rebelliousness it represented. She can look excellent with the most simple and minimalist effects, and tonight's combination, including as it did, (or didn't) but tiny earrings, subtle-effect make-up, and loose flaring hairstyle, was a fine piece of evidence. Her Friday night fight club was with a pair of federalis who front up fairly often, God bless their hair shirts, none less than Lindsay Tanner and Scott Morrison, both crisp, dark suited and white shirted, Mr Morrison going for a light grey tie, Mr Tanner opting for a gold model, his 19 strands of hair meticulously groomed to maximum effect. For the record, Mr Morrison doesn't look so well this year; maybe he is simply overtired.
Although, as mostly is usual, this interview had the pollies as predictable as all get out, nevertheless I enjoyed this stoush, in which Ms Sales gave them each enough rope to hang themselves several times. I'm glad Ms Sales got the boys to speak about Tony Abbott's paid parental leave scheme, which I think is an atrocious policy for several reasons, but I'm not against paid parental leave as such. Good on her for quoting Laura Tingle's assessment of the scheme: 'one of the most profoundly stupid, expensive, badly designed, philosophically incoherent policies recently inflicted on the public'.
And double good on her for tackling Mr Morrison with this rejoinder after one of his defenses of the reasonableness of the impost on big businesses: "OK, well, then if you follow that through logically, well, why don't we get these same big businesses to pay unemployment benefits in a time of economic downturn? Where does the buck stop for making big business carry the can?"
Mr Tanner had the easier task being on the anti side of the Opposition's parental leave scheme, and despite Mr Morrison's valiant attempts to put lipstick on the pig, his efforts failed miserably. The best he could do was call the scheme "fair dinkum", sounding so Sarah Palin.
Anyway, this interview had a few gems of wit, with Mr Morrison generating most of them: 'tiddler taxes'; 'it's a bit like a boa constrictor trying to digest the donkey'; 'everyone's keeping to their lines with the feigned looks of tension' – that one takes the cake tonight: thank you Mr Morrison, it was a corker; 'I hear the Prime Minister today squealing'; 'the Liberal Party's completely gone nuts'; 'this is just madness'.
Anyway, it was a breath of oxygen rich air when finally Stephen Long came on for his brief three minutes of economics glory: The (Stephen) Long and Short of It: as ever, Mr Long was immaculately presented, in a dark blue pinstriped suit, white shirt, and a tiny rectangular motifed ghostly gold tie, his hair quickly retamed after his mother tousled it in the make-up chamber. His wisdom tonight was lavished upon the report of the Examiner Anton R. Valukas, the Chairman of Jenner & Block, in Lehman Brothers Holdings bankruptcy.
What a sad tale it all is, and the problems that this over US$38 million report (which reviewed about 10 million pages) uncovered tragically are not unique by any means to this firm.
Ms Sales was so impressed with her professional soul mate's analysis that she declared that she thinks there could be a movie in all of this, and that Mr Long should write the script and make his fortune. I couldn't agree more. I have to wait another whole week to see the best pairing of journalists share their wit, wisdom, and chemistry: I can hardly wait.
+paytontedwithlove+
No comments:
Post a Comment