And it wasn't even Revenge of My Little Pony

It was my big sister's birthday yesterday. Showing impeccable taste, the freshly-turned-seven year old and the four and eleven twelfths year old gave her the box set of Frontline. If you don't know it, it is an Australian comedy that satirised TV current affairs programs and reporting.

And fifteen years after it was made I reckon it remains one of the best pieces of tele on the planet. Especially if you've worked in a newsroom.



If you want to watch the Parts 2 and 3, they're on Youtube along with more Frontline.

Sigh.

I can see there's going to be a lot of time wasted in my day. I shall blame it on my neices.

The early bird slams the tequilla worm.

Yesterday I was working on a job that involved spending the day in an area where there are a whole bunch of bars. What we hadn't bargained on was one of those bars still doing a roaring trade at 8.30 a.m on a Sunday morning.

Drunk people are so much more offensive when you're sober and it's daylight.

There's nought queer as folk.

Someone in Mexico Googled 'giraffes in high heels'.

I know this because they ended up here.

It's almost as scary as someone in Australia Googling 'wombat sphincter', but not quite.

People are weird.

When you get home this evening, go straight to your dunny and appreciate it....

....cause there's 660 million people in India who don't have the luxury of one. (And that's a conservative estimate, a quick surf around the net has put the number up around 720 million but, hey, whose going to quibble over a mere 80 million?)

Come on India, it doesn't seem like you have a cash flow problem: you have the third largest military force in the world, you invest Herculean amounts of cash into nuclear weapons and sending a rocket to the moon but you won't build dunnies for your people?

According to this morning's paper ( I would put in the link but can't find the article online) the situation has got so bad that families who are looking to marry off their daughters (don't get me started) are only considering men suitable if their assets include a toilet.

Hey India, I hate to state the obvious, but how about sharing the love and start building some loos for your people? At least it would make you stop scrapping with Pakistan for a while.

And on a completely unrelated topic I am going to share with you a photo I found yesterday when I was looking for a photo of Donatella for yesterday's post. It haunted me so much, I thought I should share.

I would say I was sorry for subjecting you to that, but there's not much point as we all know I'd be lying.

Heh.

One of the beauties of having a small brain is that you remain blissfully ignorant to how ridiculous your theories actually are.

I've been working with food for the last few days (hey, at least it doesn't talk back) and I've developed a new theory.

I've decided vegetables and humans are pretty similar. You cook a vegetable until it's at its nutritional best and that is when its colour the most vibrant it will ever be.

Exhibit A.

Doesn't that look like a colour you might want an item of clothing in?

'Yes I love this dress, but do you have it in just-blanched-broccoli?'

However if you insist on cooking broccoli beyond this point it doesn't cut the mustard any more and it looks as about appetising as its nutritional value.

Exhibit B.

I'm sorry, but only its mother could love that.

And humans are the same when it comes to suntans. I am talking white people here, generally a gentle dust of a tan enhances a person's look. How many times have you heard people talking about someone back from time away, looking good because they have a tan? A little bit of vitamin D is good for us.

Exhibit C.

I mean, what's wrong with that? A man with a tan, and I'd be putting my hand up and saying that his tan enhances his look.

But if, like vegetables, you take it a bridge too far and tan too much, the body bites back, seeks revenge and just makes you look plain old fugly.

Exhibit D.

It's like her body is shrieking, 'Hey Donatella, stop smearing me with the ugly paint oh and, could I have something to eat?'

Or maybe Donatella knows something we don't and just doesn't want anyone to eat her.

Anyway, that's my theory for the week, next I shall start work on Relativity, or has somebody already done that?

Dead spy

So dashing old Xavier Maniguet has been killed in a plane crash in the French Alps.

Can't imagine the New Zealand Government is sending flowers.

What can you do in four hours?

When I lived in Tokyo, to get to one of my jobs it involved a one and a half hour commute each way and three trains. And the rail system being as efficient as it was, if you missed one train, you could catch the next one that would be running about forty seconds later.

And I thought that was a bit of a schlep, however it pales to utter insignificance to a commute I heard about last week. A woman I was working with, used to drive two hours each way work.

She started work at 8 a.m.

She finished at 6p.m.

I told her that I believed there should have been a statue built in honour of her dedication to her job.

And that was before she told me she did it for nine years - and that it was considered quite normal behaviour in England.

I think the only thing that would be normal for me to do for four hours a day would be breathing.
Hah, crazy poms, no longer shall I grumble about my twenty minute amble to work into the heart of the city during a howling southerly.