It’s almost Scotch O’Clock, comrades.

This weekend, obviously, I am going (I am going) where streams of whiskey are flowing.

What are you all up to?

I don’t know if many of you know this, but I spent the first twenty years of my life in Townsville, North Queensland. My family is still up there, and I’ve recently, reluctantly returned from a midwinter visit. Is was 26 degrees when I was jumping on the plane.

Anyway, the wisdom some hold to in the North is that everyone “down south” is soft, spoiled and pretty much kidding themselves. That includes Brisbane, and particularly the semi-rural hinterlands surrounding the capital, where would-be bushmen who wouldn’t know a day’s work if it bit them on the arse sometimes live.

Special contempt is reserved for the owners of inferior motor vehicles. And is it any wonder? Why would you waste your time tinkering away in a shed, making a car out of bits of corrugated iron, araldite and pencil shavings, when you could go out there, earn an honest crust and get yourself a REAL man’s car?

Imagine you are a husky fellow of simple tastes and modest abilities. Imagine that, until now, you’ve been a long way back in the queue to the throne, but that suddenly the whole line of succession has been catastrophically blown up, leaving you as the heir apparent.

Where would you turn to find a precedent for your frightening situation? Could there perhaps be a work of cinematic art that might provide a way for you to understand your predicament?

Joe Hockey: The King Ralph of Australian politics.

After a hectic five days, guess what I’m doing this weekend? There’s a clue in this photograph.

The truth about fishing

Anyone else doing anything awesome?

I’m sick of certain sneering leftists on this website making fun of Joe Hockey. I think you’re all just afraid that his commonsense approach to the nation’s finances is starting to get through to people.

Yesterday in the Canberra Times, he blew the lid off a loopy socialist scheme to destroy all fun in Australia, forthwith.

The Government may also… increase the price of cigarettes by $2.50 a packet and draught beer by 15c.

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey said it was ”not good to see that beer and ciggies are going up” in the budget

No, Joe, it’s not good. I have just worked out on the back of a coaster that these hideous Stalinist imposts will add $270 a week to my entertainment expenses. How does this help anyone? Swan might be drunk on power, but what are the rest of us supposed to do for kicks when a schooner costs as much as a Hyundai Getz?

Anyway, as of this weekend, I’m starting to think this boy has what it takes to go all the way. Go, Joe.

Pernicious critics have recently been casting doubt on Big Joe Hockey’s ability to garner media coverage. Well put this in your crack pipe and smoke it, leftists.

The shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, has three cats – Bridge-It, so-called because it was rescued from the Harbour Bridge, Bluey, rescued from a giant python in Far North Queensland, and Shirley, rescued from a dogs’ home.

“Bluey is affectionate and he is my man,” Mr Hockey said. “The other two are stand-offish but Bluey hangs out and you can have a conversation with him.

“I’ve also got a fish tank in my office. I had a very large fish called Big Kim. I felt as long as he was alive we had a chance of winning elections and, sadly, it’s still alive. I used to threaten my staff when I was away from Parliament that if Big Kim died so, too, might they.”

That’s right – only halfway down a lazy SMH puff-piece about politicians’ pets, Joe gets six sentences of clear air on the vital topic of stray cats and humorously-named goldfish. And best of all, it doesn’t even look like they rang Wayne Swan.

Watch out Ruddy – Joe’s coming.

As opposition Treasury spokesman, the ongoing Global Financial Crisis has meant that Joe Hockey’s profile and relevance are beefier than ever before. So this is a good time to get a quick update on everything Big Joe has been up to in recent weeks.

That is all.

Except for Ant Rogenous, who spent the day making treasonous foodstuffs, the country has spent the weekend getting misty-eyed over ANZAC day.

That’s fine and everything, but the reality is that many, many more Australians have died at work than in any war, and that globally the numbers of people dying in their workplace is staggering. Many more Australian families will have lost loved ones to the dangers of ordinary jobs than to the guns of the Taliban.

In 2006-2007 alone, 270 people died while in paid employment in Australia, according to the Australian Safety and Compensation Council. The ILO estimates the annual global figure for work-related deaths to be upwards of two million. As they put it:

One death every fifteen seconds. Six thousand a day. Work kills more people than wars. And it injures and mutilates, too. Almost 270 million accidents are recorded each year.

Apart from death at work, there are countless injuries, maimings, and episodes of psychological distress. Often, these are caused because employers have failed to ensure that workplaces are safe. Anyone who counts themselves a leftist should be concerned with making sure that a safe workplace is available to every single worker, and getting angry when it isn’t.

Tomorrow is Worker’s Memorial Day, an international day of commemoration for those who have died at work. Unlike ANZAC day, it’s not a national(ist) celebration, but one that’s marked all over the world.

There are many events happening in Australia, many at lunch time. Try to get to one if you can, or at least pause for a moment’s thought.

Brisbane
9.30am Rally and March from Queens Park (Cnr George, Mary and William Street, City) to Parliament. ACTU President Sharan Burrow to address rally at Parliament.
Details: Tania Reeves QCU: (07) 3846 2468

Melbourne
10.30am Victorian Trades Hall Council will hold a joint ceremony with Industrial Deaths, Support and Advocacy Inc. at Argyle Square,(off Lygon St) Construction unions will also hold a rally and stop work at 10am on the steps of Trades Hall.
Details: VTHC (03) 9659 3511

Sydney
One minute silence across NSW building sites (various times) and an event at 12.30pm at Reflection Park, Little Pier St, Darling Harbour opposite Sydney
Entertainment Centre.
Details: Claire Johnston, Unions NSW, (02) 9881 9112

Canberra
10am Memorial Service 189 Flemington Road Mitchell (Parking off Lysaght Street)
Details: Unions ACT (02) 6247 7844

Perth
9.30am Gathering at the Perth Esplanade, opposite the Bell Tower, March to Solidarity Park, Parliament House for official commemoration.
Details: CFMEU (08) 9221 1055

Adelaide
10am Ecumenical Church Service at Baptist Church, 65 Flinders Street, Adelaide
11am CFMEU rally, Victoria Park.
Details: SA Unions (08) 8279 2222

Tasmania
11am Memorial Service in main auditorium, Baha’i Centre of Learning 1 Tasman Highway, (behind ABC Hobart)
Details: Susan Wallace, Unions Tas, (03) 62349553

Darwin
A minutes silence in workplaces – May Day 1 May.
Details Union NT: Melinda Simpson (08) 89 415712

If you’ve had as shithouse a week as me – and I know that some of you have – you may be interested in viewing the following.

It’s Friday, GrodsFriends. Embrace apathy. Down schooners. Get pissed, destroy. Remember, contra Steve Fielding – alcohol IS a solution.

The rest will wait until Monday, and by then it might not seem that important. Time to clear your minds and diaries of everything except R-O-C-K, mofos.

Growing up in regional Queensland in the 1980s meant watching locally produced commercial television, some of which must count among the most execrable ever broadcast. Also, watching local television meant being subjected to what amounted to a round-the-clock brainwashing campaign on behalf of Castlemaine Perkins. By my recollection, there was a plug for Fourex every 4.2 minutes, most of which included the only celebrities Queensland had at the time (other than Jackie McDonald): sportsmen.

What with the hoo-ha about the State election, a friend reminded me of the existence of this abomination. Since I saw it about 5000 times in 1985, it’s only taken one viewing to ensure that I can’t rinse the sounds or images from my mind. I thought I’d share the pain with GrodsReaders.

NB

1. The heady blend of alcohol and retro-styled homeroticism.

2. Thommo’s mullet.

3. When they say that there’s been an 80s fashion revival, they’re lying. That is 80s fashion, and you don’t see hipsters getting around in anything that comes even close.

If I can’t get it out of my head soon, I’m calling Dr Nitschke.

(This post is part of GrodsCorp’s continuing series on the 2009 Queensland state election. The opening argument from our LNP commentator is here.)

I played cricket against Peter Beattie once. It was at an ALP fundraiser in an unprepossessing park in Brisbane’s southern suburbs. In the post-barbecue hit-out, I was doing well with the bat when Beattie, then Opposition Leader, arrived for a back-slapping cameo. Walking onto the field, grinning, he grabbed a ball with jests from an ancient branchie. Off a very short run, still grinning, he served up an utterly pedestrian, short, slow delivery at me. But I failed to move my feet, swung and missed, and lost my off stump. I was out, knocked off my game by his idiotic, mesmerising grin. Anna Bligh was there too, I think, but I don’t remember much about what she was doing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Stocky, stocky, stocky Joe Hockey,

So hearty, so jolly, so hale!

The journey from Sunrise to Shadow is over,

Now for the voyage to FAIL.

In a startling and disturbing display of musical groupthink, a wide range of waministas, leftards and feminazis are putting aside their “well-known” antisemitism (sic.) to attend various iterations of the Leonard Cohen roadshow this weekend.

Lennie pictured after winning Canadian National Lottery

The depressoleftosphere includes, at last count, Toaf, Tobias and myself. (GrodsCorp’s own Bron has told me she can’t afford it, which is even more depressing when you think about it). Representing the radical centre will be Mr. Andrew Bartlett.

I’ll be going to the Bowral show, which is in a vineyard. Unconfirmed speculation suggests that Toaf and I may well convene over a chardonnay at some point to compare notes and Al Gore tattoos.

Three questions:

1. Anyone else going?
2. Anyone planning to post reviews and pix?
3. What is it with teh left and maudlin, Canadian, septuagenarian, zen-Buddhist singer-songwriters?

Just an update on everybody’s favourite cartoon conservatives, the Young Liberals. When last we heard from them, they were being laughed out of the Senate at the conclusion of their “lecturers are leftards” campaign. Now, they’re doing their best to ensure that nobody under the age of 30 ever votes for the Liberal Party again.

THE Young Liberals are proposing nine months of compulsory national service for all young Australians, to be completed before age 24.

Young Liberal president Noel McCoy said the aim was to provide a sizeable low-cost workforce that would help to offset the effects of the financial crisis.

At the same time he said it would help instil a work ethic and sense of national pride in young people.

Areas suffering from chronic inter-generational welfare dependence would benefit from having people returning to their communities having acquired broader experience, skills, discipline and values.

“We’re a big believer in a hand up, not a handout, and this is a very practical way of achieving that,” he said.

Yep, welfare dependence and unemployment can be solved by universal, state-sponsored indentured servitude. Also, string enough cliches together and you never know, the innattentive might just mistake it for an argument. But wait, there’s more:

Mr McCoy said under the proposal students would not be able to graduate from university without a certificate of completion of national service.

“There are a number of national and social benefits,” he said. “It would help lessen the potential youth unemployment crisis we are facing as a result of the global financial crisis.

“It would also provide a social benefit by developing a deep appreciation of Australian society and its traditions. It is a good way of integrating young Australians of all backgrounds and socio-economic stata [sic.] in a shared experience of serving their country.

Making the posession of actual qualifications dependent on some utterly useless and wholly symbolic period of military service is bound to be good for the skills shortage, and the economy as a whole.

This is the kind of stuff you used to hear in RSLs or at Wilson Tuckey’s place, until even they realised that (a) there are currently no realistic external military threats to Australia, that (b) reluctant conscripts might well be a liability in a highly specialised, technology-intensive defence force, and that (c) on the whole, schemes like this constitute a huge waste of everybody’s time.

I’m glad the Young Liberals are still managing to party like it’s 1949. But I wonder what Malcolm Turnbull thinks…

Unlike some bloggers, I do not consider myself “as educated as it is possible to be“. That’s why I was looking today for some avenues to self-improvement on the Illawarra WEA’s site today.  Naturally, I headed straight for the “Barista” section, thinking that even a “silvertail leftist” could afford to save a few quid by brewing at home with the Gaggia.  But even I was shocked to find a course offered under the title of “Latte Art”. The description alone may well get wingnuts burning torches outside the gates of  ”Illawarra Innovation Campus” and hurling stones at its curvelinear glass facade:

What defines a good coffee in today’s cafe society? Of course you need to have good espressos and silky, textured milk but it doesn’t stop here. To achieve excellence in your lattes, put some art on top! This class is designed to teach participants the various techniques involved in creating the perfect latte art. A pre-requisite is that participants must have completed the Coffee Appreciation course or are experienced in creating a consistent crema

So readers, in the interests of my political education and morning alertness, should I enrol?  What about my lack of prerequisites? And should I  keep a course journal for GrodsCorp? The decision is yours.