Rants, Screams and other mutterings!

June 2005

Research Bloody research, blessed is research because there will come a day when everyone who writes must do research. It is the great leveler. Even those illustrious high fliers who have initials like SK and TC and even (hush, speak reverently) ??? have to do research. Just imagine kiddies, you creep furtively into the local library to research the sex life of the rare yumandubrah grey moth and there sitting quietly, with the very reference you want is ???? ??????. Fill in your own blanks - who ever you'd like to wake up in the morning and find you've become - or perhaps you'd just like his/her cheque book - no matter. Now of course it's highly likey that these grand pooh bahs of the literary word employ some poor slavering fan, at a pittance, to do the research for them, but, it still has to be done- Oh joy - they're human afterall - their words - complete with correct punctuation and spelling - don't come from some great voice in the sky. They too have to work at it! I am content.

Government Websites I am thoroughly convinced that government websites are the bureaucrat's (damn I have trouble spelling that word) latest torture to bring us poor voters and other ordinary folk down to our knees. So you want to try to find something on a government website - GOOD LUCK!! The index of all government sites is incomprehensible, a logical layout, if there is one, is not designed in a methodology we mere mortals can understand. Government websites are designed like government offices. By the time you find what you want you're to damn exhausted to ask for it

Search Engines - Oogle and Numbat and Yea bloody Ha or what ever they call themselves. Have you ever tried to use them? You put in your search word, or words, something like - Senate Enquiries and Royal Commissions - and what you get back is a hundred bloody thousand hits - All references to Senate, Enquiries, Royal and bloody Commissions. It's quite easy to get over half a million hits. Hmmm you think. I need to narrow down my search, so you go to advanced search and it boggles your mind with all the options. So you got to HELP. Help? Help my arse. First you must have a degree in computer geek speek to use it and the one thing you are looking for will be conveniently buried under a ton of incomprehensible gibberish that you have no hope of deciphering. Haven't these people ever heard of plain bloody English?

Media People I've spent 62 years on this earth and the only time I've ever been bothered by these people was when some bloody nong tried to stuff a microphone up my left nostril, just after I'd returned from Vietnam. I sat him on his arse. Very satisfying. Since then media people have ignored me with a profound dedication. Good. Suddenly someone from some damn literary journal I've never heard of wants to know my opinion on the third century poetry of Lord Nerd of Mugwump. HUH? Who? The look of shock and horror that I didn't have a clue who the bloody hell they were raving about branded me unconditionally as a literary whore. I should worry he asked as he counted off the zeros on his royalty cheque. So I'm a literary whore? Eat yer heart out!!

Weather Yep, weather, that stuff that can be wet, cold, hot, dry and all stages in between. Weather can be the blonde barbie doll or the terribly ernest "mature" male on straight after the news at night. They quack on about fronts, and charts and systems and averages until you are so mesmerised by the bullshit that you don't remember what the hell they did say about tomorrow, they probably had it wrong anyway. It annoys me because on the rare days I fight my way out of my garret, and wistfuly look for the sun, I invaribly get bloody rained on. Because blonde bloody barbie or ernest bloody Ernest doesn't bloody know what they are talking about!!!

Hangers On Now, for me this is a very new phenonema. Some bloody fool (me) innocently mentioned to another bloody fool that I'd scored a book contract. The other bloody fool mentioned this to a third bloody fool and you can guess the rest. I live in a small town where celebrity means you've won the weekly chook raffle at the pub. So far I've been invited to five speaking engagements, three school lectures, two women's group addresses, two service club dinners, one historical society bash, one football club brawl and the local boy scouts. The local boy scouts being the only ones who've offered to pay for any expenses.

Repudiation - All forms of abuse, flaming, axe attacks and rasberry blowing. - All those wishing to rip my head off should please form an orderly queue to the left. However be warned. I've been sneared at and abused by real experts. Do you really think you're good enough to rate with them? If you are misguided enough to believe you do please direct all insults to my email address. Two things though. don't bother to correct my spelling or grammar - I'm quite capable of fucking up the English language without your help. - Number two? don't bother to send anonymous emails. My name and photo is on this site. If you haven't got the guts to put your name to your insult - then don't bother to email me - you don't rate worth a rats arse. On the other hand if your insults are black, barbed and innovative I just might post them on a page of this site with your byline - SEE TAUNTS!