don't give me that Turnbullshit...

It takes a lot to outrage me !!!
You can annoy me by simply putting the kitchen knives back in their block with the cutting edge face-down…but it takes a special kind of cunt to outrage me. Malcolm Turnbull may just be that special kind of cunt ??
Now, I have a great deal of respect for Turnbull. He is after all an old Sydney Grammar boy; Shit…he even topped the year on several occasions (whereas I only managed the feat once). He’s a Rhodes Scholar, a brilliant legal advocate, a journalist, a published author and a successful businessman. In short, he’s a very, very clever man.
And now he’s a rising star in Federal politics, which apparently gives him licence to treat me like a fool.
Recently, Turnbull was promoted to the cabinet position of Minister for the newly created portfolio of Environment and Water Resources. Essentially, I suspect to put him in direct opposition to Peter Garrett, the Shadow Minister for Renewable Power and Passion. Good move too; pitting the brilliant Turnbull against the highly credible Garrett should be a wonderful political contest in the run-up to the next election.
Which is why I’m so bitterly disappointed at being ‘handled’ by Turnbull in his maiden press conference yesterday !!!
Standing coatless (presumably to give the impression he was about to roll up his sleeves and get to work immediately) in front of a watery Centennial Park backdrop (presumably to give the further impression that such bountiful liquidity was the inevitable result of this hard work, Turnbull had the following to say:

"There's a lot of work to be done on water."

Now, given Turnbull’s mighty opinion of himself, I wouldn’t be surprised if he meant walking on it then perhaps turning it into wine…but maybe there was more to his grand scheme ??

"The focus in rural areas has to be changing irrigation use, using it more efficiently and restructuring water plans.”

That seems reasonable, considering present usage and water structuring combined with a generational drought has left our dams critically short of wet stuff to drink. Keep going, Mal…

“In urban Australia efficiency is also important but we have to do more to address supply.”

OK…now I understand. It was a supply issue; why couldn’t anyone else see that ?? All we had to do was get some more water.

“That's been made difficult by a lack of investment by the state governments."

Yeah…that figures; it was bound to be the fault of those state Labor fuckers. Still, if anyone can undo the damage they’ve done…it’s you, Mal. What’s your plan…you know…going forward…in a pro-active sense…in terms of providing a world-class solution to this ongoing problem ??

"We should do everything we can but in a manner that's cost-effective."

I couldn’t agree more. Water IS very useful at times but not at the expense of a steady 10% annual increase in market-cap and shareholder dividends.

You utter, utter cunt…

and the geek shall inherit the earth...

The new work-venture is going swimmingly; better than I could have hoped for really however it’s always good to have options. Yesterday was a dull day in the markets, so I spent a good deal of time looking for a Plan B…career-wise.
The problem is, like most 45 year olds, I've discovered that I'm woefully unqualified for most of the good jobs out there in the real world. Of course, when I speak of good jobs, I refer to those which provide the maximum amount of remuneration for a minimum of actual work.
With nothing specific in mind, I recalled how some of my friends had moved into IT, earning obscene sums of money for their minimal output. Not only that but almost to a man they claimed they had bluffed their way into the industry and learned everything they now know on the job.
Well, if I’ve gleaned anything from 15 years in the money-market, I do know how to tell whopping, great porky-pies, so I logged onto the IT section of Seek and went straight to the 'Jobs Vacant' page.
"...$350,000pa.....Senior Applications Developer.....blah, blah, blah....experienced in ASP, HTML, DHTML, WAP........."
Huh??
"...$300,000 plus.....Senior Web Master.....blah, blah, blah......will possess extensive knowledge of SQL server and OLE, DB, ADO, COM/DCOM......."
Huh??
"...$250,000 + bonus.....Software Development Manager......blah, blah, blah.....familiar with PSB, AVS, COBOL, PVC, DILDO......"
Huh??
What the fuck were they talking about??
I'd never felt so acronym-deficient in my entire life.
I thought that perhaps IT was just a bit too slick a game for this practicing Luddite, when suddenly I spotted a potential wormhole into the information/communication revolution.
"...$150,000 base....Dynamic start-up company looking for Java guru....."
Well, I might not know much about lengthy strings of capital letters...but I sure can make a good cup of Java.
Suspiciously good money for a coffee-boy, though.
Then again, compared to what the top guys are getting paid, I figured it was all relative.
Sure, it's conceivable they would pay $150,000 for good coffee; I bet they drink gallons of the stuff in that super-charged atmosphere. I would just have to start at the bottom, learn everything there was to know, then steadily climb the corporate ladder to unimaginable wealth.
I rang the number, spent 5 minutes navigating the company's fearsome 'phone tree' ("..For general enquiries, press 1, followed by the hash, followed by your 43-digit pin #..."), eventually locating the AVP in charge of IT/HR.
In keeping with my perception that this was a brash, confidence-driven industry, I dispensed with the pleasantries and immediately proceeded to state a case.

"I want to be your new Java guru!!"
"OK. Do you have any experience with C++ ??"
(Huh…C++…what the fuck...must be industry jargon?? Of course....double strength caffeine or something. These guys probably pull 20 hour days....they'd need really strong coffee...not just the ordinary stuff the rest of us plebs were living off.....I'll just bluff this cunt.)
"Oh yes, C++......I've been using that for years."
"Great. And when are you able start??"

Too easy…

don't attack your heart and it won't attack you...

Well I’m back…and I’m not happy about it.
Ten days lying on the sand at Sunshine Beach, soaking up the beneficial UV radiation (sans block-out), re-acquainting myself with the art of riding a long board and taking long peeks at the topless chicks from behind my sunglasses has steeled my resolve to become retired as soon as possible.
I will never, ever, ever understand those people who say ‘Oh no…I could never give up working; I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.’ Me…I could give up tomorrow and trade it all for a shack on the beach. Well, maybe not a shack in the strict sense of the word…but certainly for an architect-designed dream-house perched on the headland, 180-degree ocean views, satellite TV with a 300cm projector-screen, infinity pool, ducted air-conditioning and a dune-buggy in the garage.
Like the one I’ve reluctantly just left to come back here and resume my fulfilling career for…
Anyway…mustn’t complain; I’m feeling marvellous for now, all tanned-up, blacker than some of my World Vision Spades and still at least two lousy work days away from wiping the holiday smile from my temporarily crease-ridden face.
AND…and…I’ve lost 4kgs as a result of the punishing exercise programme (a 90-minute walk on the beach every morning) initiated after catching a reflected glimpse of myself in a shop-window on the first day.
Which brings me to the point of this piece; in my entire life, or what has so far passed for it, I have NEVER felt the supposed high that some athletes claim they get from doing exercise.
NEVER !!!
Not once.
Not even close.
I sometimes get a craving for a cigarette during exercise but I never get the dopamine-rush that so many gym-junkies sometimes wank on about.
I walked briskly on the sand every morning, sometimes on hard sand, sometimes on soft sand…never less than 90 minutes, once for nearly 2 hours. I felt pain, cramp, nausea, headache and a weird burning sensation as my soft-tissue disintegrated under the workload BUT NOT ONCE did I experience anything even remotely resembling pleasure from the ordeal.
Sure, I slept like a baby each night and it’s great to lose a notch on my belt but it would be some stretch of the imagination to say that I enjoyed any of it.
And I have a pretty good imagination…

welcome to TWG...don't fucking steal anything while I'm gone...

Thank you for visiting The Whine Guide.
This blog is currently unattended and will continue to be so until Oct 9th.
Your posts are important to me, as they continually reinforce my belief in the intellectual/emotional gulf between us.
So please have a look around, leave a message after the beep and I’ll be sure to insult you in the most revolting, insensitive and personal manner when I return.
In the meantime…enjoy the peace and quiet…

one man's meat is another man's greener grass...

Unlike many of you whining, bitching, moaning minimum-wage-slaves…I actually love my job.
I’m a foreign exchange dealer/broker; I buy and sell very large sums of money against other currencies in the hope they appreciate/depreciate by small amounts, thereby securing a profit for yours truly. Then there are the losing trades; shit happens, eh…if it was that easy, even you cabbages could be doing it.
Anyway, this morning I was going through the pre-work morning ritual at home…strong coffee, cigarette, financial news from Europe/US, another cigarette…
Suddenly the Bloomberg Financial Channel froze, as the digital cable channels do from time to time, although with Bloomberg FC it’s sometimes 5 minutes before you notice any difference…as was the case today.
When the freeze finally dawned on me I flipped over to FoxSports1 and took in a little of the overnight golf from the UK. I love golf; love playing it, love watching it and like every golf-tragic out there I dream of playing it professionally.
All those beautifully manicured fairways, the towering trees, the sculpted waterways …the chance to be a fat white guy dressed like a skinny black pimp for the day.
It’s all so, so good.
Literally, it’s a walk in the park interrupted by the occasional act of hitting a small ball with a stick and picking up your wheelbarrow full of cash at the end.
All so, so good.
But then I got to wondering; does golf become just another tedious job to these guys after a while ?? Do professional golfers ever stand there waiting to tee off and think ‘Fuck this shit…I wish I could sit in an office for 10 hours a day and trade currencies for a living…’

great moments in history...

I had some people over for dinner last Saturday night and despite the filthy weather, we threw a slab of pork onto the BBQ, then retired to the lounge room to watch The Swans smash The Weagles.
The French doors from the balcony were open and within minutes the aroma of singed pig came wafting across our olfactory paths, reaffirming my belief that the BBQ is truly symbolic of man’s most basic right to bare tongs and burn mammals. A vat of ’00 Peter Lehmann Eight Songs Shiraz later and I was waxing lyrical about what I suspect must have been one of the Top 3 moments in human history; the day the first caveman put a piece of raw pig onto an open flame.
One of the popular theories suggests that about 125,000 years ago, Homo Erectus was simply using fire as a means of warming himself/warding off predators. At the time, whatever meat made up part of his diet was consumed raw; this was not only rather disgusting but also very fucking difficult to chew/digest. Anyway, it’s thought that perhaps Gronk and his fellow prototype Carpaccio-gobblers may have thrown a few hunks of their raw meat into the fire as part of a primitive offering to what they considered some sort of benevolent, protective god.
Whatever the reason, can you imagine the sheer, utter delight as the raw pork (I’m making the assumption here…) spluttered and spattered and sizzled in the glowing embers ?? Imagine smelling pork cooking for the first time…it would have been heavenly. Imagine retrieving the crusty brown morsels from the flames, all covered in juicy, moist crackling. Imagine putting the first piece of hot roast pork in your gob, taking a bite and wondering why you hadn’t thought of doing this 300,000 years earlier when you first discovered fire.
Doh…

way to go, henry...

Sorry people...there is/was nothing even remotely funny about 9/11. It was the most dramatic/traumatic event I have ever witnessed or ever hope to witness again.
However, I just couldn't resist this masterpiece of insensitivity/irony, as reported in a piece carrried by The SMH today.
Here is an exact, although concise, reprint of one man's magnificent blunder.


"THE September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States was the most televised event in history. For several days, long after the four hijacked planes had met their ends, television channels across the globe suspended normal programming to bring round-the-clock coverage. Such was the intensity and relentlessness of it that psychologists warned of the potential trauma that exposure to it might cause.
But there was one type of image from that day that was deemed too horrific for public consumption, and remains disturbing on the eve of the fifth anniversary of September 11. It relates to the several hundred people - the exact number is not known and never will be - who jumped or fell from the blasted-out windows of the World Trade Centre.
The American-born filmmaker Henry Singer remembers seeing them as he watched coverage of the attacks from an office in London. "On a shocking day, it was clearly the most shocking part for me and I imagine it would have been for anyone else who was watching television that day," he says. "It was something you couldn't get out of your mind, that people were falling from the sky."
When Britain's Channel 4 approached Singer to make a documentary about those who jumped from the World Trade Centre buildings he was initially reticent.
"My overall instinct," he recalls, "was this photograph brings up so many important issues about the power of stills photography, American culture, aversion to deal with issues around mortality, memory and how we process events. I thought this is going to be a very hard film but this is an unusual opportunity, so I decided to take the leap."

Just magnificent...

a toast to the japanese...

As many of you are aware, I spent quite a long time living in Japan.
Generally I like the Japanese a lot however last week I encountered the lowest form of their culture; the Japanese tour group.
I was staying at The Grand Hyatt in Singapore, which serves a spectacular buffet breakfast every morning, when the trouble began.
You see, the hotel had one of those fabulous conveyor-belt toasters. You load the bread onto the rack, then while it journeys through the machinery, you have time to toddle off to the 'egg-station' and get a couple of freshly-cooked sunny-side-ups and a kilo of bacon from the 'pig-tray' before wandering back to claim your toast.
That's the theory anyway.
However, when I returned to the Toastmaster 5000, my toast had vanished. I peered hopefully into the 'out-basket' for another thirty seconds however in my heart I knew it was hopeless.
I looked around and saw a Japanese chick from a tour group with what was undoubtedly my toast, about two metres away ladling some scrambled egg onto her ill-gotten goodies.
Devastated by the thought of my congealing eggs/bacon but realistic about the chances of recovering my stolen toast, I reloaded with fresh bread, then ventured off to the juice-bar for an orange/apple/pineapple smoothie, only to return and find my toast had been pilfered again.
I was now livid; a quick glance down the counter and I'd identified the thief as yet another Japanese chick from the tour group.
The problem is that the average Tour Jap is so used to having everything done for them; they automatically assume that either there is someone invisibly loading bread into the toaster on their behalf, or that the toaster is a bit magical.
Anyway, I wasn’t really quite up for a round of ‘Listen you dopey, four-foot, slanty-eyed dolphin-basher…you have to put the fucking bread IN the fucking toaster before you can take the fucking toast OUT !!!’.
So, instead I slammed my now hardened eggs/bacon down on a table and stormed off to the hotel pharmacy; where I purchased a small bottle of ‘Stop N Grow’.
You know the stuff; that rancid shit you put on your nails to stop nibbling them.
Returning to the breakfast room, I grabbed six slices of bread, took them over to my table and seasoned them liberally with ‘Stop N Grow’.
I then loaded all six into the magic toaster and sat back to see what happened.
Sure enough, every last piece was hoovered by one or more of the marauding tour Japs.
I hope they choked on it…

i wish i could take you all with me...

Gone fuckin' !!!
Back in a week...

use the right word...

There are some beautiful languages in the world, so it’s with great regret that I can only lay claim to speaking one of them fluently: English (I have a reasonable grasp of Japanese, though not enough to fool a native-speaker over the age of five.)
Each language seems to have a nuance of its own, as though specifically created for one particular aspect of life.
For instance, if one has to speak of love, what better language to do it in than French?? Practically everything sounds more romantic when spoken in French. What trout’s heart wouldn’t melt at the phrase ‘Fous le camps et morte !!!’ ?? So much classier than ‘Fuck off and die !!!’.
On the other hand, Italian is marvellous for angry confrontations, such as road rage incidents or domestic disputes. All those religiously inspired exhortations and all that arm-waving makes for utterly magnificent theatre. You don’t have to be Pavarotti to know that ‘Christo mia…vaffanculo !!!’ doesn’t mean ‘Would you like Pasrmesan with that…’
German would be my choice for discussing things of a mechanically technical nature due to its crisp, heartless pronunciation, combined with an ability to make one splendid word such as ‘honkenbrakenscreecherknockengepingersputtergefixer’ to describe someone who repairs cars.
When one talks of tragedy, other languages can only dream of conveying a sense of it with the sheer misery of Russian.
Haggling over the price of something should be done in Chinese.
English is perfect for addressing your servants.
Showing confusion or a lack of understanding is best done in Indian.
And all mindless threats of violence or bloody revenge should ALWAYS be issued in Arabic…

but what does IT all mean...

So, you’re after a highly paid job in a prestigious, skilled industry but completely lacking in any of the necessary qualifications??
Don’t despair; the industry you’re looking for just might be IT??
IT is just one example of a small group of two-lettered-acronyms that make up what I call ‘The Black Art Professions’. Like its shadowy cousins, PR and HR, IT boasts a huge cast of personnel with seemingly no specific education, and little or no previous relevant employment experience, doing a variety of vague, meaningless tasks in return for wheelbarrows full of cash.
No one except themselves claims to know exactly what these strange people do, and you’d be no clearer after interrogating them on the subject, or reading their mysterious, title-heavy business cards. They are like ninja; some good, some bad, willing to work for any employer prepared to amply reward them for their little-understood talents.
Perhaps I can inspire you with this illustration of how simple it would be to turn yourself into an IT engineer ??
The other day, I was busily working away on my network PC, when the keyboard jammed, the mouse locked up and the screen froze solid with the image of a naked woman in an improbable position, a large dildo embedded firmly in her ass.
I had unknowingly stumbled onto a pornographic website, after accidentally typing www.filthydirtbagswhotakeitineveryorifice.com into my address bar, when I meant to type www.semigovbonds.org.au, and then unwittingly hit the ‘download/save’ button while I was trying to use the escape key….
Anyway, for reasons I don’t even pretend to understand (although I suspect cyber-karma may have something to do with it), my PC ceased to function. All the usual diagnostic keys failed to respond to my deft touch, the system completely ignored repeated, simultaneous bashings of the Control/Alt/Delete buttons with my fists, and the defiant screen continued to display the image of the naked-lady-acrobat, despite my attempts to cave in the monitor with a 5-iron.
Utterly defeated, I made the inevitable, shameful call to our technical department, explained the problem and was told it was a ‘Code Blue’; response time from the IT SWAT team was expected to be under two minutes.
Ninety seconds later, the Senior-Applications-Officer-Currently-On-Call (SAO-COC) arrived at my work-space carrying a clipboard containing a blank ‘Incident Report’ form. He wore jeans, a striped body-fitting rayon shirt I suspect belongs to his 12 year old brother, and cream-coloured, square-toed slip-ons made from some kind of hemp product. I gave him the usual $20 and he threw the ‘IR’ form in the recycle bin.
He stared at the still-frozen image willing it to disappear but the pornographic screen-saver stared right back. He tapped the ‘Esc’ button; nothing. He held down the ‘On/Off’ button for 5 seconds, the IT equivalent of administering a mega-dose of antibiotics; still nothing.
With a knowing frown and nod of the head he reached over and pulled the power plug out of the wall; that did the trick.
Then he plugged it back in, forcing the system to re-boot itself.
I was back working on my PC within a minute and our IT genius disappeared back into the office ether like a phantom…
We pay this cunt $250,000 per year...

WARNING: this post has been recycled...

The weekend vote by the residents of Toowoomba, rejecting a plan to add treated sewage to the town's water supply, has forced me to recycle this post for the betterment of all mankind.


Apparently, Sydneysiders are not prepared to drink recycled sewage, even if it is 'treated to drinking water standard and safe', the Utilities Minister, Frank Sartor said recently as he defended plans for a desalination plant. Mr Sartor based his claim on a telephone survey of 600 people by UMR Research on behalf of the NSW State Government. This was strangely at odds with the results of an online SMH poll on the subject, to which more than 10,000 people responded.
The Greens predictably accused the Government of asking loaded questions in the survey to get the results it wanted.
Judge for yourself.


"Hello, Fingers...this is Sally from UMR Research calling on behalf of the NSW State Government. Do you have a couple of minutes to answer a short survey on Sydney's drinking water?”
"Yes, sure...water is an important issue. How can I help you?”
"We were just wondering if you’d like to drink recycled sewage, including toilet water that is treated to drinking-water quality.”
"I'd rather not."
"May I ask why?”
"Well, because it's sewage."
"Would you feel better about the idea if we told you the drinking quality of our recycled sewage would be assured by the NSW Government, which as you know is also responsible for the state’s magnificent rail network?”
“You mean the same government that keeps redefining the word ‘punctual’, so that a train running 2 hours late is deemed to be on time?”
“Yes.”
“Then no, I wouldn’t, unless you are prepared to redefine the word ‘better’ so that it means much, much worse.”
"What would you say if we told you this approach is taken throughout Europe, where recycled sewage is put back into major rivers and then used further downstream to meet the next city's drinking-water requirements?”
"I would say that if I had to live there, it would be as far upstream as was Europeanly possible."
"Would it sway your opinion if we re-branded and re-marketed our recycled sewage under the name…‘Renewable Water’?”
"No, not even if you called it 'Sparkling Effluescence' and promised to supply it using fluted, cut-crystal pipes."
"So it’s not necessarily the term 'recycled sewage' that causes you concern?”
"No, it's the contents of the 'recycled sewage' that causes me concern."
“Are you aware of the successful campaign in Singapore, which is now adding 1% recycled sewage into its reservoirs, and would you be more open to drinking our recycled sewage if it was mixed with rainwater from Warragamba Dam?"
“You mean like a sewage shandy?”
“Precisely.”
“What sort of mix is the government considering?”
“Well, given the current level of Warragamba Dam, we’d be looking to add 94% recycled sewage to the existing rainwater. Of course this would reduce slightly if we got a good downpour soon.”
“I see.”
"Now, how would you feel about paying a lot more in the future for our recycled sewage than you do presently for fresh, clean drinking water?”
"The same way I feel now about paying a lot more to watch recycled sewage at the movies, than I used to pay to watch fresh, clean ideas."
"And finally, please describe your feelings on the proposal from the following response list: very comfortable, mildly comfortable, mildly uncomfortable or very uncomfortable..."
"Well, if the universe is very big, then I would be very uncomfortable."
"OK. Thanks for your time."
"Cheers."

what a cheap, dirty trick...

I knew it !!!
I fucking well knew it !!!
That hideous anti-smoking advertisement showing the young woman with mouth cancer is a fake; the bastards used special effects, make-up and a prosthetic mouth to create a picture of smoking gone bad.
Now, I’m certainly not going to argue a case in favour of cigarettes; they are disgusting and I realise that with each one I smoke I take liberties with my health. I wish they WERE good for me. If someone could show that smoking cigarettes was actually healthy for me, that the more I smoked the healthier I would get, I would happily puff my way through 300 a day.
That’s how much I enjoy the habit.
Medical fantasy aside however, I’m acutely aware of the seductively dangerous game of Russian roulette I play each time I light up; that’s my choice.
It’s also a choice many of my friends have made over the years, though a significant number have renounced their filthy ways for various reasons.
My point ??
My point is that in the 25 years I’ve been at it, neither I nor anyone I know has ever seen a smoker who has one of those revolting smiles riddled with mouth cancer. Same goes for the gangrenous limbs; I bet those images are actually frostbite victims recently dragged into Everest base camp ??
I’m sure there are cases out there somewhere; awful cases in which the side-effects of cigarette smoking are taken to their most nauseating conclusion…but I still haven’t seen one myself.
Have you…

tough love...

As part of the decision-making process on whether to get a Burmese cat, my lovely ex-girlfriend is letting me ‘adopt’ her two prize-moggies for the upcoming weekend.
She’s also provided a handbook on caring for Burmese cats which I have been reading most assiduously over the past few days.
These cats require a mountain of maintenance as far as I can tell; thrice-weekly brushing of the teeth, daily brushing of the coats, daily playtime, twice-daily feedings, weekly nail-trimming and monthly vinegar baths. And…they must remain indoors at all times apparently to prevent to the risk of getting lost or catching cat-flu from one of the local ferals.
They are the Naomi Campbells of the feline world.
Well, I plan on re-training these pampered pussies while they’re in my care; my ex will thank me if and when she gets them back.
Bright and early Saturday morning, ‘Bollie’ and ‘Merlot’ will be taking a spin on the back of the Vespa; in a milk-crate strapped to the luggage rack. For the 10-minute dash across town they will be without their Cashmere lounge-vests in order to help better acclimatise to the harsh conditions ahead of them. You see, I’ve planned an ‘Orienteering Weekend’ for the two aristocats, whereby I drop them off in Centennial Park and they have 36 hours to find their way back to Cunt Point.
To prevent the possibility of starvation, I will incorporate a food-scavenging programme into their pre-course survival training; before their mission commences they will be shown photos of edible local fauna common to the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. I will also teach them, by holding their pointy little heads in one, the bush-technique of puddle-drinking to avoid dehydration; the good news for them is that heavy rain is forecast for the rest of the week.
The only real danger lies in their heading south from the park instead of north, a route which would take them directly through the dark-heart of Asian-fusion cuisine in the Randwick area…

fuck those germans...

Amongst my many atrocious habits is a steadfast refusal to read most manufacturers’ instruction booklets in any sort of detail. Even when I can be bothered scanning them, the English section is often sandwiched somewhere between the Spanish, Arabic or Serbio-Montenegrin translations, the information contained therein uniformly long-winded, boring, over-technical, under-technical, incomprehensible, childishly insulting, or meant for every model in the product range other than the one I possess.
So far the worst thing that ever happened as a result of my ignoring instructions has been the complete yellowing of my hair whilst trying to add a touch of Drew Barrymore-blonde.
Until recently!
Last week I was attempting to install my new, state-of-the-art, ‘Bosch Clothesmaster 5000’ front-loading washing machine, which is only marginally cheaper than a ‘Mercedes-Benz 190E’ front-wheel drive motor car.
The washer came in a large, Paddington-terrace-sized cardboard box, most of which was taken up by polystyrene packing material. ‘Bosch’ should offer buyers a lifetime supply of washing powder to any customer who can open the box and locate the appliance inside within 2 hours.
Christ knows I couldn’t.
With typical German efficiency, the instructions/warranties for the washing machine came in an equally large box, except there was no packaging material inside; it was all booklets.
There was an historical brochure on the ‘Bosch Company’, detailing its humble beginnings back in 1886 making automatic frankfurter-boilers, to its continuing research into zero-gravity dishwashers for the moon. There was a directory listing every ‘Bosch’ distributor on the planet, complete with phone/fax numbers, addresses, websites, and a photo of each head sales-representative on-site. There was a catalogue containing every ‘Bosch’ appliance currently being offered for sale, accompanied by a 200-page amendment showing which of these products are not currently available. All up, there was enough literature to fill the old library in Alexandria.
Now remember, we’re talking about a washing machine.
It has some hoses, and an electrical power cord; it doesn't require an engineering degree to work out what goes where...
So, I connected the hoses, plugged it in and turned it on. The 600 horse-power, Kevlar/titanium, V-10, super-charged power plant started to turn over, there was a terrible screeching noise, a rending of metal on metal, a violent shaking movement and within 30 seconds it had completely destroyed itself.
When the smoke cleared I started frantically searching through the mountain of booklets in a desperate attempt to discover what had happened.
There were reams of useful tips for what I could or couldn’t do with my new, 200 kg washing machine. These included a handy hint that it was not meant to be used as a floatation device for teaching children to swim, and a warning to seek medical advice if I swallowed it. No one could accuse the ‘Bosch’ legal/technical departments of dereliction of duty in regard to neutralizing any potential law suits.
At the very END of the installation instructions, although handily entitled 'Transportation Instructions' was a brief paragraph on 'TRANSPORT BOLTS', which are things inserted into the washing machine at the ‘Bosch’ factory to secure the stainless-steel drum during transportation. Even had I bothered to read the instructions, I wouldn't have read THESE, as I would have concluded (wrongly, as it happens) that the transportation phase of the operation had finished with the delivery of my boxes. Buried away in this final section was an apocalyptic warning of the consequences of NOT removing these bolts before attempting to use the machine. These consequences apparently included a terrible screeching noise, a rending of metal on metal, violent shaking movements and guaranteed destruction of the entire machine within 30 seconds.
Well, they certainly got that right.
Not the sort of guarantee I had hoped for, but nevertheless an extremely accurate forecast.
I was thinking about my $1500 pile of high-tech scrap-metal this morning, as I was studying the instructions for opening a packet of cigarettes and I came to the conclusion that my life was simply meant to serve as a warning to others...

Nonoxynoxynoxinol-nine please...

After extreme pressure from radical hygienists and with The Department of Health apparently about to shut down my head, I reluctantly dragged myself up to the pharmacy last night.
At 3-00am, under cover of darkness and wearing a disguise, I slipped unnoticed into the 24-hour Soul Pattinson on Oxford St to investigate the range of anti-dandruff shampoos currently available. Specifically, I was looking for something I could display in my magnificent marble/granite shower recess without dying of shame; actual dandruff-curing capability was a very secondary concern.
Not for me the ubiquitous ‘Selsun Blue’ or ‘Head and Shoulders’, both of which, despite the innocent-looking names, positively scream “I have dandruff !!!” to the entire world. I wanted one of those generic-sounding brands; the name cunningly derived from its active ingredient and giving no indication whatsoever of its actual purpose.
You know…like ‘Refloxinol’ or ‘Penazotrene’ or something…
Thrush victims with a rampantly floral dose can happily walk into a pharmacy, yell “Where’s the ‘Diflucan’ ??”, take a case of it home then put it out on the coffee table; only a passing pharmacist or fellow thrush-sufferers would be any the wiser.
Suicidal teenagers need never get the 44-gallon drum of self-loathing that used to accompany the purchase of every 200ml bottle of ‘Clearasil’; these days they can order their ‘Zenmed’, ‘Reversion’ and ‘ProActiv’ from the chemist with the same pride they normally reserve for choosing ‘Jack ‘n Coke’ at the pub.
And as for me…
A very handsome tube of ‘Nizoral’ now stands stylishly on the product-ledge in my bathroom, everything but the name expertly scratched off with a razor-blade.
Spare a thought however for the people whose lives are ravaged by crabs, because from what I could see on the shelf (and I’m not making up a fucking word of this) they are still stuck with ‘Licex’, ‘Nitmix’ and my personal favourite…’LiceBGone’…

perhaps a parrot would look nicer...

Besides a large pile of cash, one of the things I’ve inherited from my family is a dry scalp which manifests itself as a steady, though hardly rabid case of dandruff.
I’ve never been too concerned about it; a few specks of white showing up on the shoulders whenever I wear dark clothing are hardly the end of the world. Christ…your average pillow, after more than a couple of years contains about a kilogram of dead skin cells.
So I’m always a little surprised by the reaction I get from people when they spot the telltale signs of my ‘horrifying’ condition. I’ll be standing around having a chat with someone when they start doing the dandruff mime at me; the raised eyebrow, the glancing at their own shoulder, the grimace then the flicking some imaginary pile of bird-shit off their lapel.
I’m sure they’re just trying to be helpful but it’s highly fucking insulting and totally fucking unnecessary; it makes me feel as though I haven’t washed for a month.
I mention all this because it happened to me last night at dinner; in a fucking restaurant. I was talking to a chick, an old friend as it happens, who rather than hold my gaze during the conversation, kept averting her eyes to my broad, apparently snow-capped shoulders. I knew what she was doing; she tends to do it all the time with me, so I asked her to stop. Not just in this instance but forever…
The way this chick does it, you’d swear some enormous boil had just burst and a swarm of freshly-hatched wasps had emerged from my chest cavity.
Of course she got all defensive, apologising, suggesting that she thought I’d want to know about the gigantic mound of detritus inexorably building up, threatening to cause my fall through the floorboards at any moment.
The most infuriating aspect of all this is that I’ve known this chick for billions of years; she’s a dear friend. I also happen to know that some time back in the 80s, she caught an excellent dose of herpes simplex…the socially acceptable, mostly incurable form which comes and goes, rearing its ugly snout occasionally and leaving its calling card; the cold-sores around the mouth.
And this chick gets them.
I can always tell because when she’s got one, her face is made-up like a fucking rodeo-clown's however I don’t find it necessary to bring attention to her condition; especially in public.
Anyway, since I will probably never rid my friend of her natural impulse to brush the dandruff from my collar, I have decided that the next time she does it, I am going to reach over, grab her lip between my thumb and forefinger and rub the scab, real or imaginary, right off her startled face…

and where are my bloody iggs, woman...

Dear Kiwi Filth,

As you have constantly been reminding me all morning…yes it’s been a wonderful last twelve months for New Zealand.
Not only did the mentally fragile ‘All Blacks’ demolish the world-champion ’Wallabies’ in the Bledisloe Cup, leaving our dreams of rugby domination in tatters, but the ‘Silver Lesbian Ferns’ beat Australia’s ‘Golden Trouts’ to win the Melbourne Commonwealth games gold medal. The high point for the Kiwis came in the tri-nations Rugby League final, when the unbeatable ‘Kangaroos’ were held scoreless and flogged by the ‘Sheep-Shagging Wife-beaters’.
Even the ‘Pacific Peso’ came within five cents of parity with the all-conquering ‘Aussie Dollar’.
So, well done to all you Kiwis; enjoy the moment. You have pulled our pants down for now, but let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture, which is this:
In all other respects, your country is complete rubbish!!
That’s right, bro…Cuntsville.
New Zealand is an insignificant, microscopic speck of dirt that would fit comfortably into a remote corner of north-western Australia without even warranting its own postcode. Topographically speaking, it is suitable only for hosting a British Open golf championship, except that the country falls 200 metres short of what the ‘Royal and Ancient Society’ has deemed necessary to build a full-size course. What miniscule landscape does exist is so inhospitable that even the snakes which used to roam the country have moved on to greener pastures, whilst the climate, cold, wet and windy, is bleak enough to depress a polar bear.
Internationally speaking you are even duller than Switzerland, which at least buried its fangs in your butt a few years ago; despite being thoroughly landlocked, those famous, sea-faring makers of cowbells, chocolates and cuckoo clocks, managed to sail over and swipe the America’s Cup from right under your noses by whitewashing the ‘Black Tragic’ defense syndicate.
Your men folk are best-known for their propensity to sleep with livestock, and your womenfolk’s only claim to fame is that in backpacker destinations the world over…they are the barmaid of choice. Both genders have a congenital, vowel-related speech impediment and you tend to finish all your sentences with an interrogative preposition, eh.
You elected a chick as Prime Minister, which, historically speaking puts you on par with those terminally boring Canadians, who gaze longingly across the Great Lakes and dream of being Americans, in the same way you probably stare and drool over The Tasman and dream of being us?
Militarily, you would be incapable of knocking the froth off a cappuccino. We’d come over there and kick your butts up between your shoulder blades, except that from the looks of most of your countrymen, someone has beaten us to it.
Your country’s biggest commercial export is now furniture removalists.
Finally, your national emblem, the thing that identifies itself instantly as being uniquely representative of New Zealand, is the kiwi; a flightless bird. I’m trying to imagine something more pointless than a bird unable to fly but the only thing that springs immediately to mind is a fish that can’t swim.
OK, I feel better now that I’ve said my piece. I sincerely hope I haven’t offended any of my New Zealand friends with this rant, nor the peoples of any other countries mentioned in an unkind light, although I meant every word I said about Canada…

don't try this at home...

As soon as I got my first digital video camera I was overcome with a terrible desire to make my own porn!
I have a sneaking suspicion that most men in my situation have had the same idea whether they care to admit it or not? Oh sure, it all starts out harmlessly enough; the mandatory beginner clips, camera trained on our girlfriend with one hand whilst giving the directorial ‘more-action’ signal with the other. You try to coax her into saying something interesting, or at least cute but she simply grimaces, stares at the floor and yells ‘take the fucking camera out of my face’. You then progress to making a series of fascinating documentaries about your apartment before committing the ultimate indignity of filming your pet doing something enormously talented.
Deep down though, I really believe most guys want to try making their own blue movie, because let’s face it; we’re filthy animals at the core. The average male will try to find porn within 12 minutes of logging onto the internet for the first time…that’s a known fact…even though my research is predicated entirely on personal experience.
For most men it’s natural to watch it, so why not try and make it?
And I’m not talking about a sly peepshow...luring your unsuspecting girlfriend into the bedroom and secretly taping her undressing or performing a series of ballistically improbable acts on you, oblivious to the camera whirring unseen in the closet. Nor one of those graphically medical, up close and personal clips involving snatch-cam or surround-sound squelching noises.
I mean something artistic; a permanent record, tastefully capturing the bonds of intimacy that exist between a man and his trout.
And for mine, there’s nothing that encompasses this ideal more than a nice, long, slow blowjob. It’s just about the most thoughtful thing a trout can do for her man!
I mentioned this to my girlfriend, who enthusiastically (???) agreed to let me film her in the process of rendering unto Caesar the comfort of her lips. In truth, we both thought it might be a rather exciting experience; one that would enhance our sex life immeasurably (um...not that it needed it).
We chose the classic scenario; I would be seated on a chair and she would assume the position on her knees in front of me. Opting for a side-on camera angle, rather than the trendy point-of-view routine, I set the recording equipment on a tripod, optimized the lighting conditions, grabbed the remote control and took my seat in the director/star’s chair. My girlfriend took up her position on the floor, some preliminary adjustments were made to ensure ‘Mr Wibbly-Wobbly’ was looking his finest and the action began…
Now, I won’t go into details regarding the actual length of the scene; suffice to say that duration was the least of my ultimate worries. Throughout the entire performance, I felt I was managing admirably, whilst my girlfriend expertly ran through her entire repertoire with the sort of uninhibited grace I’d come to expect over the course of our relationship. The finale was predictably spectacular as far as I was concerned; the usual panoply of epileptic spasms and grimaces from me and some dream-like licking of the lips from her.
We could barely contain our mutual excitement at such a great ‘take’.
Hurriedly we raced over to the camera, hooked it up to the PC and downloaded our home-porn-movie…
Now, ever the realist I know in my heart that I’m not a real porn star, but unfortunately, as with most young men I’d been brought up on a steady diet of professional work; you know the stuff I’m talking about…
The girl, suitably sweet-looking with just a hint of naughtiness, suddenly dislocates her jaw like a reticulated python preparing to swallow a giraffe whole and clamps her lips around her partner’s member. And not just any old member either…uh-uh…it’s always the same; a preposterously monumental example of penile super-abundance, seamlessly and somehow impossibly grafted onto the body of a normal male.
This is followed by the obligatory bulging of the eyes, then the cheeks, whereupon the girl commences the act in earnest, a look of fear gradually replaced by one of pure contentment. This is accompanied by an exaggerated, trombone-playing-like flailing of both hands, much lizard-like tongue action and the depositing of several litres of saliva in the crotch region, until the salami-sized appendage is magically removed just in time to erupt all over the happy young lady’s face.
Well, I wasn’t expecting to see anything on that grand a scale, but neither was I prepared for what unfolded on the screen before me.
There was my girlfriend and there was I…in all our glory, re-enacting what I can only describe as the bit in the pre-flight safety demonstration where the hostess shows you how to manually inflate the life-jacket by blowing through the little valve. She was playing the hostess and I was playing the safety-jacket…
OK, maybe I’m being a little harsh on myself?
However…I couldn’t watch more than 20 seconds of this ludicrous pantomime. I suspected the ending, which I’d been looking forward to watching very much, was unlikely to be the ‘naked firewoman fights off high-pressure hose’ scene I had hoped for either?
With a click of the mouse, I consigned our movie to the recycle bin and vowed never to try that sort of thing at home again.
Let this be a warning!!!!
Leave pornography to the professionals.
Or to ‘Honeysmacks’…

i'm not too proud to admit my poo smells...

A (girl) friend of mine recently asked why it is that men read the newspaper in the toilet.
The answer of course is simple; men read in the toilet because it's quiet, peaceful and there are usually no women in there.
I know this because I used to be a man (before I got married).
Every Sunday morning I'd grab the ‘Good Weekend’ supplement, my cigarettes/lighter and lock myself in the bathroom. The light blue tiles were cool under my feet, green pot-plants were thriving in the steamy atmosphere created by the shower and the little picture window afforded both a gentle breeze and pleasant view. It was a very, very nice place to be; tranquility itself.
I'd park myself on the throne, pants around the ankles, magazine spread out on the floor, and light up a cigarette. Then I’d begin reading the articles, cover to cover, whilst very carefully ashing the cigarette between my legs.
This zen-like ambience would invariably be broken by a pounding on the door, my ex-wife wanting to know what I was doing??
"I'm reading the paper."
"I can smell smoke."
"I'm reading the paper and smoking."
"Why are you doing it in there??”
"Because it's quiet."
"Why is the door locked??”
"To stop you coming in."
"Why, what are you really doing??”
"OK, Columbo, you've caught me. I'm having a party in here. All my mates are in here drinking Absinthe off the nipples of hookers that climbed up a rope and through the 30cm square window three stories above the ground."
"Can I come in??”
"Do you need to go to the toilet??”
"No."
"Then, no. You can't come in."
"Why??”
"Because I want some peace and quiet. Now, go away."
"It's just revolting, you sitting there with that awful smell..."
Now…This is where I believe a lot of the confusion seems to lie??
I suspect that most women believe men who spend say 30 minutes reading in the toilet are actively engaged in doo-dooing for the entire time. That whilst flipping the pages over, we are straining and groaning, all manner of evil gases escaping, and that the toilet is inexorably piling up with poo.
In fact, we read for about 29 of those minutes, then we close the paper, do our business, wipe our bottoms, flush the toilet, put the seat back up just to annoy you, wash our hands and leave.
But back to the story…
"No, it doesn't smell in here. Just some cigarette smoke."
"I don't believe you."
"I don't really care."
"Let me in."
"No. Go away."
She'd eventually skulk off somewhere; I'd light another cigarette and return to my reading. After about 30 minutes and a few more cigarettes, I'd do my business and conclude the session.
As soon as the door opened, my ex-wife would brush past me in the doorway, step into the bathroom, take a big breath and say,
"Oh my god, that smells awful. How can you stand it??”
"I can't. That’s why I'm leaving."
"Oh, gross. It stinks."
"Yes, that's why I do it in here, rather than the lounge room."
"Well mine doesn't smell like that."
"No, of course not, my darling. Yours smells like potpourri; I think we should keep it in a display bowl on the coffee table..."