Public Enema Number One

These days life seems to be a carnival of doctors appointments, what with my male staff's blood clots and my female staff's squirmy tummy. Then a couple of weeks ago Badger decided that he's like to learn to fly and the resulting crash landing broke off his two front upper teeth. He was okay for a while and his teeth are growing back nicely, but over the last couple of days he's not eating much, and not pooping much either. The pooping thing is the real worry because he usually fires 'em out of his bottom passage like a little furry gattling gun.

Anyway, my male staff took him back to the vet again just this morning. I declined to accompany them as I am allergic to having baseball bat sized thermometers shoved up my bottom passage. I therefore learned about the events from Badger when he returned with a somewhat bulgy-eyed look about him. While my male staff held him down, the vet - Auntie Cara, aka Doctor Friggin' Doolittle prodded and poked him and even pulled his willy out. He didn't mind that, but objected to having a cotton bud shoved up his bum. This seemed to unclog something as you can imagine, but the smell was so bad that my male staff almost passed out. He said his whole life flashed before his eyes and that it was so boring that he nearly fell asleep. All sorts of strange looking stuff came out with the cotton bud followed by a rat-a-tat-tat of properly formed bush chocolate which landed neatly in my male staff's hand as he supported Badger's butt.

Next Auntie Cara decide to give him an enema - Badger that is, not my male staff, though in truth he probably needs one too. She produced a kidney dish full of brown liquid. Maybe it had already been used a few times. Anyway, she filled a syringe with this stuff and squirted it up Badger's bottom passage. My male staff says he's amazed at just how much brown liquid you can get into a small black and white guinea pig through the back door. Then she dried him off with a clean towel. This whole episode reminds me of a story I overheard my male staff's mad sister telling my male staff. It concerned a friend of hers who for some reason had decided that she needed a series of coffee enemas. That's right - coffee. What a strange way to get your caffeine fix. Mind you, it would certainly wake you up in the mornings, especially if you weren't expecting it.

My male staff's mad sister's friend had been getting repeated infections and her doctor told her that if she must continue giving herself anal capuccinos, she should make sure she cleans the tube that she uses properly to reduce the risk of infection. Well, the infections finally stopped and when she was chatting to my male staff's mad sister she confided that she had taken to cleaning the enema tube by placing it in the dishwasher with the dishes. Male staff's mad sister doesn't go to her friend's house for coffee anymore.

In any case, as far as health goes, prevention of illness is better than the cure. In fact almost anything was better than The Cure - terrible eighties music. Sorry, got distracted for a moment. With this in mind my male staff's mad sister embarked upon a fitness campaign and joined a health club for an exhorbitant amount of money. Her first visit was going well. The gym was crowded, but she was pounding happily away on the treadmill and the flab was falling away and leaving a bigger slick behind her than did the Exxon Valdez. Suddenly she felt as though she urgently needed to pass wind through her bottom passage. We all get that, except the Pope and the Queen obviously, and maybe Julie Andrews. There was very loud music playing so she thought she'd get away with it and let loose a real teeth vibrating rip-snorter. A moment later she could feels two dozen pairs of eyes staring at her in amazement and possibly admiration. At that very same moment she remembered that the loud music was coming from the earphones of her MP3. She hasn't been back.

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE
I'm glad it was my bum that was poorly, not my feet.

Pobblebonk

You might think that being a guinea pig is boring. Let me tell you now, that nothing could be further from the truth. At least as far as living here is concerned. There's the telly, the budgies and my staff to keep me entertained. Then of course there's also my little mate Badger with his cute little round, black butt and his attempts to become the first guinea pig to fly. He reckons if bats can do it, so can he. "What's a bat," he says, "if not just a guinea pig with wings?" So, therein lies his problem. Sadly he doesn't have the imagination to see in his mind's eye how badly a bat would fly without wings. Very badly indeed; in fact a bat without wings flies about as well as a fat guinea pig. So you see life is never dull.

Any spare time I have I spend planning a political agenda for when the CIA Party (Cavies In Australia.) finally wins a seat in parliament. To this end I always listen to Prime Minister's Question Time on the radio. It's fun, you should try it sometime. The Speaker sounds like a school teacher trying to keep an unruly class of brats in order. I've picked up some useful tips from all three of the major parties and have formulated a manifesto accordingly. To help you I have listed the choice of CIA policies below and stated which Australian political party they have come from. (In case you can't guess.) To further help my overseas readers here is where the parties stand in the political spectrum.

The Liberal National Party (LNP) Slightly to the right of Margaret Thatcher. (Out of range of her handbag.)
The Australian Labor Party (ALP)  Slightly to the left of Margaret Thatcher. (Out of range of her handbag.)
The Australian Greens  Slightly to the left of Mary Poppins. (Out of sight of Margaret Thatcher. (It's Safer that way)

The Economy.
(From the LNP) Don't spend any money at all on roads. public transport, ports and other infrastructure. This means that everything falls to bits but you'll have a massive surplus to spend on pork-barrelling in marginal seats when the time comes for seeking re-election.

(From the ALP) 
Spend everything and then borrow huge amounts of extra funds to pay for research into whether or not pobblebonk frogs (Yes, it's a real frog. Google it.) have an innate gluten allergy.

(From the Greens.) 
Who needs an economy when you've got birdies and trees and things. 

Industrial Relations.
(From the LNP)     
Never, ever admit that unions have an important place in society. In fact, ban all unions. Actually, lets get the kids back up the chimneys where they belong. While we're at it we'll allow our biggest donors to buy all the most influential newspapers and radio stations so that they can tell everyone how evil unions are. Wait! We've already done that.

(From the ALP)
Put the workers in charge of everything. Grant everyone a 20% pay increase and ten weeks annual leave.
Except for our personal domestic staff. They will have to suffer the same Dickensian working conditions that the LNP will introduce.

(From the Greens) 
There'll be no need for bosses or unions because we'll have birdies and trees and things.

Defence
(From the LNP)
Our air force (or at least the two jets) will be relocated to Cape York in case Papua New Guinea decides to invade by means of dugout canoes and poison tipped arrows. Our other plane. (The funny little one with the propeller.) will be used to provide MPs' families with scenic flights over Sydney Harbour. The two ships of the Royal Australian Navy will be duct taped together to form an aircraft carrier in case we find an old F111 in a garage sale. Our entire army contingent in Afghanistan will be withdrawn and redeployed in a circle around parliament house in Canberra in case any of those dastardly little dudes from Papua New Guinea get through.

(From the ALP)
Exactly the same as the LNP except we'll pretend it was our idea, unless it all goes pear shaped.

(From the Greens)
As long as we have birdies and trees and things we don't need an army, a navy or an air force.

The Environment
(From the LNP)
It will be compulsory for every household to have an open cut uranium mine in their back yard (or balcony if they live in an apartment). Non-compliance will be punishable with a penalty of being sat on for a full hour by Clive Palmer. Alan Jones will be appointed as the government's chief advisor on climate change. The CSIRO will be outlawed, as will any scientist who gives any credence whatsoever to the possibility that the activities of mankind might be damaging our environment.

(From the ALP) 
The rainforests will be chopped down to make a shelter for the Great Barrier Reef in order to protect it from bleaching. This will provide work for thousands of gay indigenous lumberjacks. Any timber left over will be used to build a bridge from Melbourne to Tasmania. Private uranium mines will be encouraged as long as the finished product is not used within Australia, but sold to responsible nations like North Korea and Iran.

(From the Greens)
Digging holes in the ground will be outlawed unless you are a bilby. Even then you'll have to complete a complex hole digging application form in triplicate to be lodged (in person only) at DODO (Department Of Digging Office.) conveniently located at Mawson's Hut in Antarctica.

Immigration 
(From the LNP)
Refugees will be welcome under the LNP as long as they fulfill certain criterea.
1. They must be white.
2. They must have bucket loads of money.
3. They must be in perfect health.
4. They must be Christian. Wealthy Jews will be admitted provided they can provide proof of circumcision.   (Detached foreskins must be retained for verification purposes.)

(From the ALP)
Ah sod it! Just come on in. Bring a bottle though.

(From the Greens)
Right! Everybody out! Only birdies and trees and things allowed.

So, there we have it. The Cavies In Australia Party get to pick which of the above policies to implement. As you can see, it won't be easy.

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE
Sometimes I stand on my foreskin with my back feet. That's why I keep my toenails trimmed.

Paranoid

Billionaire Aussie mining magnate Clive (The Cane Toad) Palmer is back in the news again. Not that he's ever really been out of it recently. You may remember him from my recent blog post "A Fridge Full of Cane Toads." Here's a link to that. http://pemery.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/fridge-full-of-cane-toads.html

Badger and I saw his toady face on the telly last night. He looks relatively sane, but as soon as he opens his mouth it becomes immediately apparent that he's as mad as a bucket of frogs. According to Clive the CIA and the Australian Greens have teamed up in a conspiracy to undermine (as it were) the Australian mining industry so that American mining companies will get greater access to the Chinese coal market. Now I like a good conspiracy theory as much as any other guinea pig, but the the Greens and the CIA? Here's something even scarier. Tony (Climate Change is Absolute Crap.) Abbott, Australia's opposition leader, and possibly our next Prime Minister agrees with him. It's about as believable as the theory that George Dubya's administration planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks, or that John F Kennedy ordered the killing of Marilyn Munro, or that I pushed Badger off my male staff's lap recently.

There can only be three reason for Tony Abbott siding with Clive on this matter.
1. Tony Abbott is also as mad as a bucket of frogs.
2. He wants to keep onside with one of his party's largest (In more ways than one.) financial supporters.
3. Both of the above. (I think this one is most likely.)

Ah well, enough of this talk of madmen for now. If my male staff sees it he'll think we're talking about him. He's so loopy that he takes life advice from the labels on household products. "Keep away from children" is his favourite. He always tries to follow this excellent advice, especially on planes and in lifts/elevators when the children are holding an icecream. He often takes advice on things he buys in the shop far too literally. Just before Christmas he was admitted to hospital when he followed the advice on a plum pudding packet. "Remove pudding from wrapping and stand in boiling water for thirty minutes" it said.

I must admit to feeling a little paranoid myself lately. Google puts nice little advertisements on my blog. They're supposed to be "appropriate" to the subject matter and of local interest too. However I've noticed a distinct penchant for rodent and pest control and laser hair removal ads (Not by the same company I hasten to add, though it would make for quite an interesting business model.) How are those adverts appropriate for a blog written by an ultra hairy rodent? It's made me feel so uneasy that I've taken to searching my bedding before I go to bed at night in case Badger has hidden an IED (Indecorously Excreted Dropping) in there.

Lastly today I'd like to thank my male staff's mad sister for the term "As mad as a bucket of frogs." Apparently it is the official medical name for her condition, which unfortunately is progressive. The next stage is "More nuts than a squirrels underpants" and she's already been through the "Dafter than Donald Trump's toupe" phase.

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE
If I ever do leave an IED in Billy's bedding it will be a nice squashy one that sticks to his feet.

Badger Sucks

I've known for some time that Badger is a few slices short of a complete cucumber, but he's excelled himself this time by leaping from my male staff's lap onto the tiled (and therefore very hard) floor. It may have escaped your attention, but we guinea pigs are not aerodynamically designed. Badger obviously hadn't noticed that small but rather important detail, and took it into his head to try to become the world's first flying cavy.

As it happens I was mooching about on the floor, chewing furniture and leaving little mounds of bush chocolate hither and thither, as one does. Isn't it funny how when one witnesses a traumatic incident one's brain goes into slow motion? (Though I have to add that my male staff's brain is always in slow motion.) I saw Badger suddenly sprint up my male staff's arm onto his shoulder, and before the big oaf could react Badger had flung himself into the void. I watched for a second has he tried to flap his wings in the same manner that he'd seen Mary the half tame magpie do on numerous occasions when she comes for her meat on the deck. What he failed to realise though, was that guinea pigs don't have wings and this led to a rather comical flailing of stubby little legs as he sailed through the air.

As entertaining as all this was, I suddenly realised that I was in the line of fire. A large black and white guinea pig was heading my way at terminal velocity, his big, round butt rapidly filling my vision as he descended towards me. With a loud "wheek!" that was rather more high pitched and girlie than I'd intended I scampered out of the way and hid in my shoebox as Badger hit the floor face first. He seemed to be okay, so I ventured from the safety of my shoebox and mounted him, as any good friend would. Later my female staff noticed that he kept wiping his mouth with his paw so she had a look but could see no damage. All his teeth seemed to be intact, so she let him go back to eating his carrot. A little later she noticed that he was taking ages to eat a basil leaf. This was most unusual. He usually inhales basil leaves. They barely touch the sides as they go down his throat. On this occasion though, when my female staff inspected the basil leaf it didn't even have a single tooth mark on it. It was wet at the end he'd had in his mouth, but that's all. He'd been sucking it! She picked him up and inspected his teeth again. The top two had gone. He'd either swallowed them or left them embedded in a piece of carrot somewhere. He'd obviously damaged them in his attempted flight and they'd snapped off later. He just had two little white stumps sticking out of his gum.

So, down to the vet he went with my male staff. There he was given pain killing medication and antibiotics. They gave Badger some too. Both were spared the baseball bat sized thermometer up the bottom passage. For some reason its only me that gets that sort of treatment. Come to think of it I must have a look. I think Badger might have stuck a sign on my rear end that says "Please insert a baseball bat sized thermometer here." It's just the sort of thing he'd do. Well, it's just the sort of thing I'd do anyway. The vet - Auntie Cara - AKA Doctor Bloody Doolittle told Badger and my male staff not to worry as his teeth will grow back within about a month. Meanwhile my staff have to keep checking his teeth to make sure they're growing back straight. If they grow crooked he could end up looking like a miniature warthog.

Meanwhile, here in the great state of Queensland we are have an election this Saturday to determine which bunch of idiots gets to ruin peoples lives for the next few years. I know this because from the vantage point of my cage I can see the endless political party broadcasts on the telly. Queensland is an odd state - always has been. Until about twenty years ago it had a terrible (justified) reputation for corruption and unrestricted development. Now it has a terrible (justified) reputation for incompetent government. Now the opinion polls are saying that the Incompetent Party are likely to be kicked out of office and replaced once more with the Corruption Party.  Luckily guinea pigs are not required to vote, but my staff are. Voting in general and state elections is compulsory in Australia, so my staff are in a quandary. Corruption or Incompetence? Maybe in the end they'll opt for the Red Neck Insanity Party for a change, or Bob Katter's Australia Party as Bob Katter himself prefers to call it.

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE
I wish I'd landed on my feet. 

Stress Test

This morning at 4.30 Badger and I emerged from our beds blinking, bleary eyed and wondering why the hell our light had been turned on. We'd been woken in the middle of the night because my female staff had to catch an early train to Brisbane to attend a seminar. Something to do with the health field she works in. I expect it concerned how to mow the grass and keep the field free of weeds. In any case, my male staff shoved our breakfast under our sleepy noses. I told him I'd only just had dinner, but he took no notice, so I hoed in to my breakfast anyway.

Australian trains are interesting because the majority of passengers would have been patients in mental institutions twenty years ago before they closed the institutions down and turfed the patients out on to the streets to eke out livings as taxi drivers and travel agents. Of course the more socially inept and dangerous patients were not simply freed. They were housed together in a large house on a hill by a pretty lake in Canberra called Parliament House. These people don't travel on trains. If they have to go anywhere they are loaded onto planes where they are confined to special compartment at the pointy end and force fed French champagne and fois gras. At least in this way the general travelling public are spared their crazed rantings.

The last time my female staff travelled by train she was handed a page from a "Watchtower" magazine by a nutcase. (See my earlier blog that dealt with this episode.)
http://pemery.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/seven-deadly-sins.html
It is now law in Australia that each train must have at least one nutcase on board. Sometimes it's the driver, but more often than not it's a member of the public who is designated to keep the other passengers entertained with either loud religious ravings or simple threats of violence to innocent people, sometimes both.

Yesterday I took my male staff for his stress test. That was lots of fun. I don't know why he needed a stress test though. What's he got to be stressed about? The surgery had a huge empty waiting room so I could run around the floor depositing little piles of bush chocolate everywhere with no fear of getting myself trodden on.
After a while we were summoned to enter a little room containing what looked like an executioners electric chair. My male staff was told to sit, and I sat on his lap, waiting for the power to be turned on and my lovely fur turned to charcoal. However, all that happened was a Mike Tyson lookalike nurse came and stuck a large needle in my male staff's arm and told him she was injecting him with a radioactive isotope. When my male staff regained consciousness with the help of enthusiastic face slapping by the Mike Tyson lookalike and some slightly less enthusiastic groin biting by yours truly, we were ushered into another room containing a vicious looking exercise bike. My male staff had his chest shaved - Yeeuch! Makes me shudder. He was then wired up with several electrodes which were stuck to his now smooth chest and made to pedal the exercise bike like mad for fifteen minutes.

The doctor said he had to do this so that his now radioactive blood would pump through his heart and show up any defects, but actually I think that there had been a power cut and my male staff's frantic pedalling was the clinic's back up generator. The fact that the lights dimmed slightly every time my male staff slowed down a bit increased my suspicions. Anyway, once the power had been restored they took my male staff off to another room and shoved him into a big machine that hummed and beeped and circled his freshly shaved body. This took a further fifteen minutes, so I took the opportunity to wander about chewing cables and peeing on the floor where the Mike Tyson lookalike might slip on it when she came back to haul my male staff out of the machine. Sadly she stayed on her feet. Just as well really I suppose because if she'd slipped and landed on me I would have looked like one of those horrid tiger trophy rugs with the head still attached.

On Monday I have to go back to the clinic with my male staff to get the results. I like all this medical stuff. It's very educational. I'm learning all sorts of medical terms and their meaning. here's a few that I've picked up.

Heartbeat - A British TV show starring Nick Berry.
Bowel - The letter A, E, I, O and U.
Vein - What most doctors are.
Fecal - A sugary substance with which desserts are made. ie. - Sticky Fecal Pudding.
Dilate - To live longer than your average life expectancy.
Liver - A patient who survives surgery.
Angina - Don't be so disgusting.
Stable - Dead.

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE
The medical term for my feet is Badger's feet.

A Cheap Porn Movie

Last Sunday my staff loaded Badger and I into the car and drove to the beach. They said that the sea air would do us good, Neither of us had visited the beach before and I was astounded at the size of the ocean. Apparently if I'd put Badger on a piece of driftwood and given him a gentle push he would wash up on the shore of Chile. From there it would be just a short walk to Peru where he could meet his relatives. I thought he might enjoy this, so I tempted him onto a large piece of wood with a piece of my basil. (We all have to make sacrifices.) I told him to sit there for the present. Of course he obeyed, thinking that the "present" would be another sprig of my basil.

So while he sat there munching on his basil I joined my staff a short distance away. They were making a sand castle for us, but there was no way I was going to enter that thing. I don't mean to sound ungrateful but my male staff is no Christopher Wren. Actually he's more of a turkey than a wren. So I refused to set foot inside the thing. Just as well as it happens because a sand fly landed on it and the whole thing collapsed. I glared at my staff and trotted back to see how Badger was going. By this time the tide had come in and was lapping gently at his piece of driftwood. Badger was getting a bit impatient, wondering where his present was. I told him it was waiting for him in Peru, turned to make sure my staff weren't watching and shoved his driftwood with my nose. It bobbed merrily out into the little waves, which for a guinea pig were not actually that little.

He hadn't even got as far as Fiji before he started wheeking at the top of his voice. "What's that?" said my female staff, cocking an ear. I don't know how you cock an ear. If you ask me it sounds downright rude, not to mention painful. Don't know how you'd hear anything with one of those in your ear. Nevertheless my female staff turned and looked to see where the wheeking was coming from and she was just in time to see Badger bobbing out towards the horizon where a storm appeared to be brewing.  Now my male staff can't swim. At school he held the record for the fastest depth. So it was my female staff who leapt into action, running down the baking hot sand with more oooh! aaaah! eeeeh! oooh!s than a cheap porn movie.

By the time she reached the water's edge Badger was way out to sea and my female staff had to wade almost knee deep to retrieve him. This brave rescue effort was rapturously applauded by everyone on the beach - that is my male staff. My female staff dried Badger's feet which were slightly damp, with her shirt and set him down in the shade of a the beach umbrella. Now far be it from me to say that Badger is anally retentive, but his idea of a good day at the beach is to spend all day colour coding the grains of sand, and this is what he did for the next hour or so, sparing me the occasional terrifying death stare.

During the car ride home while Badger and I busied ourselves filling the ashtrays with bush chocolate the radio news told us that Australian Treasurer Wayne (Pronounced Woyne in Australia. Especially by the Prime Minister.) Swan had proclaimed that some of Australia's richest business leaders were undermining good public policy by lobbying against certain government initiatives such as the carbon tax. Mr Swan singled out Gina Rinehart, Clive Palmer and Andrew Forrest - all billionaires, as putting self interest before the national interest. Mr Forrest denied having any more influence over public policy than any other citizen of Australia, and to prove it he took a full page advertisement rebutting Mr Swan's claims costing tens of thousands of dollars in a leading newspaper - just as any other ordinary citizen of Australia would have done.  

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE
I got my feet wet and I'm still waiting for my present.

Tamsin the Tree Snake

I was leaning on my cage wall the day before yesterday discussing the works of  Anton Chekhov with Badger. Well, actually we we arguing about whether his guinea pigs would have preferred cucumbers or corn husks. I even went as far as googling Checkhov, but Wikipedia had made a glaring omission and there was no mention of his guinea pigs at all. In fact if you google Chekhov you will find more information on Pavel Chekov who was the Russian officer in the Star Trek series. Isn't that a terrible indictment of human priorities? Anyway, as I was saying, Badger was just demonstrating how he thought a Russian guinea pig would eat a piece of cucumber when we heard a high pitched girlie yelp coming from the direction of the back garden.

It turns out that Tamsin the tree snake had ambushed my male staff again. Tamsin is a pretty green and yellow, one metre long snake who likes to slither about on our deck. She's completely harmless unless you're a frog, which clearly my male staff is not, although he was born in France. Unlike most snakes, who like to get out of the way of clumping great human feet as soon as possible, Tamsin likes to wait until the last moment before shooting of at high speed. She's become an expert at laying very still and then suddenly swishing between people's feet and leaping from the deck onto her favourite tree. This normally results in a girlie yelp from which ever human has been surprised and often a quick dash inside for a change of underwear.

Indeed on this occasion my male staff came stumbling in through the door covered in brown stuff from head to toe, and I thought to myself that Tamsin had really done a good job scaring him this time, but it tuned out to be mud. My male staff had been sawing up fallen branches and Tamsin had leapt from a nearby tree onto the branch that he was working on. This so alarmed my male staff that he dropped the saw and slipped in the mud, falling flat on his back - at least that's his story. It must have given his heart a bit of a workout because yesterday we had to go to a heart specialist. Dr Hetterich was a little surprised when my male staff sat down and pulled a large hairy rodent from under his shirt and placed me on the desk next to the blood pressure monitor. Normally he would have kept me inside his shirt, but with Dr Hetterich being a heart specialist he didn't want to alarm him by having me wriggling and pulsating under his shirt. So I sat on the good doctors desk casually chewing unimportant looking bits of paper while he explained to my male staff that he was going to order more tests. Then as my male staff stood up leave I found Dr Hetterich's laptop computer. Naturally I peed on it. Well, I ask you, who wouldn't? There was a satisfying sizzling sound and a puff of smoke, which I had little time to admire before my male staff snatched me up and stuffed me back into his shirt before leaving the doctor's office with what I thought was unseemly haste. I don't know whether I'll be able to go along to his next appointment.

Still on the subject of health, I saw an article in my cage lining newspaper that said that the British Olympic team doctor is advising British athletes not to shake hands with their opponents for hygiene reasons. He's worried that they might catch something that prevents them from performing at their best. This same doctor is also saying that long distance runners should try not to breath in whilst competing and that all swimmers should wear rubber pants in case one of them piddles in the pool. Also, for safety reasons javelins must be cork tipped, and throwing hammers and shots must be made of polystyrene. The Olympic committee is considering these ideas but have rejected the British team doctor's recommendation that boxers should not be allowed to punch each other.

BADGERS FOOTNOTE
There's not room for Tamsin to slither between my feet.

A Fridge Full of Cane Toads

Who the hell called The Sunshine Coast "The Sunshine Coast"? Whoever it was I intend to take them to court for false advertising.  Rain, rain, rain! Badger and I are as cheesed off as two cheese sandwiches who have a very special reason to be cheesed off. That's how cheesed off we are. Day after day we sit in our cages watching the rain pound against the window. It's okay for you humans, to you three days rain is just three days rain, but when you're a guinea pig there are twelve days piggy days to your one, so for us three days rain is more than a month.  If this keeps up my staff won't be able to get to the shops to buy my food and I'll end up having to eat Badger. Not all at once obviously. It would be rude to eat one's friend all in one sitting. I'd probably just nibble a leg now and again, or perhaps an ear. Just enough to keep me going until the vegetables get through again. Just to clarify that - by "vegetables" I mean my food, not my staff.

Hah! What a hoot! Billionaire Clive Palmer has just been named an "Australian Living Treasure". I was sitting on my female staff's lap chowing down on a particularly long and stringy bit of corn husk when I saw this on the evening news. I nearly wet myself. Fortunately I managed to get my leg out of the way in time and only wet my female staff. Her shorts need a wash anyway so it was nothing to worry about. It was probably quite an agreeably warm sensation on her lap actually . She was eating an apple at the time and nearly choked on it at the news. Fortunately the news didn't have the same effect on her bladder or my male staff would have had to go out to the shed in the rain to fetch the mop.

For those of you lucky enough not to know who Clive Palmer is, he's Austalia's richest man and an Olympic class cane toad impersonator.

Left. Clive Palmer

Right. A cane toad

                                              

The only discernible difference between the two is that the cane toad has one or two scruples is slightly less toxic and is much less egotistical. What on earth is the criteria they use to decide who is a National Living Treasure and who isn't? Clive Palmer owns the Gold Coast United Soccer club here in Australia and he's acted so obnoxiously that they've been kicked out of the league. Rightly so. He signed the contracts and should have obeyed by their rules. Now because of his huge ego the future of the professionals involved with the club are in doubt. Not just the players, but the entire staff, that's dozens, if not scores of people potentially out of a job. He also owns what used to be the Hyatt Regency Coolum Resort here on the so called Sunshine Coast of Queensland. Now he's broken another contract and sacked Hyatt as resort managers. Once again this casts doubt on the jobs of hundreds of resort staff in a part of Queensland where jobs are already scarce.

You may be interested to know that cane toads are a pest species in Australia and people are encouraged to collect them and kill them humanely by putting them in their fridge (That's the human's fridge, not the cane toad's. It's considered inhumane to lock a cane toad in his own fridge.) where the cold sends them to sleep. Then you can finish them off by putting them in the freezer. You will need to double check that you have caught a cane toad, not Clive Palmer though. Hold your suspected toad upside down and shake him. If it is Clive Palmer a whole lot of money will fall out of his pockets. Believe me, you don't want to put Clive Palmer in your fridge. If you do, you can kiss goodbye to that lovely ham you bought yesterday, not to mention that kilo of nice bitey cheddar, the litre tub of mango yogurt, your favourite chocolate, that piece of delicious leftover blueberry cheesecake you've had your eye on since the weekend, the six pack of beer and the bottle of Moet you've been saving for a special occasion. Oh yes, the half tin of dog food's not safe either.

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE
I wouldn't want Clive Palmer to tread on my foot.

Blackmail

Once more my testostricals are under threat.They are hanging by the finest of gossamer threads. Badger and I were doing a photo shoot in the lounge to endorse a friend's newly published book. Our job was to sit one either side of his book surrounded by toy Koalas and an Aussie flag. My friend likes these photos to put on his blog to show that his books are being read in strange parts of the globe, and lets face it you don't get much stranger than Australia. Anyway, the photo shoot was going smoothly and Badger and I were putting on our cutest poses when Badger made the mistake of turning his back to me, thus exposing his big, round, glossy, black butt to me. Well, I ask you. What's a big, butch, sex-starved boar piggy supposed to do? Obviously he had to be mounted, and naturally I obliged. It was Badger's fault - as anyone reasonable person can see.

My male staff had to drop his camera and pull me off Badger's back. His timing was poor however and he received a handful of piggy juice for his trouble. This is the second time that this has happened. The first time I was warned that if it happened again I was destined for a trip to the vet for an appointment with the scalpel of doom. (Here's a link to my blog post that dealt with that last unfortunate incident.) Click on it if you dare.
http://pemery.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/scalpel-of-doom.html

It turns out that my male staff took a photo of the ahem..........incident. Now he's blackmailing me with it. He say's he'll post the photo on Twitter and Facebook if I don't promise to stop mounting Badger. How can I make such a promise? Everytime I see his butt the hormones kick in, and wallop! It's wham bam thank you Badger. But then I got to thinking that maybe I should just let him go ahead and plaster the photo all over the internet. After all, the sex video didn't harm Paris Hilton's career. Hang on! What is Paris Hilton's career? Never mind. My point is that I'm a lot cuter than she is, and much hairy from the evidence that I've seen. Who knows? I might even launch a whole new career for myself as a piggy porn star. No doubt there's a market for that sort of thing.

Even worse than Paris Hilton's sex video was the latest film evidence of the abuse and cruelty to animals in Indonsesian abattoirs. Australia has a large live cattle export trade to Indonesia and other Islamic nations and the Australian government and the cattle industry is supposed to inspect abattoirs to ensure that humane standards are being observed. In Indonesia at least they are not, and sickening footage of totally unnecessary, not to mention cowardly animal cruelty has surfaced from several abattoirs. When the first batch of videos came to light the Australian government closed down the live cattle trade for a few weeks until they were satisfied that the Indonesian abattoirs were complying with humane standards of operation. This closure, not surprisingly, earned them a lot of unpopularity amongst the Australian farming community and much criticism from the political opposition, all of whom said that these were isolated cases, and that the cattle producers should not be financially disadvantaged in such a way. Once again it seemed to be a case of "What's all the fuss about. They're only animals." After a while the live cattle trade resumed and now more disgraceful footage of abuse in an Indonesian abattoir has founds it's way to Australia's commercial packed television sets. Badger and I had to hide our heads in our straw. We couldn't bear to watch it. We haven't had to do that since the last excrutiating series of Australia's Got Talent.

Please don't go thinking that I'm Islam bashing because I'm not. Only a couple of weeks ago more horrible film footage surfaced showing cruelty and abuse in an Australian abattoir. This behaviour needs to be stamped out wherever it occurs. What sort of people have they got working in abattoirs anyway? Are they former torturers from the Pol Pot regime? How can they be so callous and cowardly towards animals that are already stressed and terrified?  It seems to me that if governments and the cattle industry are unable to guarantee the humane treatment of exported cattle, then live exports should be stopped until it can. Sometimes a loss of income is what it takes to focus the attention.

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE
I got some of Billy's piggy juice on my feet.