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.