Show Business For Ugly People

Yesterday my staff went into a shop called "Gelignite Jack's". I've been in there myself. It's the kind of shop that sells cheap and nasty crap. Anything from garden stakes that snap the moment you try to shove them into the ground to 52 inch Cambodian made plasma TV sets that sell for about $9.95. You get the idea. It's really good quality stuff. My male staff once came home from Gelignite Jack's with a set of "Quality Engineered Precision Screwdrivers" and when he opened the pack it listed the items in "approximate sizes". So much for precision. He was absolutely outraged and threatened to take the screwdrivers back to the shop and give the proprietor a piece of his mind. (Not that he has much to spare to be giving to anyone.) Just two things changed his mind. Firstly, as my female staff pointed out, one can't expect perfection when the set of twelve screwdrivers only cost $1.99, and secondly the lady who owned the store is bigger than he is, and he's six feet two inches and weighs ninety five kilogrammes.

This time they came home from the shop toting a bright orange mini-life raft. That's what it looks like to me at any rate. It's just like one of those inflatable rafts that the Royal Air Force used during World War Two. You know, the type that Squadron Leader Blenkingsop-Smyth might have spent a week in, bobbing up and down in the North Sea with only his prodigious handlebar moustache for company having had his Spitfire shot from under him by the dastardly Hun. However, they told Badger and I that they had bought us a nice cosy bed to nap in if we get tired while we are having our daily exercise on the living room floor. Badger took one look at it and ran wheeking at the top of his voice under Paolo the budgie's cage, where he stayed for half an hour, peering out now and again to check if the nasty thing was still there. I don't think orange is his favourite colour. In the end he was lured into it by with a large bunch of coriander, but even then he just grabbed the coriander and ran with it back to his hiding place under the budgie cage.

As for myself, I am totally indifferent to it. Mostly I just ignore it. As long as it leaves me alone I give it the same courtesy. I did give it a bit of a chew and I have to report that it really didn't taste that good. I wonder if old Squadron Leader Blenkingsop-Smyth had a nibble on his when he got a bit hungry. I hope he resisted the temptation otherwise he might have discovered just how cold and unpleasant a dip in the North Sea can be in February - in August too for that matter. Anyway, I've pooped in it now, so all is well - the life raft/bed I mean, not the North Sea. That's what Squadron Leader Blenkingsop-Smythe would have had to do.

Me in the new life raft with my emergency supplies.

 

 

Well, those of you who have the misfortune to live somewhere other than Australia where it is sunny and warm every day, it never rains, kangaroos drive taxis and supermarkets pay you to take food away, you may have heard that we have changed Prime Minister again, and once again it was without an election. If you don't live in Australia you may be forgiven for not caring. Let's face it, a fair percentage of Aussies couldn't give a handful of rats' bush chocolate either. Anyway, Kevin Rudd is back in charge again three years after Julia Gillard stabbed him in the back and pinched his job.

 

This time it was Kevin wielding the knife and Julia staggering from the party room dripping blood all over the newly polished floor of Parliament House. In a way it's a shame, Julia was doing a pretty good job under very difficult circumstances in a hung parliament. (My male staff says it is a "well hung parliament" because the place is full of huge pricks, but I have no idea what he means.) In any case Julia managed to get a lot of good legislation through, so she must have been a pretty good negotiator. Sadly though, when it came to the general population she had all the communication skills of a cauliflower. Her polling was so bad that had she gone to the general election as leader, the Labor Party would have been able to have their party meetings around a small breakfast table.

 

As far as Kevin Rudd goes, most of his own party can't stand him and yet he is very popular with the public. The polls have already shown a bounce in the Labor Party's support, so much so that they may even have to buy a fold out dinner table to have their meetings around. Well, the good news is that it looks as though Tony "The Mad Monk" Abbott - the leader of the Liberal opposition party is now less certain to get the job of Prime Minister and that can only be a good thing for the dignity of all Australians. For some reason they don't let guinea pigs vote in Australia, (Rodents obviously have the vote in the USA and Britain otherwise George Dubya Bush and David Cameron would never have been elected.) but I could never, ever vote for someone who wears as much Lycra as Tony Abbott.

 

Mr Abbott always has a bread roll and a banana for lunch when out bike riding.

Heaven knows where he keeps it.

 

Anyway, with all the to-ing and fro-ing in parliament these days it's easy to see that there is truth in that old adage. "Politics is just show business for ugly people."

 

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE.

It's all very well putting me in the life raft, but now I'm terrified of getting out of it in case I get my feet wet.