Scheiße Für Brains

All five males creatures in this household are in a very good mood this morning. That's myself, Boris, Baci, Paolo and .........errrm.........and........no don't tell me. it'll come to me in a second. Who am I missing? Ahhhhh yes, the big lump of lard who feeds me............my male staff. That makes five doesn't it? Why are we all so happy? You ask. It's because Anna Ivanovic beat Serena Williams at the Australian Tennis Open. This means we can all ogle Anna for at least one more match. For a human she's pretty stunning don't you think? I reckon she'd even make a pretty good guinea pig sow. She only has two teats, the same as lady guinea pigs for a start, though she could use a bit more hair on her butt and perhaps run around on all fours a bit more often. Still, like I said, not bad for a human and these shortcomings can be overlooked. She's pretty good at wafting the old tennis bat (or whatever it's called) too.

That other chicky babe - the blond Russian one - what's her name? Maria Shovemova? She scares the living bush chocolate out of us guinea pigs with her yelling every time she whacks the ball with her tennis bat. Poor young Baci is a nervous wreck and refuses to come out of his house when she's playing. Honestly, if hitting a tennis ball causes her that much pain surely she ought to give the game up and concentrate on something a little more feminine - like macrame or bingo. Actually bingo would suit her to a tee, there's no way the caller will miss her shout when she gets a line or a full house.

Yes indeed, the thwack of furry balls on a tennis bat is certainly the sound of summer in Australia. The smell of summer, at least at our house is the aroma of ripening mangoes, and mangoes are also the taste of summer for my staff. When they bought the house they inherited about twelve mango trees and when the season is good like this year the house if full of them. They try to give some away to workmates and friends but after a while these work mates and friends tend to avoid my staff because they know they'll have a boxful of ripe mangoes thrust into their arms.
 "Oh God! Here they come again with their bloody mangoes. Quick, get behind the sofa and pretend we're not in." Luckily the flying fox bats, birds and possums eat about half of them before my staff have the chance to pick them, otherwise the mango glut would be twice as bad. As it is they have mangoes for almost every meal. Mango on cereal at breakfast, mango salad, mango curry, mango and chips, mango sandwiches (with or without Vegemite), mango stuffed with mango. One year my female staff made enough mango chutney to feed a small developing nation for a decade. None of  us guinea pigs like the stuff. We just turn our furry little noses up at it and say "Take that crap away and bring us some basil." Of course what my staff hear is "Wheek wheek rumble putt putt wheek", but I think they are finally getting our drift.

And so onto the main topic of this week's post which is, as it often is - a complaint about the stupidity of humans. Our fellow Australians - at least the human ones are always going on about how Australia is the best country in the World. That may well be true, my staff certainly seem to be happy enough living here. So why are we (and by "we" I mean "you") trying to destroy the very thing that makes Australia such a wonderful place? Our wonderful environment and unique wildlife. Everywhere you look bush is being cleared for acres and acres of cheap boxy housing, our cities spread like a wet blob of cow's bush chocolate dropped from the roof of a skyscraper. Perth for example is about a hundred kilometres north to south. Just because we have the space doesn't mean we have to fill it all with concrete. Australia doesn't do "green belts". We are doing our best to kill off the Great Barrier Reef with dredging spoil and fertiliser runoff. The once mighty Murray River has been reduced to such a trickle in places that it makes the average hamster pee look like a tsunami. Where has the water gone? Irrigation that's where. The last government bought back irrigation licenses to try to save the river and it was working, but now the new dumb, greedy government is selling licenses back to irrigators again, just a few for now, but you can bet your bunch of basil that it is the thin end of the wedge and before long the Murray will be back to square one.

Koalas, wombats, bilbys, numbats, platypus and many others are threatened by development and land clearing by farmers and mining companies. Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction on the planet and yet we like to portray ourselves as being clean and green. We treat our wildlife as an inconvenience to be moved on or preferably destroyed. Our flying foxes roost in parkland in towns and cities because their natural habitat has been cleared. Then of course the nearby human residents want the local council to move them on or cull them because of the noise and smell. Naturally the council obliges because they want to be re-elected. Where do the bats go? To another town of course, where they colonise another park because there's no natural habitat left for them, and so it goes on.

We whinge that nations like China and India are causing climate change with their high carbon emissions, yet we Aussies are the highest polluters per capita on earth, and anyway, who do you think is selling all that filthy coal to the Indians and the Chinese anyway. Yep, good old clean, green Australia.

Boris' Bit 

Ich haf asked Herr Billy's staff to be writink ein letter to zat  dumkopf of ein Prime Minister of ours tellink him to be makink stronger protection laws für der umvelt. Sadly Herr Billy's staff say zat it vould be ein total vaste of time because anyvun who sinks zat climate change is ein myth is obviously too much of ein scheiße für brains to verstehen zat vot Australia is doink to der umvelt is wrong.