You said what?

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Driving to work this morning I was following a truck that had the above slogan painted on its back.

Somehow it doesn't sit right.

A lot of meat has Salmonella on it, chicken especially, but the meat doesn't know or care. Doesn't seem to harm the meat itself. It is also found in lots of other places, other than meat. Salmonella is very easily killed by cooking.

I assume that they mean that television poisons the brain, but it could mean that it gives it diarrhoea. Why do politicians and journalists spring to mind when I think of mental diarrhoea?

What would have been a better analogy?

Television is to the brain as...

...Novocaine is to a toothache? (tries hard, can do better.)
...tomato ketchup is to any food? (OK, but dull).
...headlights are to a rabbit?

Suggestions?

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All that glitters....

Yesterday, after I had checked for mail (the real stuff that the Postie delivers), I found a leaf stuck to my trousers. I thought nothing of it and put it into the waste paper bin.

Next morning, when I went into the study, the leaf was suspended in mid-air in the middle of the room.

Yes, that's right, it had a spider living inside it.


I put it out in the garden.

I do love the time of year when the leaf-curl spiders are about. I have a salt shaker full of glitter and I go out into the garden and decorate their webs for them.

Looks magical. All sparkly.

But it is gone the next morning. I have visions of the spiders cursing and swearing, running their fingers down each strand of their web to take off the glitter.

Can't really begrudge one setting up home in my study.
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And they want me to pay for web access!

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You will have picked up on my absolute dismay at the moronic articles written in the media nowadays.

The above picture came with the heading:

"Teen's 'Solar Death Ray' can melt concrete".

This is just a bigger version of small boys tormenting ants with a magnifying glass.

Yes, if you use 5800 small mirrors to focus the sun, you will get a pretty hot spot at the focal point. But not a ray, as we know it Toto.

Here is a bigger version, build in France in 1970:



And here's a cute little cooker that you can take on your next camp:


It they expect me to pay for news on line, they will have to research things a little better than just calling a parabolic mirror a 'death-ray'.
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Well, the tanks are full!

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The slipstream of cyclone wassname brought a little rain.

Found ourselves under two inches of water.

No, not a lot by recent standards around Australia but still a novelty when you live on top of a hill.

But the tanks are full.
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Well, that's pretty good!

We are collecting Simon from the airport tonight, rain permitting.

The first row refers to tonight, the second to tomorrow.

Pretty flash, adjusting a 16hr flight by 2 minutes 4hrs before it arrives.
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And another thing...

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Well, the same thing really, different outlet.

Colourful pic but things look black.

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Nah, couldn't be climate change.

Just a natural variation that has a longer cycle than the news archives, I guess.
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Wow, that was lucky!

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Cyclone Yasi heads towards Queensland (you remember, that place that had the floods).

The biggest one on record but then record falling is so passé nowadays.

It is a good thing that climate change is a myth, one could start to worry.
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It's a jungle out there...

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Climbing beans and sweet corn vie for the sky!
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Nice dog. Anyone seen the possum?

Sunday Age, 30/1/2011.
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Cop that!

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A clip from The Age on-line. Had police attacked an elderly woman?

No, but, at a casual glace, you would be forgiven for thinking so.

But the Age is becoming tabloid; we know that. They offered me a deal today "Upgrade your subscription and receive access to the new digital edition wherever you are, 24 hours a day." Well, if this is an example of their on-line journalism, I am not enticed by the offer.

But what is our beloved Australian Broadcasting Corporation, bastion of fine journalism, doing with the same story?


Pigs! As in pig's bum.
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The Gift of the Haggi.

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Robert Burns addresses the haggis:

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak yer place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my airm.

Yes, it is Burn's Night, 2011.

In the absence of a haggis (a dish containing sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally simmered in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours)...

...we had chicken liver paté on oatcakes.

True, Robbie may not have recognised it as his chieftain of the pudding race, but it was quite tasty, none the less.
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That sinking feeling.

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I hate to sat "I told you so" but...*

The Dubai world islands are sinking and the channels are silting up. It had to be a dumb idea from day one. But they have sold some. So the people who buy these things must be even dumber. They sold one to David Beckham, I believe, so my theory remains unchallenged.

At least if you had bought Atlantis you would feel that you were getting your money's worth.

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* No, everyone loves saying I told you so. Me too. The 'but' just rubs it in.
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Hell! I've reconsidered!

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Simon's overseas at the moment and Margaret got the itching to repaint his room. Sure, go for it, say I. Then it blossomed into the laundry and boy's bathroom and hallway as well.

Then Margaret got sick. (Nasty sort of cold going around.)

We were supposed to be going to a bbq with friends today, sipping ales and solving sundry world problems, but had to pull out as Margaret was not well. That then meant that I got dragged into the painting detail as Simon will be home in a fortnight.

Poo.

No good deed goes unpunished.

I wrote some weeks back that, if there were a Hell, it would be filled with an infinite number of fruit trees requiring bird netting to be put on and taken off.

I have reconsidered.

Painting sash windows will be in there as well.

Would have much preferred the bbq.

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But also for the weekend:

I made blood-plum jam
I made chicken liver paté
I made ravioli from scratch (spinach & ricotta, served with burnt butter and sage leaves.)
I made dried blood plums (Like dried apricots only much darker and tangier))
I taught myself to splice loops into 3-strand rope and used that skill to put up a shade cloth.
I tamed bits of the garden, mowed other bits and watered it all.
I found two monster zucchini (zucchini pancakes to dinner soon)
I officially christened all my worms Linda-Wayne; they are hermaphrodites so I needed a hyphenated name.
I sat in the shade and drank some light lager, home brew.

And I semi-painted two sash windows. A few nights to go yet until they are finished.

Amongst other things.
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Oh, super!

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OK, I know it is a low ball to pick on the balding guys with pony tails who run advertising and marketing departments but can anyone tell what what "Very Premium" means?
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