Stick insects, shopping trolleys and light rail

An interesting day in the Mycroftian world.  The giant stick insect (a picture of one anyway) remains on the local church, encouraging all to worship.  This has to be a good thing, especially if the giant stick insect would strike at those who abandon supermarket shopping trolleys on the streets. Anyone who can think up an innovative and amusing punishment for the pests who are responsible for this, please send in suggestions.....One that has been sent to me is forcing the trolley dumpers to work at a laughably bad company where their boss is a Prong of the ocean going class (that is, very large).  Unfortunately Mycroft knows of no such Prong Sanctuary, though he has at times heard rumours.  One place he has heard of is so bad that you could sell tickets to go and watch the fun, such as in the old days when people paid a few pence to go to Bedlam and spectate.  As an aside, it was probably more edifying than some of what masquerades as 'theatre' nowadays.

 It was a big day for Miss Fluffy, who travelled on the light rail system.    She had a fun time, looking at the scenery moving past the windows.  "Well done the public transport system", she was no doubt saying to herself as the light rail car arrived.

Supermarket shopping trolleys

Is anyone else bemused that the shops that own these stupid shopping trolleys don't put a doorkeeper on the exits to their shops to stop people removing the things?

They appear everywhere on the streets and seem to be so solidly constructed that they will outlast civilisation itself.  The owners (the shops) are so lazy they don't even look for them anymore.  Annoyed citizens have to log on to a website to report the things.  Any shop owner should be able to track the migratory patterns of their trolleys, and go out and pick them up.  That's if they really can't put someone on their door - they seem to have 12 staff supervising the 'self check out' area so there must be someone spare.

I recall when - wait for it - 'Rebel Sport' had an armed guard standing outside the shop.  I was never sure if this was to shoot armed robbers or shoplifters.  Presumably shoplifters, if they were moving slowly enough. An actual armed robber would have disarmed the guard in seconds.  So, instead of an armed guard, what about a trolley attendant?  Of course it's all too hard for the troglodytes in charge of these places...

Worship the stick insect

Good morning to the blog o verse.  Mycroft was concerned this morning, while walking up the local main street, to see what appeared to be a picture of a giant stick insect on the wall of a local church.  This appeared to indicate that the church had been taken over by a new cult which demanded the worship of stick insects.  While this sort of thing would barely raise an eyebrow in Sydney, as I walked closer I saw I was mistaken.

The picture is in fact the crown of thorns and the poster was for Easter.  Mycroft of course does not poke fun at such things.

That the worship of a cult of giant stick insects had taken off in Sydney's inner west would have been a more fascinating story to report.  One can't have everything.

If anyone intends to start a cult of worshipping stick insects, preferably giant ones, please let Mycroft know.  Though I must admit if anyone is game to admit to worshipping stick insects of any size that is clearly worthy of a blog entry.

The word on the street

It’s a fascinating experience here on the street.  Trying to find a coffee shop that doesn’t disrupt the Mycroftian sense of peace.  Or rather where the patrons don’t annoy me.  The one I’m in now has people yelling at each other to make sure everyone sees them.  One person in here has an actual steel supermarket shopping trolley, which I presume will end up dumped on the street outside her house.  At least it won’t be in the coffee shop then. 

Anyway, now that the friend has moved off they don’t need to shout at each other in exaggerated ‘dahling’ accents from a range of approximately 15 cm.  It is an improvement from the last café where stressed executives ran up and done whacking everyone in the vicinity with their satchels.  They were worse at this than school children.  Some of the school children, for their part, were all having ciggies in the local park.  Winfield Blue or Marlboro?  Who can say?

Anyway, no doubt the executives will be heading off to some meeting or other.  To discuss high intellectual theory which is actually utter nonsense.  A friend of mine worked in a management consulting firm at one time, we can’t use their real name here so we will call them ‘The Workhouse’.  In fact nothing about this story relates to any real firm Mycroft has ever known personally. 

The Workhouse was a funny place, my friend said, mostly because of the distance between management perceptions of themselves and what they were actually like.  One of the senior managers was apparently called ‘Spanner’ because he was such a tool. My friend said that he thought he was a great guy.  Sadly, to show the distance between perception and reality (what he and his fellow managers might have called the ‘delta’) he was in fact a complete prong.  

Miss Fluffy out and about

Here we see Miss Fluffy tripping along in the direction of home.

For some reason, Miss Fluffy can be a little slow on the outward journey.  Once her little nose turns for home she then sets a cracking pace.  Perhaps on this occasion she was excited to get home to see the booking for Legally Blonde - The Musical though unfortunately she won't be able to go to The Star to see this production.....

Now Miss Fluffy is helping to watch the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton version of The Taming of the Shrew.  I recall watching this in the late 1970s and it is quite fun to watch even now.  Though one suspects Richard Burton was not always acting when he plays the hard drinking, roistering Petruchio on screen.  The production has not dated and may indeed be the signature screen adaptation of this play.    

A standard week in New South Wales

Greetings readers.  It seems that all is as usual in New South Wales this week.  The NSW Police keep the streets safe by booking cyclists for not wearing helmets on a cycleway.  Is there really no more pressing law enforcement issue right now?

On TV in NSW, the 'Excess Baggage' TV show has been in the Southern Highlands.  I watched every show this week and have to say it was all a bit limp.  Pretty dull TV, though not as dull as going to the opera and watching boring, misogynist, rubbish (AKA Cosi).  The most entertaining part is listening to the contestants mangle the English language.  For example, one contestant is complaining about her team mate being lazy.  She says: "He's trying to get out of anything except working in this competition."  So one presumes he's not trying to get out of working in the competition?  Spare us.

Elsewhere in the world, the Americans have invented a robot jellyfish.  I wonder if we can get a few of those in NSW (roaming the streets and jumping out in front of cyclists not wearing helmets).

Cosi fan tutte

Hello all,

Mycroft has been off to the opera again.  This time it was to see Cosi fan tutte.  At the Sydney Opera House.  I have not seen this before and I have to say I was disappointed.  It did not seem to justify the rather sucking up calls of "Bravo" etc from what must have been an easy to please crowd.

According to the program blurb, the production is 'framed' by a wedding 'ritual'.  I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.  Usually, people refer to a wedding ceremony, not a 'ritual'. That makes it sound like some sort of sacrifice.  Nonsense.  As to framing the production, what this seemed to mean was that someone dressed as a bride and someone dressed as a groom had to sit on the left and right of the stage and watch the opera.  I'm not sure how they tolerate sitting through this boring, pretentious rubbish night after night.  They must need counselling.  My advice is that if you want to watch something for three and a half hours, try watching paint dry, it will be more exciting.

Taxation

It was once said that "Taxation without representation is tyranny".  Had a bit to do with the American Revolution, I believe.  A great campaign to study, for those of you who are military history buffs.

I was thinking about taxation, having floated the idea of a CRAP Tax in my last posting.  Even if such a tax does not get up there are many other worthy taxes to consider.  Tax could be payable for such everyday activities as mobile phone usage while driving.  Simply set up a detection point on major roads, and whenever a handset moves through the detection zone, the owner is taxed.  Forget road safety, let us generate some revenue.

This leads to the broader issue that the government could build a 'Star Wars' style 'death star' to hover around making people do all sorts of things.  This would of course be expensive and dangerous, but once perfected (in 10,000 years or so) it would be a fabulous means of social control.  A death star could stop people mugging others for credit card details (allegedly for charities) on city streets.  It could make the trains run on time (OK, I made that up).  It could reduce the number of bugs in summer.  What a program.  One wonders if the 'Star Wars' 'Death Star' was really called that.  Would the Galactic Emperor have named it after his dad, perhaps?  Or for security, just given it a number (eg: the FLOGBAG 666) so it would not stand out from all the other Imperial Battle Cruisers.  The Mysterons, I must say, would have known what to do.  Revealed their plans, then cocked all of them up, that's what.  Good alien menaces are hard to find.

Hen nights and postings

Good evening readers in the blog-o-verse.  Some of Mycroft's readership is concerned about the inordinate attention paid to the logistics of manufacturing and distributing giant inflatable penises.  Mycroft Snooks is able to respond to these concerns and unequivocally state that he has no intention of entering into the manufacture and distribution of such items.

Let it be said that Mycroft holds the manufacture and distribution of giant inflatable penises to be an activity solely within the preserve of governments.  It has to be admitted that such activity would be a less harmful endeavour than what governments do get up to a lot of the time.  Almost certainly it would be cheaper than what they usually do.  They could even tax this activity: the Carrying Rubber Accessory Program Tax, or the 'CRAP Tax' for short.  Mycroft sees this activity getting up soon.

Giant inflatable penises

Good morning readers.  Some have asked how Mycroft can be so sure that the Hen parties he observed were carrying inflatable penises.  The thrust of the question (boom boom) seemed to be that it was possible the giant replica penises were in fact not inflatable, but solid or indeed a hard non inflatable shell.  At first I thought my readers had spent way too long thinking about this and was inclined to insist that the Hen night props were clearly inflatable.  However, I soon realised that the matter needed to be addressed.

I suspect that the considerations for Hen night props are:
1. The item must be able to be transported
2. The item must be 'shocking'
3. The item must relate in some way to penises
4. The item must be noticeable

All the above considerations dictate that the ideal Hen night prop must be large (in order to be noticed, and to shock) yet light in weight in order to permit mobility.  As the item must also relate to penises in some way, a large yet mobile (or portable) fake penis is thus the item of choice.  An item with a hard shell which would not collapse would be expensive to manufacture, package, transport and store in a retail supply chain.  A solid object would be impossibly heavy as well.  So thus we conclude that the giant penises were inflatable.

Mycroft now stands by for questions regarding whether a proper market survey has been done.  Perhaps next week.

Reading

At the moment Mycroft is reading 'Red Zone Baghdad My War in Iraq' by Marcus Fielding.  This is an interesting study of one person's war as a member of the Australian Army.  The perspective is different from many recent books about conflicts around the world and is definitely worth a look.

Otherwise Mycroft has been enjoying some fine autumn weather.  Unfortunately Sydney did not have a great summer so the whole population is on the look out for a ray of sunshine.  Hard to believe that a few years ago there was not enough water to float a toy boat made out of half a matchbox.  Now it's more like Waterworld (though without an odd looking Kevin Costner).

I was disappointed to read on Mark Dapin's blog that he no longer writes for the Sydney Morning Herald 'Good Weekend'. For more details, see  http://markdapin.blogspot.com.au/
A warning though, there is a You Tube video on the site which includes some very serious swearing.  That's fairly common for our Mark, who once invited people to deface his Wikipedia entry and offered a prize for the most inventive effort.....You can read the real page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Dapin

Currently Mycroft is watching 'Glee'. Yes, I still check out what's on the box (the flat screen?) every so often. In tonight's Glee, Jeff Goldblum appears.  So that is where he disappeared to!  I think everyone was wondering where he went.

Hen nights

Mycroft was fascinated to be out in a northern city in Australia....there were numerous 'Hen' groups out on the town.  Curiously, there seemed to be no 'Buck' parties.  Perhaps they just are not visible.  The Hen nights were hard to miss as the groups were all dressed in costume (the same costume for each member) or at least in identical t shirts.  The bride to be was usually identified by a sash (saying 'bride to be') or a veil with (in some cases) condoms stuck to it (in packets, thankfully).  Carrying giant inflatable penises around the streets was also a popular part of the routine.  There was also an odd trend demonstrated by a couple of groups where the women had writing on themselves, apparently written with a felt pen.  One hopes it comes off in time for work on Monday.

A big Saturday night in this town is also incomplete without queuing for a taxi and yelling witticisms at those which fail to stop.  "Wanker" seemed a popular term of endearment.  I must admit it did seem to encourage one or two vehicles to actually come to a stop and take on passengers.  Drunken arguments with bouncers, cabbies, police etc all seem to be an important part of the end of the evening.  Mycroft dodged it all and safely returned to his hotel where a seemingly unhinged young woman was running around locking all the doors providing access to the public areas of the hotel (such as the lobby).  Meanwhile, crowds of bogans surged around her yelling something like "arrgh".  Never a dull moment around these parts.

The Silk Road

Readers will pleased to know that Mycroft eventually finished 'The Silk Road'.  They may be less pleased to note that at the end of 459 pages I wondered why I bothered.  The book, like the plot, just seemed to end with a whimper.  It was perhaps meant to be a 'bang', as some of the characters died in what seemed to be episodes of pointless violence, but to this reader it seemed that the book just trailed off.  A death bed confession tied up the loose ends and made the whole narrative seem even more pointless.  It's a pity, as some chapters were genuinely engaging.  Others may enjoy it more but this reader was left somewhat disappointed at what might have been.  I saw the book reviewed on some other sites.  One claimed the novel had a 'deeply satisfying ending'.  They must have read a different book.