How To Bake An Ethical Urinal Cake

Congratulations. You read that headline and had the courage to continue down the page. You’re like the expendable guy in the horror movie who goes into the dark kitchen as the music starts…

Leaving the cake aside until tea time, have you noticed how many of your social media contacts want you to approve and vote for political leaders they love? And how they want you to disapprove of and refrain from voting for the ones they hate? And how they have decided that every single day is election day in your computer?

Isn’t it all getting to be a spare crack in your ass? Don’t you want some relief from them pressuring you? Well you can do something about it, and now is the time to start.

a. Make enquiries to find out which electorate your Facebook friend is in. Then ask them which polling station they normally go to, and at what time of the day.

b. On Election Day turn up at their house and offer to accompany them to that polling station. Or wait there for them.

c. When they approach the station start talking loudly to them about the candidate you wish them to vote for. If they become angry offer to buy their vote. Do this in the hearing of the returning officer.

d. When they go into the little cardboard booth, elbow them aside, snatch the tiny pencil from them and vote above the line…for their candidate. If you’re loud enough and fast enough you can get that paper into the box before the returning scrutineers descend upon you.

e. Tell the cops that your friend made you change your vote.

You’ll go in front of a magistrate and pay a fine, of course, but you will have had value for money. After your Facebook friend de-friends you, tell all your shared friends that you really are the best of pals in real life. And that you are going to go to every election together.

The Moral Pea And Thimble Game

Or ” Now you see it, Now you don’t, It’s all the fault of the Prime Minister…”

But don’t you worry, Folks. As soon as we get the set adjusted you can go back to hating Trump again. This is just a temporary technical malfunction.

Well, the UK election is over, and the verdict is in – and all the British voters will get to share in passing the sentence. I believe the Queen is preparing a black cap to wear for her opening of Parliament. It will also come in handy when she has Christmas dinner with Prince Andrew. Hint: don’t sit too close to the carving knives, Andy…

It will be interesting to see whether trendy Australian social commentators pick up on the UK election in the way they did the last US one. And in the way that they never do for Canada, India, South Africa, Andorra, Iceland or anywhere else. I do not blame them for this lack of interest-  they only respond to the prompts from the media, after all. If it becomes politic for them to be whipped into outrage or ecstasy, the mechanism is in place and needs only to be switched on.

For myself, I shall be very interested to see how the negotiations to remove Great Britain from the clutches of the Continentals conclude. I would be all for fortifying the coast, dynamiting the Channel Tunnel, and starting nightly bombing raids over the enemy capital, but I doubt the Belgian Air Force has enough planes to do the job efficiently.

 

 

Politics – It’s All Their Fault

Or alternately…It’s All Their Responsibility.

Rarely, It’s All Their Honour.

That last’s a pretty unusual thing to hear from the electorate these days, as the culture or habit of public politeness seems to have been laid aside in a camphor-wood chest along with the heritage linen and the tintype portraits.

In fact…I cannot remember one unpaid posting on my social media screen during this last election that lauded anyone – and I certainly do not expect to see them in the coming months as the new old government and opposition continue to turn up at the office each day and do their business of government and opposition. I cannot say that no-one in my social circle will be happy, but I’ll bet that they do not express that happiness publicly. The risk of angry outbursts from the readers will prevent it.

I often wonder about the disappointed in elections. I mean the disappointed voters and supporters – not the candidates. I wonder whether there is not always a culture of wrecking and schadenfreud afterwards for some considerable time. I’ve seen it in the USA with the last two presidents’ terms of office. Perhaps it exists in Australia, and perhaps to a greater extent due to the evenness of our vote spread.

Who knows how many things will be awkward now because people want to make difficulties for the party that won. And then complain that the government has failed them…

And that, folks, is the last of the Australian Federal Election that I’ll write about. It is done and dusted and while the aging millenials are still whining ( or is that the bearings on the refrigerator going out? ) I feel we can get back to normal next week.

 

Well, Chicken Little…

You can take the helmet off. The sky has not fallen.

We’re well into the first week of the election that wasn’t won by your party ( and by that I don’t mean a party that you actually belong to. Not a party where you join and pay and do work. I mean one that you thought would be handing out the free stuff. ). And we’ve looked outside and the sky has not fallen.

China has not forced sanctions on Queensland. New Zealand has not stopped taking tourists on trips to see where LOTR was filmed. You can still get spicy tucker in Singapore and pirate DVDs in Bali. And your dole payment.

Things have not changed.

There are some fools gone from the Senate, and new ones substituted. Ditto House of Representatives. There will still be cross-bench members trying to pull the strings in both directions as hard as they can. There will still be witless xenophobic morons holding rallies. There will still be hippie apologists trying to buy an electorate with government grant money.

Things will not change.

Had your favoured party gotten into power, there would have been a little flurry of preening and appointing of party members to special positions. Ambassadorships would have been handed out in exchange for past favours. And then it would have gone on quite the same as before.

Console yourself with your paroxysm of outrage and share a dozen vulgar memes. Vow revenge on the winners. Howl to the moon – it’s good for the lungs. And next week is coming.

Clapping The Carpet Bag Shut And Running For The Steamboat

A guide for the unsuccessful candidate in Federal Parliamentary elections.

a. If enough people voted for you, you can have your monetary deposit back. Otherwise the Electoral Commission retains the $ 2000 deposit and buys slabs of beer and Cheezels with it.

b. If you find that you are being bested during the vote counting by such a margin that even your party supporters, second in command, business manager, and the pizza boy are being savage, you would be wise to be prepared to concede defeat.

If your electorate has 29 people standing for that particular seat and 28 of you are still standing when the music stops, you might not even have to go to the trouble of conceding. Someone will be N0. 2 in the poll, and they might need to burst into tears and evoke the spirit of some long-dead leader, but if you are No.26 you can just go home and put the kettle on.

c. If you are so unwise as to make rash statements about the electorate that has rejected you, consider whether it might be wise to leave the district. The speed with which you do this repends upon how rude your remarks are.

People may not have taken the least notice of you as you campaigned, but you can be goddamned certain they’ll remember every last word of bad temper spouted by a bad loser. And the papers will leap on it – that’s what we reptiles do.

d. If you wish to cry, do so. Just be careful about who films you crying and what you are wearing at the time.

e. Vowing vengeance upon the enemy is fine, if you wish to stand for election in the Game Of Thrones. Doing it on the grounds of your local primary school is a mistake. See ( c. ) above.

f. Do not decamp with the spoons. Make sure that when you retire from the arena of public life, that all what you touches is yours. Disappointed supporters have a way of curling round your ankles and biting deep. If there is any farnarkeling to be found, you will pay the complete legal price.

If you are the winner, this does not apply.

I’MMA UNFRIEND YOU…

After every election – no matter who gets elected or rejected – the social media pages fairly sizzle with outrage. This phenomenon is unique in that the heat generated is inversely proportional to the distance between the anger and the event that has produced it.

Or, to put it another way, WE WUZ ROBBED!

This is the cry of every fan in the stands at a baseball game when their team loses. They generally fasten upon the decisions of the umpire instead of the fact that their team played poor baseball. In some cases they yell that the other team are bums.

And the scoreboard has the same numbers on it when they turn the stadium lights off and sweep out the popcorn boxes. The outrage does not affect the actual score one bit. The disappointed fan goes home with no way to extract revenge upon the other team, the other team’s supporters, or the umpire.

But in the social media page, it’s always extra time. If the actual election result cannot be changed, the unhappy voter can always search for those amongst their acquaintance who did not vote as they did – and heap abuse on them. Then after that tirade, the offender can be excluded from the herd by the unfriending process of the social page. The angry voter can prowl off growling and baiting to see if there are more chances for revenge…

And the election results stand, as before, as they sweep away the popcorn boxes…

I often read of elections held in the 19th century that resulted in duels, murders, fistfights, and riots. I am amazed at this, given the fact that there were far fewer electors for each seat, and in many cases did not include women as either candidates or voters. I guess, having no social media to relieve their tension, they resorted to closer combat.

Election 2019 – Leave A Deposit

Preferably of money…

A question arose on Saturday afternoon – after everyone in the room had done their various voting chores – about the business of standing for election in Australia. Goodness knows we stand for lots of things; buses, pop concerts, and really bad biscuits at most meetings. How do you go about standing for election?

It appears that you need to be a part of a party – either a big one that makes you or a small one that you make yourself. The first alternative generally requires you to be of like mind with a great many other people, a self-advertiser, and the kind of devious politician that can act like a devious politician…

The second alternative means you have to corral a smaller group of nutters – but you still have to find a considerable amount of money to make the thing work. There is advertising, promotion, telephones, lawyers, etc. and not least the deposit of money with the Electoral Commission to guarantee that you are a real person – not a Bedlington Terrier in sunglasses. That you will become a real person who is sneered at and pushed into the gutter is another thing, but if you want to form the ” I Order You To Respect My Authoritah Party ” ( apologies to Cartman ), you have to expect it.

Let’s face it – no-one respects your authoritah outside the cardboard polling booth, so don’t expect that to change once they’re in there with the tiny pencil.

The barrier of a substantial monetary deposit – $ 2000 – is nothing to a major party but can serve as a way of keeping the worst of the nutters off the increasingly long ballot paper. This is a blessing in the cardboard polling booth as the thing seems to get larger each election.

I note that this year that as we were not required to number every single candidate in preference – there were some 25+ of them – we were given permission to mark our first 12 and let the rest go. For myself, I get some amusement with the weirder parties and independents but that sheet of paper is taking on the dimensions of a ship’s sail. I should welcome the raising of the deposit to reduce the number of loons let loose.