that's not a dog. it's a canine.

When Tony Abbott said the cuts to the ABC and SBS were neither cuts nor a broken pre-election promise but an “efficiency dividend” I thought he was just making up words.

I, in my taking-words-at-their-dictionary-meaning way, always understood dividend to be a bonus, a share of profit. A reward even.

The funding cuts are anything but.

However, it turns out the “efficiency dividend” really is a thing. Dating back to the 1980’s no less. A measure to increase efficiency and performance in government agencies, albeit flawed and referred to more than once as a “a blunt instrument”.

I wonder which wordsmithy spinmeister dreamed up this less that delightful example of doublespeak, presumably intending it to mean a dividend to the taxpayers.
I’m putting it up there with “friendly fire” and  “enhanced interrogation”.

And can I just point out that if Tony is going to nitpick over terminology then he’d better try a little harder because guess what. The definition of efficiency dividend is

“an across-the-board cut to the funding that agencies receive for running costs” 

So it’s not a cut, it’s a “cut to funding” is it, hmmm?
And that’s not a dog, it’s a canine.

But terminology aside, here’s the thing. According to this Parliamentary research paper of Dec 2012, several government funded agencies have full exemption from this not-actually-a-dividend dividend. In particular:

“the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Special Broadcasting Service Corporation due to election commitments from both major parties to ‘maintain the real level of funding’ for each broadcaster”

It seemed however that everyone was so upset by the whatever-you-want-to-call-them-but-lets-just-call-them-funding-cuts, that no-one noticed this little issue of exemp… no wait.

Matthias Corman said it out loud to the media and anyone who wanted to listen.

“The ABC has been exempted from efficiency dividends for the last 20 years…”

As if that would somehow win him friends among we taxpaying people of Australiana.

At least Malcolm Turnbull had the good sense to steer us clear of those murky waters quick-smart (so, not just a broken promise but a broken bi-lateral commitment) and asserted–on a technicality, mind, nothing to do with exemptions or anything–that whatever these not-cuts were, they were definitely absolutely not in any way an “efficiency dividend”.

In fact, to put his own positive spin on it, the whole "dividend" thing clearly not working,  Malc is now using the more cuddly – and I must admit refreshingly straightforward and non-doublespeaky – term “government savings measure”.

And anyway it’s all the ABC’s fault, he said.

“...in terms of program changes that has nothing to do with the government.”

So there.

a lesson in global economics

me: “I see you’re out of figs”

cashier: “Yeah, I hear they’re hard to get from Turkey. Because of the floods.”

me: “The floods. So not the unrest.”

cashier: “Ha. They'd want to keep the exports up. It takes money to run a war.”

the great driving bungle of 2014

Today I did the unforgivable.

You know how when you’re riding along on the bike path thinking “the pedestrians are there on their footpath, the cars are in the car lane and we have this bike lane just for bikes, how cool is that?” and then a car suddenly cuts across in front of you to turn or park, and you slam on the brakes and swerve, freaked out at narrowly avoiding a horrible accident and furious at the stupid, stupid driver?

Well, in an awkward shoe-on-the-other foot type situation, today I was the driver and I did that to a cyclist! I did that unforgivable thing which many drivers have done to cyclist-me, and which i’ve written cranky blogs about.

You’d think I’d know better.

For hours afterwards I yelled at myself (inside my head) just like the cyclist-me yelled at those other thoughtless drivers (also inside my head) and now I’m writing another cranky blog about it.

I cut across a bike lane, in front of a cyclist, to park the car.
Argh!

To his credit, the cyclist just made a funny noise and swerved around me creating the strong impression that this sort of thing happens ALL THE TIME.

And now I know how it happens. I was in an unfamiliar city, in an unfamiliar manual car, with a worn out clutch, looking for somewhere to park. The road signs and line markings were not like what I’m used to in my home city, and I wasn’t deeply familiar with the local traffic’s unique behaviour and patterns like I am at home. I was busy managing to not be in the wrong lane at a multilane intersection and crossing tram tracks without hitting a tram, then entered a roundabout, ahead of a cyclist who I immediately forgot about while my mind was focussed on how to get into that off-street car parking bay up ahead. But the entry I thought I’d seen turned out to be a carpark exit only.

So I kept driving while trying to figure where the entrance could be, and within seconds spotted an empty kerbside car space and pulled straight into it: across the bike lane, across the path of the long forgotten cyclist, Oblivious; distracted with concern that car spaces are hard to find so you don’t pass one up. As the cyclist veered past me and whooped, I was shocked back to earth.

So that explains it.

“But that’s no excuse!” I yell at myself some more in my head. It was poor driving.

It was inexperience. I’m not used to driving strange cars around strange cities, so I failed to juggle all those tasks in my conscious mind which are largely dealt with by my subconscious back at home where I know the patterns and interactions of every street and every bike path. No muscle memory to rely on, you see.

I’m ashamed to admit that the only subconscious process going on in me-the-driver was the very unhelpful “Don’t dither in the middle of the road and hold up other cars. See parking space. Grab it.”

Where was the “don’t try to kill cyclists” instinct, that a special awareness for two-wheelers that I have back at home? That awareness, it turns out, is highly conditional.

I am massively disappointed and angry with myself. And I don’t for one minute forgive any of those drivers who’ve done the same thing to me. Having now walked in his shoes, I understand that the befuddled old guy in Campbell Parade was in a strange town, looking for a park and unable to process everything that was going on. But I don’t excuse him. He nearly killed me. And as for those young guys who were totally aware of everything going on, being in familiar territory and knowing full well they were cutting in front of me and double parking across a bike lane but went ahead and did it anyway – because, you know, they’re in a car and cars just have right of way and can do whatever they want, so nyer! – there’s even less than no excuse. When I tried to explain they’d broken a road rule – not to mention the whole endangering my life thing – they booed me. Seriously!

It’s possibly a bit interesting that when I returned to the crime scene a few days later, (this time the territory was familiar so I didn’t do anything stupid) – I noticed a couple of signs posted where the bike lane exited the roundabout:



...even though the line marking for the bike lane continued.

Which is a bit contradictory.

The signs could either mean “End of separated bike lane” - Within the roundabout, the bike path was isolated from the car lane by a concrete curb. The signs were placed where the curb separator ended and the bike lane merged with the road again, marked only by a understated unbroken white line.

Or, they could signify that I’m not the only stupid tourist in this tourist town who can’t think and drive at the same time and so for safety they might as well just put the onus on cyclists to avoid the tourists.

As no moral tale is useful without learnings, I would suggest the following (as would any half sensible urban planner) because it’s just blindingly obvious, really, that:

1. Placing a bike lane between car lanes and kerbside parking is just asking for trouble; and

1. Bike lanes should be painted bright, hard to ignore colours with large bicycle icons at frequent intervals, so drivers who aren’t paying attention don’t just see a line on the road and think it’s some kind of lane marking that has nothing whatsoever to do with bikes, or don’t even see the line at all because lets face it - a driver in search of the holy grail (a parking spot right next to the place they’re trying to get to) has tunnel vision.

God! Still can’t believe I did that.

never again

How many times have you been in a bar with a group of people who love drinking and they’re pressuring you into keeping up; needing you to match them drink for drink as if to validate them; and making you feel like a party pooper if you don’t; making you feel like you’ll miss out on all the fun. “Here - try this, it’s called ‘absolute suicide’ -  you’ll LOVE it. Drink it down!” - as the bartender lines up another round of shot glasses and one-two-three you’re gulping down another overproof depth-charge shot of jelly slammer and fuck me what is in this, rhinoceros piss?  

And some time later you stumble home chiding yourself for probably drinking a wee bit too much, and wake up the next morning feeling like utter, utter shit swearing never, ever again. You’re not 18 anymore, your body can’t take it. 

Until next week you’re in a bar and you just get swept along with their corrupt influence because - well - you have to admit you’re having fun. This does feel good. Not just good, dammit. You’re feeling absolutely fucking great - and another drink is going to make you feel even betterer.

Then you wake up next day with the mother of all hangovers again.

Sound familiar?

Nup. Not me.

Not ever. Not even once.

I stick to my guns. 

They down their shots, I sip a few nano droplets - I’m polite like that - and pass my glass to someone else to finish, or empty it in a pot plant when no-one’s looking.

They try to make me feel like a wimp, a spoiler of fun, but It’s water off a duck’s back.

I am impervious to peer pressure, I tell you.

Impervious!

I’m smarter than that.

I don’t want to wake up next day feeling like utter, utter shit.

I want to wake up feeling healthy and ready for yoga class.

Morning yoga! 

It’s so pleasant and relaxing. And the teacher really enjoys it. She really enjoys teaching us new poses and encourages us to try the tricky ones. And even though I now know that my body can’t do those tricky poses anymore, I can still remember - a muscle memory - how it felt to do them when i was, er hem,… younger. How good it felt. How relatively easy it was. 

And so I follow the careful step-by-step process to warm up and get into the pose safely and there again is that great feeling of achievement when I’m balancing there in a pretty awe-inspiring way and feeling pretty good about myself. 

Until towards the end of class I feel a twinge in a muscle, and wake up the next morning in with a not-quite-cripping back pain and figuratively slap my forehead as I phone the physio.

Never again. 

I will just do the basic poses from now on. The basic poses are still a challenge, they’ll still do me good. I will not injure myself again.

Until next class, when I stick to my guns and skip that particular tricky pose that hurt my back, and take it easy so as not to exacerbate it. But then the teacher introduces a new, new pose and shows us how to do it and makes it look beautiful and simple and I remember doing it myself a while ago without any trouble. She encourages us in her fun, enticing voice to just give it a go, just have a stab at getting somewhere near it. So I carefully follow the steps to warm myself up and ease myself into the pose safely and - ta daaa!! Look at where my leg is!

And then about five minutes later there’s a sharp pain in my ribs and I can’t even do the final twist before savasana.

Never again I say, as I hobble home to the arnica ointment.

Never again.

how i'm feeling this morning

This morning my muscles and bones are rusty metal with stiff, scrapey hinges and joints.

They are held together not with tendons of elastic, squishy goo, but dry old yellowing fabric that just tears when stretched.

I try to visualise warm oil, running through my body, lubricating the stiff, achey, immobile moving parts. But only manage a slight trickle.

So much for mind control.

a serenity prayer for my aches and pains

Gods grant me:

the serenity to accept and live uncomplainingly with those pains that cannot be cured;

Skilled therapists, patience and diligence to cure those pains that can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

Conflicted Clive

AAP: Dave Hunt - file photo

What’s getting up my nose this week? MPs of course.
In particular, Clive Palmer and his parliamentary voting record.

On November 14, 2013 a press release published on Palmer United’s website said Clive Palmer (seen above with a fellow dinosaur)

...would be abstaining from voting in the House of Representatives on the carbon tax repeal legislation to avoid a potential conflict of interest. 

"I'm applying company director standards and stepping out of this debate as there’s currently a potential conflict of interest," Mr Palmer said.

But then gave himself a totally get out of jail free card:

"If this carbon tax issue is still not resolved by the time the Palmer United Party senators-elect take their place in the parliament next July then they’ll deal with it.

"They do not have a conflict of interest." 

No conflict of interest my arse.

His party members were able to vote to repeal the carbon tax on his behalf.

His two senators voted to "personally and directly financially advantage" their party leader, to quote Greens leader Christine Milne.

Meanwhile, others on the internet are arguing that the PUP took the carbon tax repeal as a policy to the election, thus Lazarus, Lambie and Wang had an obligation to their supporters to vote in accordance with their published Policy document. And those senators do not have individual pecuniary interest in the matter, they don’t own mining or energy companies, so no reason not to vote.

So okay, technically it’s within the rules of our parliament that, as Crikey points out

"never envisaged a situation where a wealthy individual would use that wealth to create a party in his own name and propel others into the Senate." 

But to get to today's up the nose subject, Palmer’s voting record.

According to an ABC report, he has only voted 19 times out of 202. And “13 related to axing the carbon and mining taxes or associated votes on procedure”.

Wait a minute, didn’t his press release say he’d abstain from such votes?

So now his new story is just to deny the conflict:

"We all pay tax. Does that mean that members of parliament don't vote on income tax bills?" he said early this month.

Oh for god’s sake.

Infographics from http://www.abc.net.au

a blog about a list of lists about blogs

So, apparently, one of the easiest ways to write a blog post is to just write a list. Which explains why there are so bloody many of them: “7 ways to…”, “43 reasons why…”, “10 steps to…”, “8 mistakes…

So here’s a list of my own: a list of blogs about blog lists.

1. 8 Reasons Why Lists are Good for Getting Traffic to your Blog

2. 7 Reasons Why List Posts Will Always Work

3. The Top 10 Qualities of High-Quality List Posts

Nah. i’m bored now. 

You get the point.

With so man self-referential lists, it’s wonder the entire interwebs doesn’t just clag up in an infinite loop and implode.

How Not To Do A Funeral Service

Having been to several funeral services in less than a year, I now feel somewhat of an expert on the dos and don’ts.

And by “several”, I mean two - which is a lot by my standards and is two more than anyone should ever have to go through. If I had my way no-one would ever die. (But then where would we put all the people? …I hear they are terraforming Mars…)

1. If the family asks you not to mention the cause of death, don’t

And along with not talking about how the dearly departed left us, especially don’t keep making reference to the fact that you’re not talking about it. 

It’s like when there’s an elephant in the room. You don’t point to it and yell “Ignore that elephant over there. Let me remind you that we are all ignoring the elephant!” 

Geeze.

Which leads me to point 2:

2. Don’t hire a numskull to MC the service

I know that’s a pretty tough call. You’re in shock and grief and the last thing you want to do is make funeral arrangements, and all those awful decisions. “Seriously? You want me to choose the wood for the casket while i’m falling apart emotionally?” It’s easiest just to put yourself in the hands of the nearest firm of funeral directors and let them take care of everything.

Only you don’t want to be feeling cranky at your loved one’s funeral.

There’s something off-putting about a complete stranger standing up in front of a person’s nearest and dearest and talking like he knew the deceased really well. When it’s so clear to all the actual friends and family that this person who’s conducting the ceremony, saying all that stuff about a person’s life and character, didn’t know the deceased even existed until a few days ago.

It was particularly jarring the day we farewelled my atheist friend’s atheist dad. His family and many friends like me were secularly inclined too, but the service was run by a priest who just banged on and on about God. He had no idea. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

and most importantly, because laughter really is the best medicine:

3. Open with a Joke

Funerals are hard work. Very hard. And they are, without doubt, heartbreakingly sad. Throughout the service the various speeches will be full of touching and emotional tributes to bring forth buckets of tears you didn’t even know you had in you. 

So best to break the ice and focus first on the fun parts of the deceased’s life. You know - the things you’d laugh about together if they were there in the room with you know. God knows, if they were in the room with you now, they’d want to be laughing with you not crying. Surely?

On Funerals

Funerals are a pain in the neck.

Ok, that sounds sounds selfish and flippant, but I mean it literally.

The day after we farewelled J – a 40-year-old ex colleague, who’d left behind a wife and kids, the littlest just barely 2 years old – I woke up with a stiff neck. The shooting pains sent me pretty briskly to one of those bulk, walk-in massage shops for the half-hour ‘neck & shoulders’ special. The practitioner seemed quite shocked, “Your shoulders are very bad”, asking if my life was particularly stressful at the moment. I told him  “I went to a funeral yesterday?” and with a knowing “say no more” shake of head, he advised several more treatments within the week to break down all those knots. Maybe they see this kind of thing a fair bit.

The funeral was hard. Aren’t funerals hard for everyone?

I think I spent the whole service in a tensed position. My shoulders were probably up around my ears the whole time. It was the slideshow at the end that hurt the most. Photos of his kids. happy, loving, innocent faces. I cannot understand what their life will be like with Daddy gone. Suddenly. How will Mum explain it to them? How will she get them through each day without falling apart herself, in front of them? 

I have no idea. I grieve for them. 

When I learned in the car on the way home that J committed suicide (that was the unspoken and logical theory, at least) my shoulders no doubt hunched so far up around my ears that the traffic sounds in the cross-city tunnel went all muffled. How do you explain that to his children? How could they understand why their dad would do such a thing? How painful and hellish must your life be that the only viable option to curing that hell is to just check out completely - regardless of the people you’ll leave behind.

I didn’t go back to the walk-in masseur. The muscles unlocked eventually and within a week the stabbing pains forgotten. But not J, or his wife, or his kids. They haunted me daily for a while, and now less and less over time. But he will always there. 

Less than a year later - far too soon - my neck muscles acted preemptively this time. The day before we were to farewell M, a friend from Uni, I woke up with pains so piercing I really could not move, not even a little bit. To quote my physio when she saw me a few days later - It was a shocker. The only way to get out of bed was to sit up lightning fast, like ripping off a bandaid, with a blinding blue/white flash of pain.

I dreaded the difficulty of another funeral and this would have been my perfect excuse to chicken out. I would have too, if I hadn’t organised two other uni friends to go with. They even did all the driving, since I couldn’t turn my head. 

By contrast, this service was not that hard. I loved the celebrant who at one stage so broke down she was unable to speak; I can only think she must have known M quite well. The ceremony was terribly sad - of course - that doesn’t even need to be said. But it was also joyful at times. A testament to the remarkable man who I wished - too late - I’d managed to stay in touch with after uni. 

The loving speeches were peppered with jokes and anecdotes. We cried, we laughed, we exchanged glances of surprise when we learned a few totally unexpected things about the guy. And perhaps all this was possible because his death was neither tragic or taboo. A sudden accident and with no drawn out suffering. He died doing what he loved. And you can’t really ask for more than that. 

At the wake, we uni buddies clustered magnetically and swore that we would have a reunion party very soon; promised ourselves that the next thing to bring us all together would not be the marking of another untimely death.

- - - - 

A few days later I was diagnosed with acute wry neck – though there was nothing cute about it, boom-tish – a fairly crippling condition that required bi-hourly therapy. But it’s mostly forgotten now. 

My Uni friends and I have since gone home, back to our regular lives. At the wake I made new-year’s-like resolutions to stay in touch regularly with every single one of my friends, on the basis that we could disappear at any second. 

I got all organised. To the guy who promised to host the party I sent a contact email address for another mutual friend to add to the invite list. I emailed old friends I’d lost touch with, some replied and we exchanged ever more vague promises to catch up as soon as we are both in the same city, until one way or another the email chains went quiet. 

I  slipped comfortably back into my unsociable, work focussed habits. Slipped back into easy habit.

I don’t hold my breath that the party will ever happen. Normal life just gets in the way and it takes something as massive as a death to drag us out of our daily routine and current social circle, to cancel all the usual appointments for the day, to ask for time off work and to drive across the city to a suburb we’d never normally have any reason to visit – to be reunited after countless years; to stand around drinking and laughing about old times, comparing unreliable memories, and realising that none of us has really changed, as if only a few weeks had passed since we last saw each other.

In the midst of life we are surrounded by death, and yet we carry on as if we are immortal – to paraphrase someone famous. And if you can find the original quote I’d love to have it.