Germaine Greer in today’s Australian:

The real reason I won’t live in Australia, even when Britain has no further use for my services, is that I love the country too much. The pain of watching its relentless dilapidation by people too relaxed to give a damn is more than I can bear. I don’t know how many of my fellow expatriates feel this way, but I’ll bet some do.

Compelling, imperfect, and troubling stuff.

UPDATE — 2004-01-27, 1625: John Howard has described Greer’s comments as “pathetic”, “condescending” and “hopelessly out of touch” which, in my book, only makes them more compelling.

Zak™ responded to my ICQ message, but doesn’t seem to want to give me my ICQ number back:
Continue reading →

A couple of days ago I posted a comment on here which described a series of telephone calls Brent and I had with our lawyer, who was not named in the article.

Our lawyer wrote to me this morning expressing his disappointment with the content of that post and disputing some of the facts.

At our lawyer’s request, that entry has been deleted from the site.

For the record, I wish to state that our lawyer has acted professionally and capably throughout our dealings with him. My intention in posting this article was to convey the frustration and anxiety that Brent and I are, perhaps inevitably, feeling as we approach our MRT hearing, and certainly not to cast aspersions on anyone involved in the process.

Less than a week to go until Brent’s residency hearing. On Monday we heard that the foreshadowed delay won’t happen, so it’s all systems go from here on in. That’s good — we’ll be through the tunnel soon.

Our written submission is done. We are ready to go except for one document that I’m still chasing up.

As the big day approaches, hopefully anxiety will give way to calm acceptance and quiet confidence, but not yet.

It’s incredibly challenging to have your life and your relationship examined, inspected and detailed like this. The submission document makes troubling reading for me — so much of our personal lives has been reduced to dot points, arguments in favour of our case, evidence. That’s an unavoidable consequence of this process, of course, but it’s challenging.

On the upside, to my untrained eyes our case has been argued effectively and succinctly. The end product is 25 pages of succinct and, hopefully, compelling arguments, and a mountain of attachments.

Our whole future depends on what happens next, but our cause is just and our resolve is unshakeable. Bring it on.

In Finland, a tax official who died at his desk went unnoticed by the 30 people who worked nearby for two days.

According to the Finnish tabloid newspaper Ilta-Sanomat on Monday, co-workers had assumed the dead man — a tax auditor — was silently poring over returns.

(BBC news)

This is what happens when people are denied access to sunlight for long periods of time. (The sun rose at 9:02 am today in Helsinki. It set again at 4:01 pm).

A base on the moon! Men on Mars! Put the wagons in a circle! There’s gold in them thar hills! Does GWB really think the punters will fall for his “pale JFK” routine? Has anyone noticed that the United States has a budget deficit of US$400 billion and has been the subject of a recent IMF warning about its mismanaged economy?

And while we’re about it, am I right in thinking that the US plans to mine the moon for the resources needed for it’s Men-on-Mars boondoggle? Isn’t that prohibited by the 1979 Moon Treaty?

Cynical capitalist bullshit.

[Leunig cartoon, via Junk for Code]

I haven’t posted much of anything lately (more on that soon) so here’s something a bit easy and straightforward…

1. What does it say in the signature line of your emails?

My contact details (in the case of work emails) and a random pithy quote (in the case of personal emails). No, wait, the random quote generator seems to have gone AWOL … maybe I’ll fix that. Is anyone interested in me posting my file of pithy quotes? They’re very pithy…

2. Did you have a senior quote in your high school yearbook? What was it? If you haven’t graduated yet, what would you like your quote to be?

I live in Australia; high school yearbooks are a foreign concept (or they were when I was in High School, more than 20 years ago).

3. If you had vanity plates on your car, what would they read? If you already have them, what do they say?

I do have vanity plates on my car. They say POZ-80Y.

4. Have you received any gifts with messages engraved upon them? What did the inscription say?

“This CD stolen from 2SER-FM, Sydney”

5. What would you like your epitaph to be?

Elsewhere on this site I reproduce Robert Frost’s masterpiece …

And were an epitaph to be my story
I’d have a short one ready for my own.
I would have written of me on my stone:
I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

That works for me.

From the lickable Tommy Rico:

The T-Shirt I ordered a few days ago finally arrived. This purchase is a nod to my rather twisted sense of humor (I think it’s hilarious) but also further proof that I reject the notion that my illness is something that needs to be covered up. Exhibitionists don’t stop being exhibitionists just because we contract a potentially deadly virus. We just slap it on a T-Shirt and wear it to the gym.

I’m now two bucks up on my foray into merchandising. God love you, Tommy Rico!

Every week I get an email report from the nice company that provides the search facility on buggery.org. This week’s report is in no way unusual:

YOUR SEARCH STATISTICS

Your Top Searches:

There were 11 searches for the week ending 01/10/04 for buggery.org at http://www.buggery.org.

Here are the top phrases searched:

– 2 for “photo sex horse boy”
– 2 for “poo”
– 1 for “buggery”
– 1 for “cum”
– 1 for “emily”
– 1 for “frangipani”
– 1 for “kids”
– 1 for “photos”
– 1 for “suck cock”

Please, try a little harder folks.

Twenty-four photographs from our New Year holiday are online at Fickr. Enjoy!

We’re on our way back from the beach and this entry is being composed at an internet cafe in sunny Port Macquarie, just a few hours north of Newy.

It’s been a great break and we have some nice photos and stories which will probably make it onto the site in the coming week. Also the “explicatory essay” on the topic of same-sex marriage is taking shape (in my head). This ditty, from Brent’s sister-in-law in Canada (a.k.a. “the wedding planner”), will do for now:

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things:
Of men in love,
Of Canada,
Of wedding bells and rings.
And why some laws make it so hard,
And whether you’re queens or kings.

[Carrie-Lynn Allan, with apologies to Lewis Carroll]