buggery.org

The GoogOracle says there are about 32,100 reasons why other people aren’t blogging. I could recycle one of those, or I could just be honest and say I can’t be arsed right now. Work is keeping me ultra-busy, I’m pretending to have a life, and in the background working on a redesign and server relocation for buggery.org.

I’ll be back soon.

Buggery.org will be moving to a new server over the next few days. Expect disruptions to my usual flawless service. More details will be posted here as they emerge.

Update, Saturday AM: move hasn’t happened yet. I’ve sent numerous emails to my old hosting company demanding they provide me with certain useful facts (i.e. allow me to change the nameservers for the domain) but they have not come good yet. In the meantime I’m tidying a few things up and moving the site onto the new server in readiness for the move.

I <heart> Harley:

Bondi is magnificent in summer. An unexpected change from our usual Tamarama. We sat near the gay end of the beach, on the lawns with good views of boys in all directions. Reluctantly I take off my shirt, exposing my white undeveloped body to the elements and critical gaze of the prettier-than-thou.

In a good way.

I Am Not A Lawyer, but the proposed marriage between the heir to the throne and his mistress, Lady Camilla Rottweiler-Slag, throws up some interesting legal questions.

Prince Charles is the heir apparent to the British throne, as we all know, and the British parliament is expected to pass special legislation to allow him to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles, a Catholic divorcée, on 8 April, and still retain his right to accede to the throne when or if his mother dies. This is unusual but fairly straightforward. For Britain.

Charlie is also heir to the throne of Australia (since the 1970s, the Queen’s formal title as our head of state has been “Queen of Australia”; before then the Queen of England was our head of state). In order for Charles to become King of Australia, the Act of Settlement (12 & 13 William III, ch. 2) will need to be amended. There’s no question about this, and for the UK it’s a doddle – the parliament just needs to rubber-stamp the arrangement.

And it was thereby further enacted, that all and every person and persons that then were, or afterwards should be reconciled to, or shall hold communion with the see or Church of Rome, or should profess the popish religion, or marry a papist, should be excluded, and are by that Act made for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the Crown and government of this realm…

But the Australian parliaments (federal and state) have no power to change the Act of Settlement, which dates from 1701, when Australia still belonged to the aborigines, and which was incorporated into our law at federation in 1901. Nor does the Imperial Parliament have the power to make laws for Australia (not since 1986, when the Australia Acts were passed by the State, Federal and Imperial Parliaments). The Act of Settlement therefore occupies a legal limbo (along with some other archaic English laws, such as the Magna Carta, The Petition of Right, and the Habeas Corpus Acts of 1640 and 1679) which puts it out of reach of the grubby hands of government.

With no parliament, in Australia or England, having the power to change the order of succession for Australia, the throne would pass directly from Elizabeth to the heir presumptive (William), Charles being illegitimate by virtue of his having married a Tyke.

The crowns of England and Australia would then hilariously diverge, unless the Constitution were changed, which would require a referendum, passed by a majority of voters and a majority of states, supporting Charles’s claim to the Australian throne. And you know that ain’t gonna happen.

The alternative point of view is that the Australian parliaments (more likely the six states than the federal parliament, controversially) do have the power to amend the Act of Settlement. Essentially the argument here goes something like “surely someone must be able to change the bloody thing!” But even if the six Labor state parliaments can be convinced to pass the enabling legislation, this question will need to be comprehensively settled in the High Court before Charles can sit on his eucalyptus throne in any comfort. And I can’t wait for that case to be heard: every ratbag, crank, nutcase and pedant in the country will want to be represented.

The wonderful thing about all of this is the way it shows up the absurd nature of our constitutional arrangements. Vive le la république!

It’s Chinese (Lunar) New Year today. I’ll try to find some time to wander down to Chinatown (a few blocks from the office) and hopefully witness some firecrackers, burning of joss-sticks, and exchanging of fake money in little red envelopes

Lunar year 2005 is the Year of the Cock (snigger) in the Chinese calendar, which has already created some problems – apparently it’s traditional to eat various chickeny delicacies on this auspicious occasion, something which has proven difficult due to the current outbreaks of bird flu. The year of the cock is traditionally believed to be a “bad luck” year, so maybe we should be preparing ourselves for the worst.

1. Before the election, the treasurer warned that if we voted for the Labor Party, interest rates would rise. The conservatives, we were told, were the only party we could “trust” to “keep interest rates low”.

2. So Australia voted for the conservatives.

3. And interest rates went up.

4. Now, the treasurer says if we don’t hand over total control of the industrial relations system to the union-hating, union-busting conservatives, interest rates will rise. Industrial relations “reform”, we are told, is essential if we want to “keep interest rates low”.

5. (Your move).

Every once in a while you stumble across a web site which, despite the obscure or elementary nature of the subject, is rendered utterly gripping by the fire of the creator’s passion. It’s moments of serendipity like this that make web surfing a delight when it could so easily be a chore. In that vein, let me share with you Ian’s shoelace site, the most comprehensive, enthusiastic, and beautiful exploration of the seemingly mundane subject of shoelace lacing and knotting you’re ever likely to see.

“Don’t worry, I’m really Not a Knotting Nut, nor am I someone with ‘Way too much time on his hands’,” says the creator of this wonderfully bizarre work of genius. “I’m just a friendly Aussie guy trying to contribute to our shared world culture.”

Billboard by Travis de Jonk, for Midsumma 2004 public art project. © the artist.

Confused by the current fad for coloured plastic wristbands (which were much in evidence during the Australian Open) and their relationship to the coloured “awareness ribbons” of yore, I’ve drawn up a handy table comparing them to the hanky code.

The picture at right is the park at the end of my street where I walk my dogs. Normally a verdant swathe with a gently bubbling brook, paddling ducks, sweaty joggers and happy cycling families, for the last couple of days it’s been a raging torrent, bearing broken branches, garbage and very confused kittens towards Port Phillip Bay.

I already mentioned that Wednesday was the coldest February day ever recorded here in bleak city. It was also, I subsequently discovered, the wettest day on records, with 120mm of rain over a 24-hour period. I’ve been marvelling at the pictures on TV of snow falling in the high country, not something that normally happens in midsummer. What is going on?

This morning there are still thousands of homes without power, trees are lying uprooted across the city, some people are trying desperately to get their carpets dry before they rot, and the forecast is for more storms.

This is episode four of a 1001-part series.

What the book says: “It was Roman Polanski’s genius that made the film not merely an intelligent and intricate narrative but a great, disturbing vision.”

We were joined for the evening again by our cineaste friend Sean, with whom we started the evening with a spirited discussion of the question of whether Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski) is a film noir or not. It’s a debate that has been raging since the film was released, which I think a testament to the extent of Polanski’s achievement with this movie. The appelations neo-noir, quasi-noir, neo-neo-noir and possibly others have been tossed around. But these are just labels, and despite it’s grand stylistic achievement and hertitage, this is a film which defies simplistic labels.

Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway are perfect as the hard-boiled gumshoe and the femme fatale, and the gradually deepening and darkening plot draws the viewer in, often half-confused and half-intrigued by the twisted plot, towards the tragic conclusion. Murder, incest, corporate greed and public corruption combine terrifically and disturbingly.

Favourite scene: The switchblade-in-the-nose scene is classic Polanski.

Fun fact: The guy with the switchblade is Polanski.

Favourite quote: “She’s my sister! She’s my daughter! She’s my …”

Verdict: A long-time favourite movie by a long-time favourite director. A colossal film, love the hats. Four stars, 997 movies to go.

Just hours to go before Dubya’s annual State of the Union love-in. Anyone want to open a book on the number of times the word “freedom” will appear in the transcript?

Update, 18:36: Twenty-one times.

Meanwhile, a survey of 100,000 US high school students found that one third say the first amendment goes too far in allowing freedom of speech, assembly, press and worship. Half of these kids believe that newspapers shouldn’t be allowed to print stories which haven’t been approved by the government and three quarters reckon that flag burning is a crime. (BBC story)

If these kids are tomorrow’s congressmen, senators and presidents, then tomorrow’s United States is starting to look a lot like today’s North Korea.

The clock in the kitchen just chimed four. It’s been raining all day and all night on what has been the coldest February day ever recorded in Melbourne. From outside my house, I can hear the intermittent rumble of thunder. The roof is leaking.

Brent’s asleep in bed; no doubt the dogs have taken advantage of my absence to climb in there with him. When I go back to bed I’ll have to negotiate a space. Two grown men and two grown labradors on a double bed makes for a cosy situation, but if one of us rolls over, all four have to.

I quite often get up in the middle of the night. Awakened by a noise or a dream, it’s hard for me to get back to sleep. Efavirenz – a component of my antiretroviral cocktail – does that. Vivid dreams. Sleep disturbances. Hypermania. Tendency to write long, rambling, incoherent weblog posts.

I sometimes wonder what efavirenz is doing to my brain. I’ve been on my current drug combination since 1 November 1999 – over five years and something of a medical miracle for someone as “extensively pre-treated” as me. It’s my third combination treatment. With ye olde monotherapie included, it’s my seventh treatment regime. I’ve taken a total of 49,235 pills.

On Monday, at the doctor’s office for my three-monthly bloodletting, my new doctor said he’d never heard of anyone persisting as long as I have on efavirenz. I said I’m lucky – I have a tough immune system, a mutually respectful relationship with my virus, and a boyfriend who makes sure I take my pills every morning and night. It’s a recipe for success.

I joked that I was expecting any day now to read the first case reports of efavirenz-induced Alzheimer’s disease; he said “You won’t read about it – you’ll be the first to lose your mind”. It’s the kind of thing you come to expect with HIV treatment: every silver lining has a cloud.

The official line about efavirenz is that the side effects usually subside a few weeks after starting the drug. It’s bullshit, at least in my case. Five years on, the wind rattles the shutters at the wrong moment and I’m awake for the next couple of hours. I don’t mind too much; it gives me time to think and check the news and, tonight, discover just in time that the roof leaks directly over a bookcase.

And write long, rambling, incoherent weblog posts.

A Bill introduced to the Canadian parliament overnight:

Full text of the Bill (PDF).

Andrew Sullivan has gone off with his tail between his power glutes:

After much hemming and hawing, I’ve decided to put the blog as you’ve known it on hiatus for a few months.

Don’t hurry back, Andy.