These children all had; “Working with Josh certification’.

The days were impossibly grim. 

Each day brought another funeral parade of non-ideas. Tired ideas. Ideas clapped out, worn out, and over-wrought. 

Another apathetic, exhausted, spiritless resignation to the entropy of minds capped by the reassurance of  saying ‘NO” . And “it’s just too too risky’!

The public address systems blared on and on; ‘For your safety stay indoors, for your safety stay indoors’. . 

However, due to a clerical error they were subjected to interference from Labor’s ‘Faceless men’. And….. made face-less.

Old fears were re-awoken, and like a dark impenetrable cloud the fear seeded and spread, offering a comfort in insecurity and shallowness  Until the hearts and minds of the hapless denizens resigned themselves to the grey-grim inevitability of it all. They, who had no voice were paralysed by the threat of ultra-violence if they ventured into the streets. The foolish believed change was coming. The realists just aged and grew old before their time. And worried about their deposits secured in special accomodation homes at the standard rate.  The fear grew and grew until every germ of imagination and humanity was cauterised by the fear. An exctasy of fear. A catastrophe of fear.  A fear so paranoiac, a fear so punishing, perfidious, penetrating,  it became a paroxysm of pervasive Pompeiian proportions

The fear of contamination whenever they gathered en-masse. The fear of retribution if they stood outside the herd. The fear in the office, the workplace. The fear of those who held the reins of administrative power. The fear of those who would pursue and crush them. Destroy them if they strayed from the path of meek compliance.

 Are we talking about day 55 of the Ukraine Invasion? 

Guide dogs have a natural instinct borne by countless aeons of evolution to vote Liberal.

No folks, it’s just week two of the Federal election and as any good Scout-Master or Guide Dog instructor will tell you it’s important to have friends in high places who will do their utmost to keep the Tweedle-dums in power lest the Tweedle-Dees get a grip. Cos as we all know ‘plus la change’ and all that, it makes no difference. With a supine and compliant electorate no change is the best change you’re ever gonna get. And ‘Blessed Be’ the  safe sinecurists on governmental perks. If you’re not in the game you’re a loser! It’s a skin-game. And as far as we can see it pays to be white. Whiter than Bleach, and more pristine than Chesty Bonds T-shirt. Culture wars? Yep culture war….ts and all. 

But what of the truly dispossessed?  No we’re not talking about them, they choose that kinda lifestyle, (Tony Abbott,c.2014). We’re talking about our trio stuck beneath the desiccated crust of Australia’s most illuminated spot. Will they ever escape from their subterranean chamber of Horrors? What is this strange human-like creature with an exaggerated claw for a hand? Does it stretch the bounds of imagination? Do you believe in Sanity Claws?

Is there time left yet to stem the decline of every principle of goodness trashed by the three pillars of opportunism, greed and mateship? Can our heroes prevail?  Its up to Benny-Boy and his stock of weapons if there’s any chance at all. So let’s roll the dice, the fluffy dice stolen from the rear- view mirror of SCOMO’s Commonwealth limousine, and take one last throw. As the PM said to the prospective member of Warringah, at the trans  sex swim carnival speedos; ‘ There may be something in it’?

WE at pcbycp would like to endorse the ‘Inclusion foundation’. We tried to set up our very own foundation but discovered via our accountant you needed a significant amount of money to be eligible. The inclusion foundation works well, as most Coalition policies do for wealthier members of the community. They need support for they are vulnerable to tax creep and “faceless men’.

We return to our saga, read, if you dare……

‘Shhh, don’t say a thing’, whispered Benny Boy. ‘I’ve got youse all covered’. 

It was reassuring to know that with this strange, and foreboding claw-man monster thing we still had Benny at our backs.  A lot of former members of the SAS would agree with us. Better to have Benny behind that in front, where we couldn’t really see what he was up to. But we knew one thing ,Benny was on our side. 

Josh also supports those allied to the Leaping Tiger award. The ‘Leaping Tiger’ has displaced the ‘Leaping Wolf’ award amongst some members of the Chinese Scouting community who worry about Labor’s, ‘Faceless men’.

But is Benny-boy really on our side? If you felt the introduction was longer than the episode, just get used to it. This is an election edition episode. And after sponsorship, kick-backs, lobbyist payments, endorsements, sneaky party donations,  more kick-backs and phone calls in car- parks, restaurants, outside safety deposit boxes and down by the old mill that’s all you’re gonna get!!

‘Faceless Men’ cannot be trusted. Josh has provided punters with a ‘nine point plan’, in Mandarin to identify the ‘Faceless Men’.

Just remember one thing. If in doubt, if you’re really up against it.  If your tax return comes back a dud and you owe zillions cos you’re not a multi-national or Angus Taylor with offshore tax havens it serves you right!  That’s what this election is all about. Fool you for being an idealist. Being an idealist is So tawdry and twentieth century. So resignedly, and with no hope of anything innovative, clever or inspiring stay tuned to the  very next episode, 

‘Tweedle Dum aint so dumb at all cos he knows how to win elections’ and/or  ‘Tweedle Dee’s got a dog whistle, and he borrowed it from ‘Johnny One Note” 

A well-aimed leaked text message can be electoral GOLD!!!

Dear reader we return to our subterranean saga, with our heroes in more trouble than the vexed gender debate coming our of Warringah, they know that whatever hits them next will be ‘below the belt’.  

Stuck deep below the radioactive desert wastes of Maralinga with none other than Australia’s most decorated and bravest and principled soldier ever, ‘Benny-Boy Roberts-Smith’ they seek refuge in the dark labyrinthine streets of a moth-balled nuclear city aptly named “ Radium Springs”. A city created  so that a chosen few, selected for their perfection of mental, physical and emotional perfection could prevail and thrive and prosper post a nuclear apocalypse. A project, stalled, mothballed, forgotten and locked away for decades only to be rediscovered as the headquarters of two of Australia’s most powerful individuals, ‘Dutto’ and ‘Sophie’. What perilous truth awaits them? Will the protection offered by Benny-boy and subsequently Kerry Stokes be enough to save them? Or, like the rest of the population, must they wait while others selected via the aforementioned criteria are parachuted into grotesquely over-salaried sinecures of the AAT The FWC, Boards of Rivers, Lakes, Philanthropic Trusts, to realise as Lindsay Fox famously says, “no one ever goes broke from giving’.  Because as was not famously recorded in the transcript, what he really said was; ‘No one goes broke from giving, if they’ve got tax kick-backs, skewed philanthropic trusts, monopolies on transport and links to high end rivers of gold from Government as a win win situation’. 

In pre-texting days you had to rely on sign language and sheer physicality to hide the truth!

Like Lindsay’s edited transcript, Will our heroes complete story, (warts and all)  ever get to the editorial desk of our newspapers? Do they care? Will anything change?  Don’t lose heart for with an election anything can change. And there might even be from a crack, a fissure, a snap in the public debate to reveal just once, a glimmer of imagination to public policy. We live in hope and the time is right. So do not despair, glacial change is quicker under global warming, and in the end the clean team, clean-coal and clean living, (without the taint of LGBTO, Trans Inter sex Mutant and Cyborg) will win in the end. If you don’t believe us look to the PM for leadership and another tranche of leaked text messages. 

Text this you say’? Do so and Dare to WIN. 

In the olden days even mobile phone messages could be leaked.

We return to our story;

We stood aghast as the door, the great steel warehouse, 1950’s corrugated shuttered industrial door was rent like butter as a great claw, sliced its way out into the dim streetscape. At first we couldn’t see anything, but the as the dust settled, we made out the shape. We breathed a sigh of relief as the shape, we could tell in the half light and at distance, was human. Such a relief as all of us imagined radioactively enhanced scorpions, brown snakes, cockroaches, funnel web spiders, anything that was vile, hairy, and slippery and equipped with claws, talons, or stinging venom enlarged hundred-fold. Whatever it was its shape was distinctive and human and in that at the very least lay hope. 

‘Stay still’! Benny whispered, ‘if it comes towards us I’ll plug it with this RPG!

Macron and Scomo have different interpretations of Truth, it’s often lost in translation.

‘Isn’t that risky’? whispered Ces. 

‘I mean what if you miss’?

Benny smirked and borrowed one of Terry’s Camels* before lighting it up, GI style with a flick of a non safety match against the rough soles of his boots.  ‘I never miss,  and besides’, he grinned menacingly, ‘If I do miss the first time, I’ll get him one way or another’! With that he fingered the machete hanging from his combat belt, and tapped a delicate tune upon the stick handle of his treasured 1942 Potato masher Grenade outsourced from the prosthetic limb supplier of Kandahar. ‘I always carry some back up, you never know when it might come in handy’, and then pausing for effect, ‘a tight scrape’. 

‘But’, murmured Quent; ‘How do we know it is evil?  Surely, there is just a chance, after being bottled up here for decades, the creature, whatever it is will be happy to see us, it may also, theres a chance, offer us a way out. 

Bullshit’!, Benny could no be swayed, ‘it’s fucken evil I can tell you!

Hows that’? Murmured Quent, 

Sometimes the truth is so truthful it’s best left alone! Stick to text messages MAAAATE! The ‘simple truth’ can be bloody DANGEROUS!

‘Cos I told you so, and I have a sixth sense. 

Sixth sense? 

Yep mate, I have a nose for these things’!

We gulped Clearly Benny-boys years of training and discipline and selfless duty had prepared him for a situation like this, and who were we to question?  The most damaging weapon any of us had carried was a letter knife and a box of paper clips. 

‘He’s right’, Terry whispered, ‘I don’t know what they’ve kept down here, but I know it was never gonna be , he paused for further emphasis, ‘quite right”.

And in the end, like an Anti-Corruption body the public aren’t interested in truth, so we can all have a laugh!

‘On some of the experiments they did work on trying to fuse animal and insect parts onto human torsos for,  what was the term they used? ’ Greater Efficiencies”!  I dunno, it was so many years ago, but there was this bloke who got his old fella caught in the air conditioning compressor belt and they took him away, and the next thing there was a call for brown snakes and mulga snakes and rewards offered for those who could bring em in alive, it caused quite a stink, but if you think of this laboratory and the mind does funny things to you’. 

Just then Terry paused mid stream, for the steel door was tossed like a tissue and the figure, impossibly large, and covered in a dark indeterminate fabric, could be seen standing tall, stamping its feet and with its claw-like hand, waving at something in the air. We couldn’t make out what it was doing, Was it trying to communicate? Did it know we were observing it? Did it like Benny have a sixth sense? Whatever the case it gave a mighty heave, and in one bound jumped fully across the street, landing with a terrific thud just metres from our niche. It then jumped into the air again, with incredible agility some ten feet and in doing so let out the most sickening ear – wrenching scream. A scream so beast-like, so alien to our human countenance that we recoiled and crouched in abject fear.  Even Benny-boy was taken aback and we could see him nervously fingering his V.C service-ribbon. We needed leadership, we needed direction, and we sensed we needed salvation. With no salvation at hand, not even a well aimed Prime Ministerial text message leakage, we knew something worse was about to happen. Who was this monster? What evil was afoot? What crime against justice, humanity and notions of fair play were about to befall us?  And this, in only week one of the election campaign. 

If you aint gotta mobile or dog-whistle, try the Ukulele! It’ ELECTORAL GOLD!

Only you, dear reader can stomach the truth whist you still have stomach enough. Find out in our next intestinal episode, “ One more jump and you can forget your hop- skip’, or “Transex vexed-text ex’.

*Respected servicemen and SAS elite do not bludge ciggies off mates, they  ‘borrow”.

Lib candidate doesn’t want ‘povvo’ people living in Brighton. You can’t argue with that!

Dear reader,

another missive from our faithful correspondent from the North-West frontier. In this-un Frank urges us to think clearly about who we might vote for in the upcoming federal election. We of course know that voting entails a philosophical commitment to the democratic process, rather like the belief in  “Clean Coal”, and the ‘Ladder of opportunity’!

Why is this so you may ask?  Could it have something to do with the sneaking suspicion that big money, the lobbyists and the numbers-men have the game sewn up? Or is the electoral system really working for the average punter?

Lib candidate for Tone’s old seat of Warringha doesn’t like tranny’s. You can’t argue with that!

On that count we don’t know. Cept to say there’s a lot of independents in the air this time round.

And, politically speaking’ there are known knowns and unknown unknowns. That’s the best we can do with what we have.  And a bit like the Ben Roberts-Smith case it’s hard to get to the bottom of things when there’s a whiff of corruption in the air?  Apparently most Australians now believe the political system is corrupt. We reckon they’re just narked cos they didn’t get a parachute onto the board of the AAT or the FWC. Whichever way you look at it most of us don’t now how lucky we are to be living in ‘Strayla’, and Boris has paid us the eternal compliment of borrowing our offshore detention scheme. Onya Boris!

And SCOMO aint gonna dis another sheilah who wants to have a crack at Parliament. And dog- whistle on TRANNY’S! ONYA!

So ultimately what’s the problem? 

The Lucky Country?  You  betchya!

But Frank aint so sure. He writes; 

 

Hola,

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness”- Oscar Wilde.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX-YTIsj4Iw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMbQsKJ64S0

Albo’s the full-bottle on employment figures and imaginative policy! We arks Ya!

Australia is about to have another Tweedle-dee Twiddle Dum election.

Two days before going into pre-election caretaker mode, the Federal conservative Government signed a deal with the Northern Territory’s Labor (before you pedantics have a go, that is how they spell it) Government signed a $A872 million deal to “accelerate gas production in the Betaloo Basin”.

Barnaby can’t see the point in an anti-corruption agency! If he was made to his head would explode! ! !

The NT Labor government has not followed up on their promise to close the Don Dale youth detention facility nor has it done anything about increasing the age of criminal responsibility from ten years. As far as I can ascertain spit hoods remain legal in the NT and the so-called paperless arrest laws remain in place. There appears to be no political appetite on both sides of politics to amend laws that give police virtual impunity, nor to disarm community police of their unnecessary and insulting lethal power.

Clive is taking a leaf from SCOMO! He’s for CLIVE!

There is nothing that our ruling classes do to indicate that Australia signed up to the U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment nor that it had endorsed the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Craig is a man of…… How the fuck do youse spell principle?

But don’t despair. There is something we Australians can be proud of! Australia’s Border Protection and its efforts at disrupting the people smugglers’ business plan!
Never mind the business plans of the fossil fuel industry, the welfare industry, the Aboriginal industry, the pork barrelling industry, the child welfare industry, the prison and justice industry, the offshore detention processing industry.
Some in clear breach of U.N. conventions Australia has endorsed.

In a clear case of mediocrity paying the sincerest form of flattery to greatness Boris Johnson has announced that Britain will imitate Australia in disrupting the people smugglers’ business plan. So called Illegal arrivals by boat will now be processed offshore in Rwanda.

Never mind the business plan of the human traffickers who have swooped on hapless Ukrainian refugees.

As for the election: What shall we do?

Keith Pitt, (Member for Hinkler) will keep the bastards honest!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11po9xKBsbw

Myself, I will once again be using my vote to help vote someone out, rather than to help voting someone in.

Chau,

Frank

A bonus bit of music from Nicaragua:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yarz-zkIru8

Coles and Woolies enjoyed a duopoly for decades.

With an election coming on, anything can happen. 

The issues facing our heroes seem irrelevant. They pale into insignificance against the major issues suffered by average (non trust fund beneficiaries) Australian, working families and the vexed question of franking credits. 

It’s not because our heroes travails are irrelevant, but with an election their fate is inextricably tied up with the fate of the nation. The fate that shall determine whether one bland white, average middle aged individual will succeed over another white middle aged bland individual. This is the kaleidoscope of Australian politics. No matter how changed, how cosmopolitan the population becomes you can rest assured that a bland middle aged bloke will win in the end. Its called the ‘ ‘white bread syndrome’. No matter how many gluten free, non hi-fibe, fructose , vegan, paleo loafs are for sale, it’s no match for the plan white, sandwich loaf.

And that’s a comforting thought.   It doesn’t pay to think big. Imagination, vision, and principle won’t win elections. A  more equitable tax regime, a sensible approach to climate, and the prospect that at least someone below the age of 40 can afford a house in our capital cities is not gonna win an election. 

Labor and Liberal worked a very reliable duopoly for decades

What will win an election,? 

The party that decides to do the very least. Promise bugger all. Promise that by doing nothing everything will stay the same. We at pcbycp are very proud of Australian policy direction through the term of the Coalition and would say why change it? Its been very good for lobbyists, Angus Taylor, a few mates who have the inside on energy policy, Angus Taylors family and very good for a handful of mates who have earnt taxpayer funded sinecures with the AAT, FWC, and Boards in general. Good on em we say!  Mateship is the core principle governing this country and there’s nothing wrong with helping out a mate, provided they’re white sliced, or a sheilah who knows how to shut her mouth during ‘secret men’s business’. 

Then, along came Aldi.

Is Mateship  the glue that will keep our heroes Ces, Quent, Terry and their sidekick Benny-boy together, through thick and thin?  Without mateship they’d just be four middle aged men in search of a taxpayer funded sinecure, or worse.  But in a cruel twist of fate they find themselves pitted against two of the most powerful individuals in the Australian body-politic, Dutto and Sophie. And above this comic parade of power, intrigue, espionage and high finance, sits Angus. As they say in the SAS ‘Whoever Dares Wins’, Angus wins every time…. Do our heroes have mateship enough to crash through, or are they just out-Towked for not being of the right stripe? Read on,   and this fudamental truth, will opaquely speaking,  dissolve itself. 

The story continues… 

Don Chip was sort of, the first of the independents way back in the late 70’s

Whilst Ces, Quent and Terry sought refuge in the doorway, they watched as Benny-boy casually walked across the darkened and dust begrimed street. The only illumination coming from the still burning embers of the Victorian Police Special Response Vehicle. It was eerily quiet. Only seconds ago, we were paralysed the dull thud of a drum, and strange unsettling noises. Noises half human, half beast from within the dark grey monolith of a building, too begrimed and coated with decades of dust to read the sign over the great warehouse doors. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, we could discern, from beneath the giant steel doors a slither of light, 

‘There’s something inside’, whispered Ces

‘I know’, replied Quent, ‘but I’m not altogether sure I want to find out’. 

‘Is there any other building we can find refuge in Terry’?

‘I dunno’, Terry replied casually lighting up another Camel, ‘They’re all much the same and as I haven’t been on the ground for donkeys I can’t really remember which building is what’. 

‘Then this building’, Quent pointed to the facade, in which a huge X was displayed on the concrete facade. ‘What building is this’?

‘Oh that, that’s Building X. It means experimental facility’. 

The Australian Democrats were big on principle until they lost their principle through politics

‘What kind of experiments’? 

‘Oh the impact of radiation, 

On people’?

‘Who else”, Terry paused, ‘and some species of local animal’.

‘Whaddayou mean some species’?

Well we tried to work out the effect of radiation, whether it would be good or bad for kangaroos, wombats, etc. 

Good or bad? 

Well you’ve gotta understand that in the 50’s we could only see good with radiation and nuclear in general. There was never anything ‘bad about nuclear, just the odd mistake’. 

We looked at each other, ‘then what happened?

Well we we shut the facility down, we locked up the building  and just kept enough energy going to keep basics like refrigeration, air distribution, basic lighting, and stabilising’.

‘Stabilising’?

 Yeah, there’s some pretty unusual organisms, a bit like cryogenics, you know to keep the genie in the bottle’… 

‘That’s bullshit, lets take a look’. 

Benny crouched behind us was impatient to get moving, ‘With Sophie and Dutto not accounted for I say we move NOW’!

Clive is more successful than the Democrats ever were cos he’s ditched principle

‘But Benny, it’s a little risky, and ….

And just for god measure he lined up the door with his rocket propelled grenade, and let one go. 

Nothing happened, the RPG just fell to the ground fizzled and went out, ‘Jeez, just like an election promise’ sighed Ces. ‘Yup’,Quent replied: ‘like Turnbull another dud’. 

Then, we heard it again, the dull throbbing, and from within, the sound of chains, metal sheet, something dragging , and the sound was edging to the door, on the other side, whatever it was, was struggling to get out…. And then the booming started over again, with a menacing deliberation, until our ears were overwhelmed by the deep booming cacophony.. Do something Benny, we pleaded. 

‘Allright then’, Benny did as he was trained, loaded another RPG, and covered the door with his Gatling gun… the grenade exploded we could see it had blasted a hole in the door, and from within,  a blood curdling shriek. 

And then as we watched paralysed with fear a claw rent the metal of the door like tinfoil, and with an almighty heave, creaking and groaning, the door burst open. 

And what did we confront, What hideous spectre loomed before us? 

Was it the Minotaur, or something worse. 

SCOMO knows what wins elections. And it aint principle!

Find out in our next genetically modified episode, ‘Elections are not all fun….d’, and ‘Scomo’s Fomo’!

Only one certainty, more shit was gonna hit the fan about SCOMO!

Dear reader, we find our heroes once again in deep shit. Shit of the fundamental, environmental, physical, metaphysical and spiritual kind. It’s an unedifying predicament akin to a fair character assessment of Scomo. With more bases to a fair hearing blocked more assiduously than evidence in the Zac Rolfe’s murder trial, whichever way you look at it, it pays to have mates. And our heroes all 3.5 of them are led and take comfort in being led by Australia’s most decorated and noble soldier EVER Benny-Boy Roberts Smith. Whichever way the omelette is baked Benny-boy will be at their side, on their backs, and over and out. There might be no other way out than all in, and back to front, but forwards is backwards and in between when you’ve got seconds to live and your choice is commandeered by Sophie. Sophie or Hobson’s the coin is two-sided, and you’ll lose the toss, so we must toss-on as tossers do… 

Nice guys don’t get to become leaders

‘What was that sound’? Ces Whispered, ‘I dunno’’ murmured Ben. 

‘Is it coming from there’? Quent pointed to the low dark slab of a building. ‘I think it is and I don’t like the sound of it’, whispered Terry. 

‘I dunno’, muttered Ces, ‘but this gives me the creeps’. 

‘Yeah, and if that banging isn’t bad enough, if that horrible banging could stop we could try and think straight, but after all we’ve been through things just seem to go from bad to worse’. 

Indeed Quent was right, it’s often difficult to emphasise with people in dire straight’s that’s why we at pcbycp support the Federal Governments glacial response to bush fires and natural disasters. To rush impetuously and support citizens in the act of survival or recovery could skew the governmental process, and take politicians minds off the main game of investment portfolios and tax payer funded sinecures post a parliamentary career.  (ed)

Nice guys have their Goose COOK-ED for them.

‘Too right Ben’, Quent sighed, ‘it’s almost as if just as you thought there was no more shit to tip onto Scomo’s character, another pile of shit is dredged up and added to the last, till there’s nothing you can see but just a pile of shit’!

Benny laughed, ‘That’s the technique we used to identify the enemy in Afghanistan, if they were thrown into a cess-pit and didn’t drown they’d have to be working for Isis’. 

Scomo gives two attractive sheila’s advice on working with Dyson

‘Yup’, muttered Terry in fulsome agreement, ‘finding terrorists and witches aint changed much as ASIO strategy all these years, cept the witches aint all wearing britches’. 

We all paused, this was a controversial and strangely contemporary statement from  a man who’d been entombed beneath Maralinga for sixty odd years. 

Real leaders look after mates who run Leadership foundations that don’t exist. Onya Chris. Who the fuck is Chris Hartley?

Was Terry making an oblique reference to lgbtiq and trans sex, intersex and mutant gender definitions within government, or was he just referring to changed underwear requirements since the 50’s? We decided not to question him on his line of thinking as there may be a tendency to spend the rest of this descriptor debating the vexed question of trans and inter sex definitions of witches. We leave that task to a higher authority, the  Fair Work Commissioner and its exalted board member Sophie, and with Pru Goward and her mates all parachuted onto the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and any other publicly funded sinecure. We knew that an individuals rights, provided they could stump up the fees for legal representation were in good hands, it was a comforting thought. 

‘Still, I don’t like the sound of it. What is that sound? Could it be code’? postulated Ben? 

‘I dunno but its sounding a lot like the Drums of War’.

‘People who’ve lost everyting in bushfires and floods can fuck emselves. Mates who demonstrate leadership, and don’t even have an office or a postal address deserve 18 million handouts. It’s the only way kiddies will learn about leadership. The bigger the prick, the bigger the leader. A philosophy that’s held me in good stead these years’!! (Unpublishd extract from ‘My Way or the Highway” SCOMO’S unpublished biography: Happy Clapper Press. Amway Publishing . 2022.

‘Yeah, cept these are more like Bongos in which all the skins are being split, and someone’s tried to re- skin the bongo with….. I dunno. Paper, bits of plastic sheeting, or’…. 

Benny filled in the pause  with something obscene or unimaginable, but it betrayed in just one instance his experience as a professional soldier, ‘Or’.. he added with a sanguine wheeze … ‘with human skin’!

At that utterance we all froze. 

The thought though hideous and ghastly beyond imagination, had a measure of truth in it. Knowing that in some way, Sophie, Dutto, and most likely Angus as ring- leader there’d be a close link. To break that link, or discover just where the path of iniquity, corruption, vice and depravity led was an unenviable task. Though it may lead us to the board of Crown resorts or worse, we had to find out. And out salvation or downfall was buried within.  In the end the only choice we had, was not Hobsons, but Sophies! Ben spotted another niche across the other side of the street. ‘Allright youse, when I give the signal I want youse to wait for me there, if anyfink happens i’ll give youse covering fire, 

On the count of three. 

Is this an order’? asked Ces, ‘sort of, and besides what other choice have we got’. 

We gulped and Benny gave the count; 

‘One’, and the sound of the drumming got louder. 

’Two’, and the sound of something else, something more blood curdlingly eerie penetrated the gloom. 

One thing’s for certain, wherever there’s a scam, there’s always a Royal!

‘Three’, as we crouched, slid, sidled, inched our way across the street we began to hear something much worse. From the bowels of the very earth? Was it from inside the building? 

A scream?

No! Not a scream something more sinister. The sound of something much more sinister. Was it another rendition of the ‘Belt and Road song’? 

Does it pass the Sniff- test?

Was it a sequel to ‘Up there Cazaly’? Or even worse ‘Gday Gday’? We had to find out, and we knew whatever we did find was not going to be in the Cliff Richard songbook.. 

Birmingham has form on the ‘smelly things’ that go on in Parliament.

Will this be there last short movement? Will this be the chord in e flat major, or will minor suffice? Minor or Major they’re in deep shit.  Find out what happens in the next episode, ‘Not enough sinecures for mates on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal’, or ‘Towke and Scomo and Hawke, the Good, the Bad, and the Unedifying’

We are indebted to Frank for another sanguine, salutary and scintillating piece for the near north west frontier.

An unendorsed, and non- compliant sign that was removed to ensure public safety and uphold the principle of law and order.

That slither of land, rather much like the Peoples’ Republic of Moldova, that is not entirely devoted to mining, prisons or uranium dumping for this next missive. We at pcbycp are somewhat confused, as Frank has a different take on the intervention. We who enjoy the info-tainment as presented to us by The Australian, The ABC amongst others as Daily NEWS are disappointed he can’t find a positive spin on the Intervention.

We at pcbycp still cherish our Terrorism Hotline  fridge magnets, and hope with some enthusiasm, that the upcoming Federal election  will be inspiring us with stories of Reds under the bed. The yellow Peril. Border violations, and whatever else is done with some theatricality to make us all insecure, slightly xenophobic and fearful. It’s a war winning and election winning formula.

The intervention was a boon for sign writers. ( accredited and endorsed sign- writers).

More from Frank now. He writes;

 

 

 Доброго вечора друзі

In June 2020, the Government of Ukraine prioritised the usage of coal at Ukrainian power stations to reduce the import of natural gas used at the power stations for electricity production.
In 2016 Ukrainian coal production was 40.9 million tonnes (excluding production from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.)

The Donets Basin contains 90% of Ukraine’s coal reserves.

Our gift to the people of Ukraine? A lump of Coal. If it serves us to create a fair and equitable society it might as well serve them as well.

Recently the Russian army breached the front-line between Ukraine and the Donetsk People’s Republic. The big winners? The arms manufacturers and dealers. The big losers? The people of Ukraine.
Australia is once again punching above its weight. It is donating 70,000 tonnes of coal to Ukraine. The coal is being supplied by Whitehaven Coal, a company which made significant contributions to the Liberal Party.
Make of that what you will.

In Kieran Finnane’s book, ‘Trouble (On Trial in Central Australia)’ In the Introduction she describes the Alice Springs Courthouse. This from page 2:

“…Lately graffiti has appeared on the footpath in front of the entrance stairs, small letters stencilled in black: ‘This is the front line.’ It says.
It’s discreet enough for nobody to bother scrubbing it out. I’d like to know who did it, and what kind of battle they think is going on inside…”
I opined that the front line at the Alice Springs Courthouse was the same one I alluded to when I started writing the Musical Dispatches from the Front after the 2007 Intervention.

The Country Liberal Party said it planned to introduce the Sentencing Amendment Bill 2022 to the Northern Territory parliament this week, a legal reform which would mean mandatory prison for anyone who assaults a frontline worker.

“We know that police and frontline workers are being assaulted at hideous rates and, as crime continues to increase across the Territory, unfortunately, what we’re going to see is more people on the frontline assaulted while doing their job,” Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro said yesterday. “It’s really important to us that we send a serious message to would-be offenders that, if they assault a police or frontline worker, they are going to have an actual term of imprisonment.”

Big Prisons are a RIVERS OF GOLD for shareholders and the construction industry. Promoting JOBS and GROWTH!

The big winners? The prison industry in the NT. The big losers? Yapa (Aborigines)

So why does all this make me think of the Sudeten Czechoslovaks and the Donetsk Ukrainians?

подумай над цим Frank

PS- I only have three copies of My Yuendumu Story left (out of 600). This was way beyond my expectations. A second print run depends on very hard to assess demand. I’m finding that writing volume 2 is rather tricky. More than half the readers of Volume 1 were you, the Dispatchees. If you can be bothered, your comments, suggestions and criticisms will be gratefully received. As per usual I promise not to shoot the messenger
Just some nice music (from Colombia a few days ago) to finish with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW2M0pjc1K8

Russia still committed to Urban renewal in Ukraine. Just as the Australian Government is devoted to helping Aboriginal Australians find meaningful roles as ‘clients’ in the Prison Industry.

Not in the public interest, and more secret than the payout to Dyson’s victims? (these women both signed a ‘working with Dyson certificate’)

Once again we reluctantly are compelled to continue this narrative. A narrative so shocking, so breath-taking in its revelations of human behaviour and activities hardened by war, that no level of journalism can convey the suffering and hardship endured by our four hapless heroes. 

Embedded, entombed, entangled in the vicious cycle of power shifting, graft and corruption that guides contemporary government policy and pre-election appointments to highly paid public sinecures and boards, they must stand alone and bear the horrific consequences. Not  bound. Not bored but board-less.

More secret than the source, (not in the public interest) of who paid for Christian’s legal fees. (The bloke on the left knows but cant tell cos he and Chris are mates. Mateship being higher in value than public interest).

The consequences in daring to believe that there might be more to life, than croneyism, money and the distortion that comes with being on the board of Crown Resorts, The High Court bench, the AFL, or Bet 365. Knowing that at least bet 365 is keen on the public actively participating in its wealth making enterprise.  ‘Is there no end to this corruption of public office’? We hear you say. Hopefully not, for as Vladimir says, ‘corruption, once entrenched  is a difficult thing to stop and besides, winners are grinners’, and ; ‘Absolute Power might corrupt, but that aint so bad’. Who could disagree, but are our heroes winners? Are Sophie and Dutto yet to take out the booby prize? With more booby traps than a children’s crossing at Bucha, the stakes are high, medium rare, and under-done. The ultimate question, will this do them in? Or hapless and heroic are they yet to prevail to die all over again, for a lost cause?A punch up at the Oscars?  Or is this talk just fatalism? Lose or win, in the upcoming federal election, the lobbyists will grin, and have their own party content that in Canberra as elsewhere there’s always a  party when the taxpayer foots the bill. For which ever party wins,  we all know, things will remain the same. Hold tight, we’re in for a bumpy ride, and the child door lock is broken… 

More secret than Witness K’s prosecution. In the public interest not to know how far Alexander Downer was prepared to screw the East Timorese.

We return to our saga….

“I think we’ll pass the cinema’. They sidled down the dusty dark streetscape, eerily quiet now the conflagration had ceased above them.   Benny-boy, as trained by his SAS service, threw a few spare grenades into a building marked ‘Kindergarten’.  ‘Just to make sure’. We heard the dark thud and consoled ourselves that if things got worse and Sophie and Dutto resorted to hostages and human shields we’d have that avenue covered.  ‘Move on’! Benny matter of factly commanded, and obligingly, with Terry still puffing on his Camel, we sidled, backs to the wall, down the street. ‘What’s that building’? Ces pointed to a building with a very large, concrete fascia with an X clearly delineated on the stucco, ‘Oh that’! Terry remarked, ‘That was building X’. 

“What happens there’? Terry flicked the ash fro his camel, took a long drag, and wiped his hand across his overalls, ‘ Oh that, it was the experimental laboratory’. 

“Experimental, what do you mean what type of experiments’? , 

Terry phlegmatically as ever pulled another Camel out, lit it with his time-worn zippy lighter, and exhaled; ‘Simple experiments, stuff like  testing the human body under doses of radiation, simple surgical procedures and projects deemed too sensitive to proceed further with.. projects that tested the viability of mutants for assignment on specific tasks, like decommissioning nuclear reactors, poison gas, germ warfare, biological warfare and more recently developing newer strategies to enhance the value of clean coal’. 

CLEAN COAL I though you’d said this facility had been shut down for years’?

More secret than the wheel- barrow load of evidence that was considered not in the public interest in the Zac Rolfe trial?

It has, just that in the 50’s we were looking at Clean Coal then. Why then? 

Well it’s simple during the White Australia Policy we thought that black coal as an energy source didn’t align with our core values, so we tried to turn it white. That involved a lot of chemistry, and being white it was termed ‘Clean Coal’.  Get it? 

We looked dumbfounded? Were all the experiments as bat-shit crazy as that? 

Nup, not really, but they were all signed off by ASIO, CSIRO and the Department of Finance as being visionary and good for business. And besides they were too sensitive as projects to allow the public in.  They wouldn’t understand the hidden value and spin-off’s’. 

‘Spin-offs’? Ces ejaculated with a forehead smacking whack of incredulity.  “Clean Coal’!!! 

‘Yep you might laugh, but by trying to make the coal white we were able to give the washing powder industry some new strategies for germ removal, and particularly hard to remove stains, like grass stains on cricket gear and the like. In the 50’s this was a significant breakthrough, and in the end it was guaranteed by Lever and Kitchen, Palmolive and Life-buoy. It gave us,  (Australia) the edge in a competitive global market. What happened to the research then’?, we felt weary at Terrys description, ‘Oh we did what we always do, sold it off to the yanks so they could produce it better and cheaper, so then, they could flog it back to us at twice the price. That’s robbery!  

No it aint, its ANZUS, and the way Big Business operates in this country. . And besides anything else experimental was deemed too sensitive to release’. 

‘Too sensitive,’? Ces, seemed exasperated at the stupidity of the facility.  ‘Was that because of the nature of the experiments? Was it classified for political reasons’? 

Terry took another drag; ‘Well ,yes and no, there were just some experiments that went a bit off track’. 

More secret than Vlad’s plan for best supporting act on-stage with Will Smith at the 2023 Oscars?

Would you like to explain? 

Well it went like this’,

And before Terry could open his mouth we heard a curious sound.  The sound that metal sheet makes when it is being torn whilst being beaten in a low percussive rhythm by a large soft object.  We all froze, it was coming from the direction of building X, and as we stood stock still and retreated into the niche again we felt that something within that building , dormant for years had been awoken . Was this the end of the line? Had  the Minotaur moved to Maralinga? Or is it something more sinister than imagined? Imagine this, the next episode could be worser. And the event more horrible-er and the tension more draining-er than the upcoming Federal Election. 

Tune into the next episode, ‘Three hapless  non- alcoholic cheers for Sophie’, or ‘King Canute’s Saxon name was always CNUT, Is there an anagram in that? 

Dear reader,

In the olden-days Herodotus was the bees-knees for historical and factual accuracy

Another scintillating dispatch from our man for the distant North-West frontier. The man they call “Frank’.

In this- un he seems to be making a reference to fake news. On the heels of the Federal Budget we’re still trying to work out which are the fake bits. Which are the fake substitute bits, and which are the ersatz fake bits. ‘Hard to find an honest man in Parliament”,  as they used to say. Harder still to discern the ultra-fake from the deep-fake. Is this fakery you may ask? It’s a deep well, a Ferevanti Well perhaps? A well of Loneliness? Of discontent? You be the judge…. and ‘I’ll bet you a Zac, that the judgement is yellow  and the victim is black’.

Frank writes;

Bonjour mes amies et autres,

Herodotus could spot an historical inaccuracy from miles away

When I was working as a well site geologist on Panarctic Oil’s Hoodoo Dome No.1 well on Ellef Ringnes Island in the Canadian Arctic, an arctic wolf was spotted hanging around our rubbish tip.
This was in 1970 long before refuse disposal sites and landfill and instant photography.
A group of us excitedly and bravely approached the wolf with our cameras. We got dangerously close to the snarling wolf to snap our pictures. When we had our film developed in Calgary our photos were graced by a tiny barely discernible distant wolf. It is all a matter of perception.

Another old codger, called Moses wrote a whole lotta semi- factual history down on tablets. They were cheaper than scrolls, but way heavier.

On the same well-site one of the roughnecks (as rig workers are known) caught a lone lemming near the pipe rack. He took it to the kitchen “Hey cookie, why don’tcha bake us a lemming meringue pie?”. The cook kicked him out (him and his lemming).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zhBVHhPV6U  (Joan Soriano- merengue)

Now we have all heard about lemmings committing mass suicide by swarming over cliff edges. Not unlike humanity swarming towards the cliff of climate change.
Despite the fake news of the lemming myth having been conclusively debunked, many still accept it as a given. Myth as fact.

Suetonius could tell a good yarn, with a bit of colour added to the racy bits

Am reading Claire Coleman’s ‘Lies Damned Lies’. The Chapter headed ‘Australian History is Fake News’ concludes with “It’s time for archivists and historians (and Dispatch writers) to speak up when lies are uttered. Otherwise, fake news will become the only news.
It happened with Indigenous people: character assassination on the scale of a whole culture. It can happen to others too. If you’re not worried about it, you should be”Though his facts were in French

Froissart could also tell a good yarn.Though his facts were couched in mediaeval French, which didn’t adapt well to the 24 hr news cycle on French mediaeval telly.

It happened with Yuendumu: character assassination on the scale of a whole community.
It happened with Kumanjayi Walker: character assassination on the scale of an individual.

Edmund Gibbon was no slouch in the historical artefact department. He wrote all about the Roman Empire, as if he was really there!

Despite attempts by those who know and love Yuendumu to debunk these stigmas, stereotypes and fake news assumptions, many still accept the portrayal of Yuendumu as a dangerous dysfunctional depraved community as a given. Myth as fact.

Despite attempts by those who knew and loved Kumanjayi Walker to debunk the portrayal of him as a dangerous, violent, young criminal who was ‘the author of his own misfortune’. Despite the deliberate co-ordinated fake news campaign aimed at character assassination of the victim. Many still accept the portrayal of the perpetrator as a heroic figure who saved himself and his partner and was doing his job. Myth as fact.

I’m told that 9,000 people signalled their support for police wearing guns on Aboriginal communities on a pro-Zac Facebook page.

They are like lemmings plunging head first into what Bruce Pascoe dubbed the ‘Gulf of Incomprehension’

A bientôt

Worlds greatest historian “SCOMO”, a well practised Ukulele. Short historical scripts for power point and white board.

François
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6gIEGmOBH4    

The underground theatre below Maralinga used to show underground films

Dear reader, with Sophie and Dutto hell-bent on control of all the resources not sold off yet to multinationals or Russian oligarchs in Australia, and Dutto detrmined to get the the very top of the tree, we return to our saga.

Like the  Zachary Rolfe trial there’s more turns and twists in this than a Hollywood sub plot to a B-Grade movie, that was destined to die at the box office,  and in time become legendary as an avante guarde classic. But there’s something worse afoot, With ‘Benny-boy’ and their new side-kick Terry stuck with them in the dark corridors of a hidden and moth-balled sub terranean city, there ony way out.  The suspended tram line is down, and though everything has crashed around with it, they know that as the road to Tarrin Kwot may be lined with IED’s and Victoria Crosses, ther nemesis Sophie will get out of it… because like Rasputin, (another great Russian leader) Sophie is unstoppabble, Indefatigable infelxible, indominatable , implacable and absolutely un-reasonable. 

When the only way up seems further down, its akin to a Federal Treasurer trying to stem inflation, Canute- like with a bottle of beer, a packet of Tim Tams, and a feel good, ‘have a nice day’ t-shirt adorning his personage, 

It had plenty of atmosphere

Stay with us as we plunge ourselves into another protoplasmic episode as our heroes. Now a party of four, seek redemption amongst the radiocative wastes of Maralinga…. 

Read on…..

As the fragments of tram tracks, the gantry, the scaffolding, what was left of the Public Order Response Vehicle, and the unspent magazines of Sophie’s MP 40 crashed all aound them, we noticed, as you’d expect in the Christmas light preparations being enacted at Mauripol, we’d see fragments at the very least of Sophie and Dutto. But no such thing rained down on us. In the darkness and the dust, we waited for the crashing to stop, and coughing with the dust and smoke it was several minutes before we dared venture out of the niche we sought refuge in. All that was left, a sulpherous glow as the debris smouldered amidst what looked like a streetscape of faceless buidings, warehouses and long, steel-shuttered blocks of flats. The city of the deep underground, promised to be under arc lamps and the sun directed through myriad shafts the salvation of Australia post apocalypse.  Now, it just looked like an average part of a capital city destined for urban renewal. In the concrete and fibro porticos, the long abandoned footpaths, and streets summerged under aeons of dust, 

Days of faded glory

‘There’s only one way outta this, even if we do make it to the surface, we’ll need a camel’. 

Ces made the point by slapping his hand, ( Oscar winning style) across Quent’s forehead.

‘Why didn’t you say so’?, as Terry passed us a packet of camels. 

Terry was thoughtful that way.  .

‘And these camels were the genuine article’. 

Ces unrwrapped the packet, ‘these are the camels they used to sell in the 70’s’!

‘Yeah’, Quent opined, ‘till they banned them for being too strong. Nowadays the only place you can get em is in the US”

Norman, beyond the cultural norm.

Benny piped in, ‘or in one of those funny little tobacconists off the main drag in Kabul. You can get most things in Kabul.’

‘You’re not wrong there’! Ces laughed, “including a paur of prosphetic legs or if you can find it an ol .303, a Lee Metford, a Martini Henry and a V.C, left over from the 1842 campaign’ ,Terry enthused, ‘Yeah cos as ya all know V.C’s dont have a use by date’!

‘Yep’’ Ces interjected, ‘bit like the ring in the ‘Lord of the Rings’, once you’ve got one you can be rendered nigh invisible, and have protective powers. Looks like we may need something like that in this fix’!

‘Yeah, if Sophie and Dutto are in trouble, we might need any ring we can get’. 

‘What’s that’? Ces pointed to a low blockhouse, the front just a grey oblong, the rear like a long low Nissan hut, on the facade, still legible on a rusted sign, hanging at right angles from a couple of brackets, ‘Gaumont Picture theatre’.  ‘Picture theatre, did they have movies there’? 

‘Oh yes’’ Terry enthused, ‘we trialled it before the expected occupancy by those selected to ride out the nuclear winter. What kind of films were selected’? Ces was a bit of a film buff. 

‘Oh easy watchable feel-good movies’ Terry enthused  . ‘Yeah, with famous actors’? 

‘Well not really, as part of the Anglo Australian nuclear agreement we could only get films approved by the British Consul General’. 

Arthur, a living LEGEND!

‘So you mean Hollywood wasn’t part of the equation’?

 ‘Yeah’. Terry said distractedly. ‘So what kind of films were you able to screen’?

‘Well, don’t get me wrong, this was the humour of the time,  but we had a matinee of Norman Wisdom numbers and then travelogues, you know with canals on barges, a trip to France, and a excusionists guide to Blackpool’. We were consumed with silence, “was that all’? Ces asked.  ‘Well, we had a comedy section of Tommy Handley shorts, favourites by Arthur Askey, and the best of all the complete ‘Carry- On’  Filmography. 

‘Excuse me Terry these films,  I hope you dont mind me saying, but they’re pure shit’!

Tommy, Shakepeare of the airwaves…

Why choose such shit films’? 

“Oh that’s easy, we had them on rrotation, becuse if anyone missed the world outside, they could always see a matinee of these and not really miss it at all. It was dreamt up by the psychologists, to stop people pining for the surface, they caled it ‘surface syndrome”  and by trial application, it seemed to work. 

After a Handley screening, the complaint about liveing underground ceased, and after the Arthur Askey number suicides went through the roof.’

Improvisation, a key element of great comedy.

Talent and LEADERSHIP Counts…

Is that all that was shown in the cinema?  Is there till a stock of old reels left to see?  Has the cinematic quality of this narrative lost its lustre?  Find out inthe next kinemtographic episode, “ My friend Flicka, was best seen at the flicks’, or ; “If this aint the last remake of Beau Geste, in jeste, laughing mater or not, it could be the end of destiny and history and who’s to Fukiyama?