Dear reader,

another scintillating piece from Frank.  In this- un he talks of voices. Both Ces and Quent, (our sub editors and long-term contributors) suffer from a state of advanced deafness. And as far as political voices are concerned, regrettably, we can only hear dog- whistles. But if you listen hard to this dispatch you may hear something else. Ears to the ground as they say, 

Frank in his younger days enjoyed worldwide communication courtesy of his HAM radio. The ham was cured and cooked for Christmas. (Ham not indicated in this studio portrait)

Frank continues….

你好吗？( Nǐ hǎo ma?)

That in a fair and functional democracy, minorities should have a say in matters that affect them, to me is a no-brainer.
Yes, it should be so, but living in Yuendumu, it is painfully obvious to me that as far as the Warlpiri people is concerned this is far from happening.

My musician brother, often would participate in talent shows, both radio and television.
He had the talent but never achieved celebrity status. I remember him ruefully telling me that he had become Australia’s Oldest New Face. Too late for my brother but the talent/reality show TV industry has flourished. Worldwide franchises such as “…….(insert country) has got talent” not to mention that glitz and glamour kitsch extravaganza, Eurovision. The weirder the better.
Then there is The Voice in which some reasonably talented singers are hyped up by a panel of celebrities who go into orgasmic paroxysms and any lengths to excite and convince audiences into believing they have just witnessed the performance of the century, so as to sell more advertising.

But it isn’t television’s The Voice I wish to discuss. The Voice to Parliament that our latest Prime Minister has vowed to hold a referendum on, is The Voice I’m often asked my opinion on.

This referendum is a double-edged sword. I remember when Ntaria’s Warren H. Williams was a candidate in an election; he considered the idea that Australia should have a vote on the notion that Indigenous Australians were here first, to be highly insulting. Should we hold a referendum to determine if the Earth is flat or round?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvbgTQIWw_4
Warren H. Williams, Great Southern Land

A GREAT PM gives a superb oration as to why he took on secret ministries at a time of crisis. FOR ONE GOD!

Of course, our previous Government missed an opportunity. Our Prime Minister made that giant leap in reconciliation when he unilaterally changed ‘young’ in our national anthem to ‘one’ Equally he could have, when he was Minister for Everything, have made a unilateral decision on The Voice, and saved us the angst of a costly and divisive referendum.

So here are Argentina and Australia’s national anthems at the World Cup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euv8ZW82mqk

The rendition of that awesome Argentine National Anthem I grew up with…
Oid mortales, el grito sagrado… Libertad, Libertad, Libertad!
(Hear all ye mortals, the sacred cry… Liberty, Liberty, Liberty!)

left much to be desired.
The Australian National Anthem, on the other hand had an Aboriginal language version tacked on, which to their credit the Australian team had learned. But hey! We have reverted to being young rather than one. Who decided this, and when?

The GREATEST VOICE this country has ever known and the REAL anthem of Australia, Anzackery, and an ALL LOVING GOD, who prefers Queenslanders over Socialist Pinko Victorians

I vividly recall the euphoric crowd returning from the ceremony at which the Warlpiri people were “granted” Native Title on neighbouring Mount Doreen Station. Traditional dancing had much impressed the judge, politicians, media, and well-wishers, and a good time was had by all.

What did it all mean? I asked- “Matthew can no longer lock the gates. We can go there anytime we want to”
Recently Mt. Doreen Station changed hands for $34.7 million plus another similar amount for cattle on the hoof. Pastoral Lease holders retain the right for access control, but Native Title holders have the right to hunt and perform ceremonies. However, should they be tempted to hunt a bullock, they risk incarceration.

Native Title was sold as the culmination of the Land Rights movement. A fait accompli. Empowerment.
It is anything but.

So, what about The Voice to Parliament and the Uluru Statement from the Heart? The danger is that they will be seen as the full stop to the struggle for recognition and reconciliation. The Voice can be used as a weapon of colonialism “We have ‘given’ you this, so what more do you want?” It could derail any effort to negotiate treaties with teeth. Just like our nation has reverted to being young, so too, could The Voice be muzzled, even in its inception.

Which brings us to the current politization of The Voice.
The current opposition has started a campaign of obfuscating the process. They are demanding “more detail”

Honest, I’m not buying into this argument. Suffice it to mention Noel Pearson’s most recent contribution to the English Language: trapped in a “redneck celebrity vortex”

I was going to vote No, I’ve changed my mind, I’m voting Yes.

再见 (Zàijiàn)

Frank

PS-The tres (three) is a Cuban guitar which has three spaced pairs of strings, tuned in a particular way, to give it a unique sound:

GREATEST PM EVER! Serves GOD FIRST, and the Australian people a distant second.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzz2MZRjlw (the guy on the left)

Intro….

Prince Harry, sports his favourite outfit before he was shunned by ‘The Firm”

Its only several weeks until Christmas, and we know as you stuff yourselves with grog and rich food, you should spare a thought for those in desperate need. Show compassion for those less fortunate.

Prince Andrew has been cut adrift, spare a thought for poor ol Prince Andrew when you’re tucking into your Christmas Pudding.

Prince Harry and Meghan have been cut off from the royal family, ‘the Firm’ and will have to rely on their wits just in order to put food on the table. It’s an unstable table and it complains bitterly about having to shoulder the burden of inherited wealth, privilege and alleged racism. We know there is no such thing in the royal family, they are chosen by GOD to lead and God as we all know is an old bearded white man, so there’s nothing to see here. And we also know that the Liberal Coalition is rent by back-stabbing, in-fighting and corruption. Good to see an age-old tradition keeping faith with its core belief system.

Gina Rinehart, a shoe- in for the House of Lords before she was dissed by Sophie.

Elsewhere the world is a nasty place, but none nastier than that of our hapless trio who have endured more than a parliamentary intern, and found themselves back where they started, about top have their reckoning served cold by none other than Australia’s second most powerful (‘is that a law professor in your back paddock’?) Sophie, ‘I have the numbers’; Sophie, ‘the cards are always marked in my favour’; Sophie, ‘and I always get what I want’, Mirabella.

Will they cone through this time or will Sophie, unelectable, un-lady like and unwatchable pull it off and siphon Ginas Gold destined to the Firm in exchange for a peerage into her own designer handbag. 

Diamond’s are forever, but designer clothing is only for the anointed, 

we return to where we left off…. perilously poised as we say…  read on….

Ronald Reagan, slotted to be the greatest actor ever in the history of Hollywood, before he turned to bit parts of his Presidency.

Sophie declared her interest in Ginas’ gold and the right she had to be taxpayer funded in order to uphold her privilege, lifestyle and dignity as a member of the Fair Work Commission.

‘For your information, I’m not only a bitch, but you’re looking at the next most powerful woman in Australia after Gina, and after I’ve finished with her, she’ll be yesterday’s fish n chip paper’.  

 ‘But….. but’, Ces stammered out the words, ‘what about Dutto, have you knocked him off’?

Nup, I’ve put him a place where he can do no harm.  Where he can’t be heard, and where no one will ever listen to him’!

‘What’s that’? Ces expostulated, “A prison?  A Devils Island? The Don Dale Detention Centre’?  

Sophie scoffed, ‘Worse and less obvious than any of em, he’s installed courtesy ‘MOI’ as the head of the Parliamentary Liberal Party’.

We all laughed; she had a point. From here on Dutto would be invisible.  “And I told him’, she clearly relished the power, ‘that if he was a good boy, I wouldn’t let on about his crab claw deformity and the fact that he represented the vast bulk of Queensland politicians as undercover half human victims of the nuclear testing of central Australia in the fifties and sixties’. And for the privilege he’s gonna play along, and this’ll make yer laugh I’ve got Angus onto it to make sure that as far as Dutto is concerned, we’ve put the lid on him. There’ll be no more trouble from that quarter.  he’ll be Jam-Landing in no man’s land till the cows come home. That’s why I have Angus in my pocket. He knows not only how not to get things done but divert whatever it was into OUR Cayman Islands Fund. For the good of the country’. 

Adem Somurek, slated to be the BIG MAN of Labor Politics in Victoria must now content himself with a taxpayer funded possie on the Upper House.

It didn’t sound right, but the way Sophie said it, with such conviction it seemed almost plausible. That’s why we were glad she was on the Bench of the Fair Work Commission to protect business from wage enterprise and fairness, someone had to do it.

 ‘Which gets me onto the business of the day’! Sophie deftly struck a match on the heel of her jackboot and lit up another Soberani, ‘to got to the point before I waste youse. Where’s the GOLD’? 

‘Or to be ladylike’, she made a sneering gesture in the direction of the sign on the edge of the oil rig, ‘to be lady like, give me THE FUCKEN GOLD!! 

 You have one minute to give me the gold, or’….. We could hear the click of the AK 47, ‘ you’ll be getting a taste of this gift from my dear friends in Russia’. 

Poor ol Gina, paid big bucks to attend the Trump 24 event and had to sit at the back of the room.

 She laughed again, ‘hhahahah’ more maniacally than ever. ‘Cos Vadimir, and me mates in Moscow have an each way bet that whatever happens in Ukraine, in the outback, or’ she scoffed ‘Windsor Castle we’ll come out on top.  Ha ha ha aha, she laughed possessed with this inner lunacy, a terrifying delusional laugh of self-belief and power over everything. She composed herself and continued with her soliloquy.

‘But I’m afraid for you lot, you’re destined’, she gestured with the muzzle of the gun, ‘you lot are gonna be somewhere a bit lower than that.  Somewhere about six feet below where i’m standing. 

 Give me the gold’.  

We looked at Sophie,

Gina in happier times as bit player, ‘A Town called Malice” (she had a walk on roll as an excavator).

She sneered at us, one pudgy bejeweled figure on the stock of the AK 47, the other pulling the Sobrani held by an extender, whilst she released the safety catch. All of this skillfully done whilst she let out three perfect smoke rings into the sparkling blue- ness of the central Australian sky. We had to hand it to her, she was classless, and indestructible.

‘Well then boys by my reckoning you’ve got about five seconds left, just tell me, you might live if you tell me, it can’t be that hard to choose between life and death, can it’?

We all thought, ‘what qualification could there be’? Life was hard, and death a sort of reprieve, and in the end, it was a hard one, either way you are stuffed, but in the stuffing somewhere hidden deep down lay the truth.

‘One last time boys!  Another perfect smoke ring; ‘tell me, just tell me, where the Fucken GOLD IS’!

 CAN OUR HEROES FIND THE GOLD?  

Will the gold deliver them from evil?  

Can they tell Sophie that the gold is just dangling above her head, cleverly painted over as a counterweight to the drill rig?  

 Find out in our next instalment, ‘Picnic at Dangling Block’! or

Poor ol Harry destined to be KING, except the Firm has so far dodged his cunning devices and soldier on. Cunning device seen whispering a word in his ear.

‘From Russia (via Sophie) without much love’. 

This installment of Dispatches is proudly brought to you by Stuart Robert M.P.  A great man who achieves greater efficiencies via mate-ship and insider confidence. We hope Stewie can be at the pointy end of arms procurement or at the very least an insider on the next subs contract. He likes doing things sub….

Dear reader,

another scintillating snippet for that seraph of the southern land, the scribe from the near north, the Pericles of the parched bits, that Cicero of the spinifex, our scribe Frank who incidentally goes by the name of ‘Frank’.

In this stunning installment, (in which one may detect traces of irony) he points to the usage of buildings and how these buildings communicate a message to ordinary folk like us.

He finished, (spoiler alert in describing how Norwegians refer to Viking as ‘Norse’).

A great statesman and emblem of the Arts. Sir Les Patterson, internationally famous in Australia.

We felt it incumbent upon ourselves being an internationally acclaimed media outlet and were relieved to find that our twin Morse telecommunications transmitters, and our ham radio were well serviced and working efficiently. Without them and the semaphore and heliographs installed at great expense, there would be no communication.  As it is, with our old Norse sets, we have tip top communication for that fateful day when unknown agencies may beat drums of war and knock out satellite communications, telephones, fax machines mobiles and fast food uber outlets for six.  We prepare for war as we drift into another hapless year. And did you know that it’s just 81 years since the sinking of H.M battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse off the coast of Malaya, (as it was then called). And just 81 years and one day since Pearl Harbour, and exactly 42 years since John Lennon was shot outside his flat for making too much noise. Well, now you know you are invested in the eternal truth of Australian Foreign Policy Sucesses and the cost of producing art.

Frank writes, (this message was decoded from Norse into Morse)

HM Battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse. When the pointy end of Anglo Australian Foreign policy was blunted.

Yasu!

When Australia’s cultural Ambassador, Sir Les Patterson, was asked why he’d returned to the Lucky Country, he replied in his inimitable vulgar manner: “To find me roots”

When I reminisce about my school days, it isn’t those kinds of roots that come to mind. No, what I remember is English teachers opening our minds to an awareness of Latin and Greek roots.
I do wonder if contemporary (Latin) curricula (Latin) place the same emphasis (Latin and Greek) on Latin and Greek roots as they did back then. I hope so.

 

Which brings me to the Greek prefix ‘meta’
Just like in Biology we have plants and animals, in Geology we have igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary, not to mention metasedimentary rocks. Then there is metabolism, metaphysics, metastable and that horrible word metastasis.

Which brings me to my favourite: metaphor.

Big building, small justice

From time to time I mention that the Warlpiri people are masters of metaphor.
Soon after an NT policeman pumped three bullets into a young Warlpiri man in Yuendumu, a dignified peaceful gathering took place on the lawns in front of the Alice Springs courthouse in solidarity with the young man’s family and the Yuendumu community.
At this gathering Jungarrayi pointed to the largest building in Alice Springs, namely the Supreme Court, and likened it to Captain Cook’s ship.

Three years later, when the coroner and a wiggery of barristers (don’t worry, I had to look it up) visited Yuendumu, family and community raised the matter of the trial of the policeman having been, contrary to convention, moved from Alice Springs to Darwin. This had placed us at a great disadvantage when it came to attending the court and expressing our support for that young man and his family. Japanangka during the coroner’s visit mentioned the Alice Springs Supreme Court building:
“What is it there for? It is just sitting there doing nothing” he exclaimed.

Big Police emblem, very small man

I should mention that the coronial inquest which has now gone into recess until next February, is held in the much more modest local court house, while the Supreme Court looms not all that far away, doing nothing, as mentioned.

The idea of a large building sitting there doing nothing tickled my sense of irony.

There is a multiplicity of metaphors available to us that set great store by them. To name just a few, there is Ursula Le Guin’s ‘The Word for World is Forest’ and Claire Coleman’s ‘Terra Nullius’, the Swedish TV series ‘Real Humans’ and Australia’s own ‘Cleverman’

Recently a friend alerted me to the Norwegian TV series ‘Beforeigners’, a veritable smorgasbord of metaphors, such as “We don’t use the ‘V’ word (Vikings), we call them Old Norse”

Yasu!

Frank

Old Norse was converted to Australian idiom in the 1940’s.

Life is a highway… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FX5DKRt2xg&t=3s

—

This episode has been kindly sponsored by Stuart Robert MP and his mates from Infosys. Stuart kindly declined an offer to be interviewed by this masthead, suggesting there was a conflict in his personal interests via the unnecessary and tedious requirement to be honest about his business dealings as a cabinet minister. WE heartily agree.

 Dear reader we return, unhappily, unwillingly, unflinchingly to our saga.

Three good men stand in the desert wastes of Outback Australia.

The dead centre.

A place so dead even the non-dead bits look a bit dead. Where only the nation’s finest, the thin blue line of justice, the NT, West Australian, Queensland police patrol an area a million times greater than Ferguson Missouri to do what their Life’s work is about. To imprison, to arrest and subjugate the lawless indigene’s who must be, if needs be KILLED so that they may learn the gift of good governance.  

This episode is bought to you by Hancock prospecting and a tribute to those stout heart and minds who reap benefit by cleansing the land of the taint of nativism and can turn a useless patch of desert into RIVERS OF GOLD! 

Sadly, though the very leader of the Hancock dynasty Gina herself is mired in a nefarious plot to gift Gold Ingots to the King, formerly prince Charles, now KING CHARLES the Turd. In order to secure a seat in the HOUSE OF LORDS!

For as we have discovered even the most powerful woman in Australia is in thrall to the biggest crime syndicate of them all, the ‘Firm’, aka, the House of Windsor.

Gina has lost the Gold, Sophie has turned up to find it, and Gina’s peerage may rest in the balance. It’s a three plumed disaster, and whichever way you look at it, it can only get worse.

Will the King succeed?

Will Gina get her Royal Gong?

Will our hapless heroes survive a deathly grilling from Sophie who, though bounded by the principles of fair play as a member of the Fair Work Commission, is callous, evil, indifferent to suffering. Or anything that tempers her taste for absolute and unlimited POWER! 

Gina, arguably Australia’s most powerful woman seeks a peerage from King Charles the Turd through the undeclared gift of several suitcases of gold bullion. Her kindness has not gone unnoticed by the GOP who’ve sked her if she’d like a seat on bench on the Supreme Court when she gets bored of being filthy rich.

We return to our saga;  

So, Sophie pulled out another Sobrani, haplessly we realised at the precise moment of Sophies arrival, we’d finally run out of Camels. We looked to Sophie for inspiration, perhaps the thought dawned we could bludge a smoke off her ladyship? We’d heard that before execution your entitled to a fag or a bottle of beer. Perhaps Sophie would be touched by one last brief compassionate gesture before unlocking the bolt of her Kalashnikov and riddling us more thoroughly than an empty pasta colander at a mafia dinner dance?

Sophie, however, was in no mood for trifle;

 ‘You thought you could get away’, she laughed again. It was worse than a Hyena on heat, worse than the sound that a little rabbit makes when its snared, worse than listening to Pauline Hanson in question time.. ‘You thought you could escape me, you thought’…  

Ces interjected; ‘But what we don’t understand.  Last time we saw you at Radium Springs, (the underground nuclear facility set up beneath Maralinga in the 1950’s) you were in a death dance with Old Potato Head Dutto. You’d exposed him for what he was, a crustacea like hybrid, and you were determined one way or another to finish him off! 

WE thought you were’.. He paused for added emphasis, ‘DEAD’! 

 Ha aha ahah…… ahahahah…. hahaha… ha…. and hahah more mad laughter ennsued.

King Charles the Turd auditions for the remake of Lawrence of Arabia.

“You can’t kill me!!!   It’s just not that easy.  

 See this’!

She patted her patent leather jack boot, it made a metallic clang, ‘It’s titanium alloy’!

‘See this’! She squeezed her kneecaps, and we heard a percussive thwack, ‘that’s pure molybdenum inserts’

‘And feel this’! We recoiled at the thought and gestured ‘no thankyou’, as her pudgy fingers caressed her thigh, ‘pure polycarbonate’!

And this! Her hands moved suggestively to her midriff, and all three of us being gentlemen averted our eyes, what with the jackboots, the whip, the pudgy bejewelled fingers and the leather skirt it was just too much. ‘Well look then you pathetic bastards”! At this we glanced upwards and stared back at the dry desert. ‘THIS….  it’s all space-age reinforced carbon- fibre with Zircon polycarbonate and anodised aluminium inserts’! Another metallic clang. ‘You see boys I’m not only bulletproof but I’m inflammable, I’m rust-resistant and then she snarled, I’m utterly impregnable’!

What could we do? We felt embarrassed. We’d rather not. 

‘SO BOYS’! She dragged on another sobrani.

Persistent rumors abound that Gina may be seeking more than a peerage and Camilla has been interviewed about the possibility of a serious secret rival kept by King Charles in the wings.

Tell me, in just one sentence what ya done with the GOLD!

‘If you cant give me a straight answer I’m afraid you’re use to me is over. And you’ll stay here for the carrion, and i’ll just go back to my safe possie on the Fair Work Commission. And, (she sniggered) to be Fair and do the odd bit of work and get commissions for back-room deals.  For boys that’s the sweetener of politics, whereas, youse, as mere journalists, just don’t get it’.

Will our heroes get it?

And if they do, will it be fully franked?

Find out in our next Fair Work Episode; ‘a commissioner in the hand is worth more than two from the push’. Or, ‘whichever way you look at it, you might be marginalised, underpaid and homeless, but Sophie will always be Ugly’!

There’s succor in that!

See no Conflict, Speak no conflict, Hear no conflict of interest! This edition of Musical Dispatches sponsored by Stewie Robert. A man who knows how to get things done and will look after mates in sourcing them the Taxpayer Funded RIVERS OF GOLD!

Dear reader,  with Crypto currency on the slide and a susserus of fear not seen since that fateful day in November 1929, and the drums of war, and what’s going on in Ukraine, and the tribulations of our erstwhile Glorious leader ‘Scomo’ in denying any responsibility to parliament and the people of Australia it’s comforting to read that there was, has, may have been a time when big plans made it big in ” Camp Rolfe’, (formerly Yuendumu).

Not the big plans currently in favour with the government to criminalise and imprison the majority of the male population for transgressing the laws of whiteness, but a bigger project that would surely put Yoonda, (now called ‘Camp Rolfe’) on the map. We won’t tell you what it is, we’ll let our scribe from the distant North West Frontier divulge that fact.  But rest assured, form Franks pen it will be a considered and important NATION BUILDING PROJECT!

So, grab your Michelin guide and thrown your chefs caps into the air, because thus nation building exercise will put Camp Rolfe, (formerly Yuendumu) firmly on the map. Albeit, we have a suggestion for Frank. Perhaps he should enlist the services of the Coalition’s very able minister Stuart Robert, He knows how to get things done, and is the man with the means and business connections to MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Stewie’s the FULL-BOTTLE on mateship. Mates Rates, and looking after Mates who are not even part of the parliamentary system. Cos he knows the ART of the DEAL, (D. Trump) and getting rid of RED and Green TAPE! ONYA STEWIE!

Over to you Frank, being yuletide; we converse with Frank via Ham Radio,. 

Amici,

Many years ago, some of us in Yuendumu fantasized a tourist attraction to rival Coffs Harbour’s Big Banana and Kingston’s Big Crayfish.

At the top of Yuendumu Hill, south of the town across the Tanami Road, we’d erect a tower topped by a revolving restaurant which in turn was crowned by a large Styrofoam, wait for it:

Stewie has an uncanny likeness to Max Schreck who did such a lot for the Funeral and Blood Transfusion industries way back in 1922. Could they be related?

Ta da!!…  The Big Witchetty Grub.

Just like the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Ristorante Ngalkirdi never left the written pages.

Colpa mia, turns out my portrayal of this community I love, in My Yuendumu Story, is fictional. I found the true Yuendumu surfing the net when I came across the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-edJy0b35o
Restaurants in Yuendumu, Australia

If you wish to book any of these restaurants to savour Yuendumu’s culinary delights, I am prepared to assist you with this and will gladly provide bank details. I also have a large bridge for sale in Sydney and a large rock in Central Australia.

For a more modest outlay you can have that fictional account (My Yuendumu Story) posted to your friends as a Christmas gift (now $44 due to increased delivery cost- mailed direct to your friend)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU-0RP4UGoM

Mariza- Un Beijo de Saudade

From the head the hydra grows. (or was it the teeth?) A great leader looks to other ways to monetise his position as a fully taxpayer funded representative. The QUEST continues.

Ciao,

Frank

Tbis edition of pcbycp is sponsored by Adem, who is a shoe-in for a possie on the Legislative Council after the Victorian State Election. A victory for fairness and the democratic principles of good governance.

You’d think our heroes had had enough!

You’d think after all they’d been through; they have had enough, that they’d gone the full SCOMO to emerge beaten but unresponsive, unapologetic, and righteous to the last.  

But no, it was worse than that, after all they’d been through all the travails and tribulations, being imprisoned, being coerced, bludgeoned and bullied to Gundagai via far Kew you’d think that they’d be dead by now. But no! They’re still on the ground finding themselves up to their armpits in a filthy plot by Gina and her cronies to secure Gina a possie on the House of Lords.  Paid for by gold ingots via the greasy auspices of Australia’s most celebrated war jingoist ‘Brenny-Boy’ Brendan Nelson and Australia’s greatest, (arguably) ever war hero the VC winner, the giant of Tarren Kowt. The Cliff Roller, and the people plugger ‘Benny Boy’ Roberts Smith.

Adem talks to pcbycp staff on ethics and morality in governance.

In the previous episodes we learnt sadly that King Charles the Turd and all his Cronies at Windsor Inc, are in on the plot to divest Australia of its Gold reserves so that forelock tuggers can get a possie in the House of Lords. And for Gina, who has everything, she wants the very absolute of all that money can buy, prestige and respectability. But it aint cheap. And with inflation it just got more expensive!

But, breathlessly, we add, there is more. 

No sooner than ‘Brenny boy’ and his sidekick left them in the lurch than the arrival of their arch nemesis Sophie, on a Rotodyne. Sophie eviler than banality thereof, arriving and playing, not the ‘Ride of the Valkyrie’, as in ‘Apocalypse Now’, but something more and infinitely more sinister, a scratchy rendition of the Rolf Classic; ‘Two Little Boys’.

Our former, and some arguably say, our most ‘OUTSTANDING PM’, talks to the unanointed, (BY GOD) about his responsibility to lie, cheat and deceive for THEIR OWN GOOD!

Is there any Lower?

Is there a more corrupting influence, designed to torture an already tortured soul? Is it worse than Eurovision, the upcoming Commonwealth Games as cheap and tawdry? The situation they find themselves speaks for itself.  They are trapped, and as the door opens what pudgy countenance is there before them? It’s none other than custodian of Fair Work and oppressor of retired law professors herself, Sophie the anti- archangel Mirabella.

‘Hiya Boys, Pleased to see me’?

She took a long drag on the Sobranie, flicked the fly swash she held inner left hand, and putting one patent leather jack boot on the first step and her head raised in the ultimate triumph she said, ‘Show me the gold boys before I plug youse for good this time’.

A MAN OF CONVICTION! A MAN OF OUR TIME!

We stood stock still, the thin whisps of Camel Smoke, (the brand, not the animal) listlessly caressed our parched and wrinkled countenances. We envisaged a short cross examination, a trial and then execution. Why would we expect anything else? She would do to us, as she was doing to wage earners every day of the week. She was the chosen, we, mere ‘Untermensch’.

Ces picked up the olive branch,

in this case, being the desert there was only a dry fragment of Mulga and said; ‘But Sophie, in all fairness we’re innocent!  You’re chasing the wrong Blokes! It’s Julian and Benny Boy who flogged the Gold, and once again we’re in a pickle thought no fault of her own’.

Greg Mirabella, spearheading the Liberal Revival across Victoria

WE nodded sagely, surely this would prick Sophie’s compassion. Till we reminded ourselves there was no compassion. Still, Ces stoically pursued the course of Logic;

‘And Besides Sophie, why should you care?  You’re on the bench of the Fair Work Commission, and your old man is running the Victorian branch of the Liberal party to the delight of the electorate and your mate Scomo has got clear off for being a lying, deceptive God bothering bastard. Shouldn’t you just rest in the warm inner glow of the forces you support getting off the hook? Shouldn’t you just receive the publicly funded sinecure and all the perks as being enough? Shouldn’t you be happy, and just leave us alone’?

Sophie stamped her jackboot. Ces had hit a raw nerve. That was the problem with Sophie it was like trying to entertain a Crown of Thorns Starfish, there was all prickle and no softness.  Or a Box jelly fish, all softness and a deathly sting in the tail.

‘You talk to me of FUN!

You think THIS’! She waved her other bejewelled hand and the pudgy jewellery adorned fingers in the air, ‘You think this THIS IS FUN!

Destiny. ‘Commeth the hour’, (Testicles Chapt;1, v. 2). TWO LEADERS WHO WILL NOT LEAVE the public purse till it hath been FULLY DRAINED into their anointed pockets’. (Testimonials V.4, Ch,5, Old testament)

You have no idea what fun is until you’ve tasted RAW POWER!

Raw POWER is what motivates me, and now Gina has more power than I, I have no time for Time- wasters’. ‘You’! She glared; ‘are Fucken TIME WASTERS’!

‘Show me the gold or I’ll just grab it myself and leave three corpses Comprehende’?

We had nowhere else to go, this time she meant real business. ‘But, But’… Ces, equivocated; ‘Don’t you represent the democratic system and checks and balances inherent in the system. As a member of the Fair Work Commission aren’t you there to serve the Commonwealth and not’, he paused for emphasis ,,,’ yourself. Don’t you’?

Sophie cut him off in mid-sentence, ‘I’ll tell you Cecil if that’s what your real name is, the only reason I prevail is others like me, loathed, dispensed, relegated are still out there trying to outdo for mere pettiness and nastiness. Its an affront to my sense of self. WE can’t all be’, she spat the next word out, FAIR MINDED! It gets you nowhere, even SCOMO, ANGUS or BARNABY don’t want to be Fair- Minded.

But you’re then no better than’, Ces searched for a witty epithet, ‘no better than someone who just plays politics as a vendetta, for their own purposes, and nothing to do with the Commonwealth and the collective being of the nation.  You’er no better than Adem Somurek..

SELFLESSLY! IN GOD’S Service! HE WORKS ALONE!

Ha ha….ahahahhhh…..hahaha Sophie convulsed with laughter, Adem? He’s an amateur, and he, he… WORKS FOR ME!

This came as a thunderclap, or as this is set in the arid centre of the driest continent, it came as a sandstorm. It only begs the question; Will the trio survive Sophie’s retribution?

Will they show her the gold?

Or will they via subterfuge and fair- play outplay the evil Fair Work Commissioner?

Find out in the next episode, ‘Sophies Sophomore’, or

‘Cashed up and Cashless, Winners are Grinners, and isn’t that all of the time’?

El Salvador Airport possibly about the time Frank did a stopover there. Possibly at this stage it wasn’t sold off and privatised for ‘greater efficiencies” !

Drear Reader,

We should apologise for this deliberate mis- spelling but it seemed apt as it’s from our scribe from the distant North-West Frontier, when he writes to us about the trickle-down effect.

‘Is that something moist we ask running down our inner trouser leg’?

Could people still believe in the trickle-down effect? Last time we looked it, was being espoused by Ronnie Reagan and Maggie Thatcher and that was flamin years ago. Could it still be active as a principal plank of public policy?

After it’s been discredited by personal experience for years and years. Or perhaps is there something amiss?

Ronnie and Maggie pioneered ‘ the trickle-down effect’!

Is the trickle-down effect the latest in a long line of what’s old is now new again?  The 19th century tycoon, who like Jeff Bezos and Elon Mush (another incident of deliberate mis- spelling) want profits and workers to be paid next to nothing?  Cos they can. 

Find out.  For in this episode Frank lifts the lid, to expose Babushka doll like…….. (wait for it) ……ANOTHER LID!

Frank writes; 

A myth extolled by the Global Economy, is the so-called trickle-down effect.

The first leg of our return journey to Australia in 1971 was an unforgettable several month odyssey by car from Canada to Panama during a to tourists relatively non-perilous socio/political window of opportunity.

A rare colour photograph of El Salvador Airport, before the colour process was also sold off for ‘greater efficiencies’.

It was when we traversed El Salvador, that we got a new insight into Foreign Aid.
Access to San Salvador’s airport was unhindered. No metal or explosives detectors and no sniffer dogs. No heavily armed guards in black Ninja uniforms nor service personnel in bright Hi-Viz fluorescent vests (lest they be run over). A small group of Salvadoran airport workers in white overalls gathered in a café on the periphery of the airport during their lunch break. Just as the best value roadside food can be found where truckies take their meal breaks, so it was at this café. Simple fare, at the lowest price imaginable: brown beans with tortillas and generous dollops of sour cream, prepared con cariño, just right.

Our budget did not stretch to routinely staying in motels, so we were grateful to be able to make use of the free airport bathrooms.
A brass plaque at the entrance to the building informed us that United States of American foreign aid had gifted the airport to the people of El Salvador. I haven’t checked but I think I’m on the money when I assert North American construction firms most likely built the airport with cheap local labour.

Ronnie tells Maggie; ” Go for your life public assets are no good for the filthy rich, that investment is better served by those who know BEST’!

Ronnie was very worried about the sex- trade and socialist medicine. That’s why the U.S Health System is ‘Rooted”.

Apart from the white-overall brigade polishing the floors or lugging luggage, and a sprinkling
of Latin looking men in business suits, the majority inside the building, also in business suits, spoke loud English with North American accents. Presumably these businessmen had come to San Salvador to make deals with the 3% who owned all the land. The Latin looking gentlemen probably were the brokers and real-estate agents and interpreters doing their bit so that their country would move forward. Pimps aren’t confined to the sex trade.

In all fairness to those who convinced the U.S. Congress to approve the gift of an airport to the lucky denizens of El Salvador, some consideration had been given to the trickle-down effect. Couples whose loud North American accents were matched by their loud clothes were sparsely distributed among their business suited compatriots. Elderly men in Hawaiian shirts, palm tree motif, and Bermuda shorts, often accompanied by beautiful younger women with East European accents, would distribute some of their greenbacks, mostly to foreign owned hotels and restaurants. The café of the brown beans, tortillas and sour cream, also benefited from the gifted airport, as virtually all of its clientele worked there. Where the runway crossed over the main road, the traffic dipped down to a short tunnel to get to the other side. The whole complex was located on a level playing field.
I don’t think I’m drawing too long a bow, when I perceive much of the money being spent on and in Yuendumu to be akin to foreign aid.
I think it is very appropriate that they refer to it as the trickle-down effect. It certainly isn’t gushing down.

Ronnie was the Full- Bottle on the trickle-down effect. He boned up on it constantly!

Over to you.

FDB

This post is dedicated to the 2024 Trump Presidential Campaign.

Dear reader, another thrilling installment awaits…..

This post is also dedicated to the Glorious Gina Rinehart foundation. A foundation committed to keep Australia’s mineral rich bounty away from the taxpayers and citizenry of Australia for their own good.

As the rotodyne descends upon our hapless trio we pause to thank Gina, Australia’s richest woman for attending the GOP Fundraiser. Donald needs more money from Australians so that they can be free of the taint of Minerals derived income. It’s best looked after by those who know what best to do with it. Rather than the silly outmoded idea of a ‘Commonwealth’ and good governance.

With this in mind, and the neo-liberal experiment still playing out, we return to the coalface and the fate that awaits our trio. Out there on the dusty desiccated landscape of Australia’s dry interior.

Will ‘Lady Luck’ grace them with her spirit this time?

Or are the spirits on offer only methylated?

Read on, and find out.  And for those who are weak, suffer from a chronic condition or are addicted to day-time television, talkback radio or Sports bet 24/7 this might be as a good as it gets.

Sergei Lavrov, a late attendee at the 2024 Trump Presidential Campaign launch.

The engines changed tempo again, and then as the whirling blades slowed we could see individual blades with ‘Hancock Prospecting” stencilled to the undersides, and admired the Fuselage art, a picture of the boxing kangaroo and the caption ‘Make Australia GRATE AGAIN’.

Then, with everything suffused under the low hum of the turbine, the engines cut off completely. All we could hear were the ‘swish swish’ of the slowing blades, and the tick, tick, ticking of the cooling system. And before us, the sparkling silver duralinium fuselage and its mighty insect-like form prone as a praying mantis, a caddis fly or perhaps a dung beetle would after a day rolling dung, in seeking respite from the intensity of the central Australian heat. A dry heat that desiccated these three fragments of humanity to the very spot they stood, immobile, immute, and implacable to the fate that awaited them.

They still couldn’t see into the cockpit, and though they strained their eyes they still couldn’t make out who, (barely discernible as a grey shape within) drove the craft. And though they tried with every ounce of their being to hear, detect, glean some small signature of what lay within, they were unrewarded. It was as yet an enigma. And a paradox at that. And, they didn’t like it.

‘No sign of a door opening yet’, muttered Ces.

‘Nup’, replied Terry, ‘whoever it is, is laying on the suspense, and’…..  interrupted Quent. ‘ I just don’t feel good about this’.

Historic photograph of Rotodyne undergoing trials at Essendon Airport prior to the arrival of Lang Hancock for the ‘Diggers and Dealers other Ball’. Melbourne C. 1966

Still, the Rotodyne just stood there. Barely twenty metres in front of them.

And then just as they looked about and realised there was no one else on board, something absolutely strange took place. Somewhere from within, they could hear a crackle, the sound of an intercom.  They realised an announcement of sorts would be made and at last they could determine their new protagonist, protector, foe. It would be revealed.

They strained in anticipation and what followed struck them immobile with raw unrestrained fear.

‘Two little boys had two little toys’.

It was worse than the ‘Candy Coloured Clown’

‘Each had a wooden horse

Gaily they played each summers day’

Whatever lurked inside…… it was beyond evil…

‘Warriors both of course

One little chap had a mishap

Broke off his horse’s head’

This was beyond anything Vladimir would do, it was beyond obscene

‘Wept for his toy then cried with joy

Australia’s true and only Fair Dinkum NATIONAL ANTHEM.

As his young playmate said’.

The trio by this time disconsolate, stood paralysed. Beneath them, a thin trickle of liquid betrayed their inner state, and the Camel’s, stuck more firmly than Araldite sagged on bottom lips rendered frozen.

‘Do you think I’d leave you dying’…….

And then from the Rotodyne

‘Ha ha, ha HAHAHAHAH’! A maniacal laugh. A laugh so filled with the paroxysms of pure insanity it rent the air and if as much as a breeze had interrupted the orchestrated trance of despair. They, all three of them almost died on the spot.

‘Did youse miss me boys’?

Another hysterical laugh. A laugh unhinged from humanity itself. A laugh Hyena-like in its intensity and hideousness.

‘You knew I’d never leave youse, me boys, and now it’s time for a little game.

And do youse know what it’s called me boys’?

‘Cluedo’? stammered Ces,

Sophie’s back! Is this the worst thing since ‘the BLOB’?

‘Good try Cecil me luv, but this game is called ‘Consequences’…

Ha ha’….

And the door, surgically, robotically and remotely opened. We could hear the internal air swish out of the pressurised cockpit and froze to what emerged, Jackboots, Pudgy Fish-net stocking legs, a Sobrani in a black cigarette holder, a hand dripping with bling, an officers uniform borrowed from Gestapo Central Casting and the face the face of Medusa itself. It was our long-time nemesis, our bête noir, our grief encapsulated and personified by one person,

Translation; ‘Three blokes in Deep Shit’!

It was Sophie.

Sophie had returned.

‘I betchya pleased to see me’.

Will our heroes get outta this un?  Find out in the next episode; ‘Sophies poor choice’, Or… ‘Sophie or Barnaby’s Joyce, either way you lose’.

Dr Werner Von-Brain, the top rocket scientist at NASA.

These are tremendous distances on paper, but on a macro scale a mere trifle. As we write, the Artemis spacecraft is hovering a mere 185 kms above the lunar surface. It has been proclaimed that a human colony on the moon may be only a mere decade away. That gives us a decade to start destroying the first extra-terrestrial eco system. ‘If there’s water in them craters, we’ll grab the lot’, says former Rio Tinto Vice President Will Juukan- Gorgeit.

What’s 300 kms in the scheme of things?  The distance from Dimboola to Melbourne?  Or if you take the cultural extreme, the distance from London to Newcastle is 379 kms. And in that instance a whole separate culture between the south and the north is derived. A cultural chasm one might think.

The Artemis spacecraft, shown here in downward position for lunar re- entry. Also trialed for up-coming missions to Uranus and Mars.

So, though the nearest bank branch may be 300 kms away, that would indicate a breakdown of not just the bureaucracy and its diminishing reach, but the breakdown in simple communication. Communications that could only be improved by conscripting (under generous leave and superannuation entitlements) native runners, Morse and Heliograph stations, and Semaphore across the dry interior. A boon to employment and a fraction of the cost of paying executives for the Snowy River Mk2, The NBN, and those whose task it is to rein in the overreach of the NDIS.

Still though Frank may have a point, in short; ‘It’s enough to make you go MENTAL’!

Frank writes…

 

 

Buenas,

Both these men suffer from severe undiagnosed mental conditions. Brought about by failure in communication and access to un-answered Centrelink enquiries.

Wendy and I were watching a programme on TV on the Mental Health Crisis in Australia. It made us realize that there is probably not a single person in Australia who doesn’t know anyone (including themselves) who has mental health “issues”. In the programme, there was a wide-ranging discussion on the effects on the nation’s mental health by covid lockdowns, the housing crisis, education, inflation, poverty, prejudice, health staffing shortages and you name it.
It was then that Wendy came up with one of her perspicacious insights:

“One of the main causes of mental health problems in Australia is the bureaucracy” she declared.

A week after that programme, I caught myself in a room by myself, loudly and furiously shouting obscenities. Absolutely not my style. I’m one of those fortunate people whose top paddock is relatively devoid of loose kangaroos. What had caused my fulminations, is hearing the following two alternating recorded messages interspersed and repeated in a matrix of rather crappy music:

Banking Call-Centre operators eagerly transcribing Frank’s enquiry into bureaucratic gobbledygook via the ‘Weaselword app”.

“Thank you for waiting, our operator will be with you shortly” and
“We apologise for the continuing delay. We appreciate your time is important and will ensure your call is answered as soon as possible”
‘Shortly’ ended up being 1 hour 45 minutes. A further half an hour only to be told they couldn’t help me and I had to go to the nearest branch.
The distance from Yuendumu to the nearest branch is just short of 300 Km.
I restrained myself from remarking that from Manila to Luzon is only slightly further.

What precipitated my need to contact the bank is that when making some, for me, unusual bank transfers, an algorithm (not a real person) locked my account. It is still locked while I suffer from what is no less than bureaucratic/administrative torture. This is the closest I’ve come to losing my marbles. I don’t look forward to in due course having to try to get onto the NDIS. Nor completing a decade of overdue tax returns, nor belatedly applying for an age pension.

Yes, I know, many of you reading this will be able to retaliate by boring me with similar tales. The point I’m trying to make is that 300 Km is a fair distance which can be glorious but can also disadvantage the disadvantaged.

This poor man waited so long on the Centrelink help- line he was forced to take the law into his OWN HANDS! (If you’re forced via centrelink call centre to take the law into your own hands, or know of someone who is suffering feel free to call lifeline, and wait. As they have been told to treat your call as important, though we all know they couldn’t care less and their jobs are not as highly paid as an NBN executive, so you can’t really blame them anyway.

 

 

Hasta luego,

Frank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYQ4uV8NDJo Futurama Hermes bureaucrat song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV2Tsoam-wI Frank Zappa- The torture never stops.

And this one just for the music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvHBEQsHFAA Aretha Franklin – Baby I love you.

No such problem is the NATIONS FINEST are called upon to deliver JUSTICE!

—

This stunning episode is bought to you by the Twittersphere. Upholder of Twits the world over.

 As the famous writer Donald E Trump said in his most famous ‘Make America Grate’ speech to an adoring crowd; ‘it was the best of times, it was the worst of times’.

Our heroes have suffered imprisonment, kidnapping, summary arrest, involuntary detention and worst of all, as a consequence of who or whom defiled their tea lady Ms Culthorpe as she endured an internship in Australia’s parliament, they are no closer to finding out who the evil oppressor was…

GREAT MEN ! With a singular vision in making America GRATE AGAIN!

It’s downhill ever since it stopped being uphill and a thankless task. Now after being entombed beneath Australia first ever underground city, “Radium Springs” and then, escaping only to fall in with the nefarious duo Benny Boy Roberts Smith and His sidekick Julian,(he’s not the messiah he’s just a very naughty boy’) Assange both in the employ of that master mind of criminality Angus (Cayman Island Fund) Taylor, they are on the move to escape from the most organised and powerful criminal gang of them all. The Firm aka, the crime gang who puts fear into the hearts and minds of the colonies, and even the Russian Kleptocrats take heed; The Windsor’s!

Will Gina get her peerage through siphoning off Australian mineral assets in the form of gold ingots to King Charles the turd?

Or had Brenny-Boy Nelson got another ace up his sleeve? Whilst his sidekick Nev, the Power makes big money on the Gas-led recovery.

Find out in this next chilling episode, ‘Ice Cold in Alex Downers Spy ring’, or; ‘Funky fascism, bought to you by Exxon, Woodside and Victoria Police’,

Where’ Fake News” (To quote from his deceased speech writer) ‘where freedom’s just another word for nothin left to lose’…

We return to our saga.

They looked up.

The scrub, the desiccated twigs of long dead trees, the derrick of the oil rig, the bits of tin, and the three humans, were tossed about by the downdraught as the Rotodyne hovered above.

It made the physical act of smoking one of the last of Terry’s Camels a feat of endurance. In spite of it they took one last drag, threw the butts to the wind and waited for the Rotodyne to descend. And with its landing, another determination upon their fate. Were the Gods with them? And if they were, were they Gods of the old grey bearded patrician type of the Greco-Roman model? It was too early to tell, but in anticipation, they knew just one thing.  That when the rotor blades stopped whirring it might be all over. No reprieve.  Not even a Zac Rolfe’s chance of redemption.  Just by pleading redneck- ism, stupidity, xenephobia and bravado wouldn’t be enough.  There was nowhere left to run. Precious little cover in which to hide, and no point in worrying about it either. This was their dead end.

Our pcbycp North Carolina Office is swept up in the thrill of another Trump presidency.

‘Spose this is It’, Ces mused as the Rotodyne hovered.  The air was rent with the turbos on the blades whining in a high-pitched scream. ‘If it’s Gina it’s all over, unless she’s off at a republican fund raiser, and if its Nev he’ll slot us just cos he can. If i’ts Brenny boy there’s a chance, and if it’s Clifford we’ve got about as much chance of Brexit in pulling through and making sense of it’.

In Victoria, only one man can save us from oblivion. He likes TRAINS. He likes to travel on trains ALONE!

With a change of pitch the Rotodyne began its descent inch by inch, foot by foot. It descended and the seconds felt like hours, as time dragged on and on…. This was beyond suspense. It was sheer agony. It was worse than the Coalition’s deliberations on Climate. Or the creation of a Federal ICAC or even and without a hint of exaggeration worser still than the deliberations of the Kumanji Walker inquest and Zac Rolfe’s duty as a god fearing patriotic Son of ANZACKERY!  There was just too much dust to see who was flying it. But they could make out this much, a steely and determined hand guided the mighty craft, and that could only mean one thing. A powerful force was behind the wheel.

Within seconds it completed the last plunge and bounced upon the dusty ground.  For a moment they could see mothing, it was all dust and desert sand.  And the swirling vestigial outline of a roptodyne as its mighty engine’s still oscillating and beating a piercing, ear splitting roar began to change gear and de- activate. Whatever, Whoever, However, this object was being piloted, it was driven by a hand so ice cold in its calculus of power that even the desert itself seem to quail and recoil in fear for the presence cocooned within that aluminium and alloy exoskeleton. An exoskeleton burnished white by the iciness of whatever guided it.

A forlorn hope looks like THIS!

Whichever way you look at it, a free Rotodyne to every Victorian Citizen may be cheaper in the long run than the planned, sub orbital, astro navigational compass space port rail network planned for the (Seattle World’s Fair), Melbourne for the year 2085

Will it lead them out of their perilous pit of peril or punish them for thinking of a forlorn hope?

Find out in the next prospective episode; ‘Gina’s with the Republicans on establishing a resource rent tax free banana republic”, or ‘how many banana’s does it cost a failed state to get a unemployed Vice-royal a decent job’? And is ‘vice’ a prerequisite?