My Sh*t List

 Since last posting, I have been as busy - to rehash my oft-used saying - as a one-armed fan dancer. I have been working on a uni assessment which was duly uploaded on the weekend, working in my day job, tutoring English, and undergoing physiotherapy on my knee (the poor old joint appears to be suffering a meniscal tear). Along with this plethora of activity, I have been compiling a shit list, and Christ Chewing On Saladas Topped With Swiss Cheese, the list is growing. Here it is thus far:

1. Jeremy Cordeaux. He's described as 'radio legend'. I think a more apt description is 'sexist and disgusting old dinosaur who should crawl back under rock where he was hiding when the meteor hit and wiped out his fellow dinosaurs, thus sparing him so he could spout revolting comments about Brittany Higgins'. He called her a 'silly little girl who got drunk'. I don't deny Brittany was intoxicated, but what in the blue fuck does that have to do with the alleged sexual assault, or any sexual assault? If someone gets pissed, they can expect a hangover, not to be assaulted. Then he said, 'She should have her bottom smacked.' I am a wordsmith and pride myself on my vocabulary, but I am finding it difficult to formulate with words how hearing an entitled man of seventy-five talk about smacking the bottom of a woman in her twenties makes me feel. Let's just say I wanted a barf bag and my skin feels like there is an army of itchy grubs wriggling beneath it. Anyway, he's been sacked for these detestable comments and he's getting no sympathy from me. He loses further points for his Lego hair. It's probably one of those synthetic toupees.

2. Peter Dutton. He's, well, he's Peter Dutton and that's bad enough. However, he has issued threats to sue those who make mean comments about him for defamation. I doubt he has the ability to detect the nuances of sarcasm and satire. As he mentioned, people are using anonymous accounts on Twitter to insult him. Oh, diddums. How does he expect to issue due process on people who can't be verified? Why does he want to clog up the courts because people don't like him? I've got this image in my head of him shaking his fist at the computer screen and going, 'Grrrrrrrrr! Raaaaaaar!' like Grandpa Simpson shaking his fist at a cloud. 

3. Barnaby Joyce. When asked about the culture in Parliament the other day he garbled some shit about 'carbon neutral, politically correct wowserness'. Um, what? I could eat a can of alphabet soup and shit a more coherent sentence than that garbled nonsense. And being respectful does not equate with being a wowser or politically correct.

4. Andrew Laming. Oh, spew. Just spew. He's been referred for empathy training. What a waste of money if he's reached the status of being aged fifty-something, educated, and with opportunity, but still doesn't realise it's illegal to take inappropriate photographs of people in the manner in which he did. It's going to take more than empathy training to help this pile vicious slime learn how to behave in civilised society. 

Is it just me, or would some of these blokes in Parliament be more at home sitting in a tree throwing their excrement? No wonder I've called this a shit list.

Anyway, I'm going to go now. I've been typing for ages and want to watch a bit of television.  

A Desk Job

 Being in Year 10 can be difficult because, let's face it, you're aged about fifteen and that sucks.  I found Year 10 cruddy, if not for the saturation of shitty New Romantic Eighties music, but for the fact that the students were given a Talk. The sexes were separated (I attended a co-ed school), and we had a talk about safety and sexual assault. There were a few rooms of girls, and one of them had a teacher sum up with, 'So girls, don't be getting around like tarts.' If it wasn't for the moldy looking green eyeshadow she wore, I would nowadays think this woman could have been mistaken for that arsehat cleric who likened women to exposed meat, should they dare dress immodestly.  I'm glad I wasn't in that woman's group because I think I might have challenged her, thus spending the remainder of the week in detention. What exactly is a 'tart'? Also, I thought we should have the right to get around dressed and acting as we pleased, provided we kept within the parameters of legislation and didn't encroach upon other people's enjoyment of life. It propagated the trope that guys can't control themselves and girls who dress or act a certain way are asking to be assaulted. I don't know what the guys were told in their special talk that day, but I hope it included the points that no means no, people are allowed to withdraw consent, and you don't touch people sans permission. 

What got me thinking about that subject is the news that a male staffer filmed himself masturbating over a female MP's desk. This just reeks of entitlement and smug superiority, some snotty fuckwit establishing his male dominance by leaving his mark like a dog pissing on a post. When given The Talk these days, will kids have to be told it's not okay to do this to someone's property? Anybody with a modicum of common sense and decency would know you don't engage in Onanistic activities over someone else's property. And why film yourself? ('Hey, look how stupendous I am, everyone! I'm having a wank over a woman's desk!'). Who hires these morons? Will the key questions in the job applications from here on in include one about whether applicant thinks there is a problem about going into someone's office and indulging in self-gratification, and FILMING IT? 

Don't get me wrong: I believe masturbation is healthy and normal. If anyone wants to rub one out, by all means do so; but if you are at work, then go into a toilet cubicle and do it. I will have to type this slowly, and I am flabbergasted that I have to type this at all, but: jerking off over a person's property in the workplace is not acceptable. 

Did the wanking grot (who has since been sacked and rightfully so) wipe up his nut-juice or did he expect the cleaner to do it? 

Strewth, I hate people at times. This is why. 

The now unemployed staffer is probably attending employment agencies as he seeks a new position. I wonder is he specifying it must be a desk job?

I Don't (K)Need This Crap

 Great steaming shitballs, my life sucks at times! Apropos of my last post, I had no sooner recovered from my toilet-scrubbing acquired back twinge, when I blew out a kneecap! I wasn't removing skid marks from the toilet bowl this time, but getting up from the floor after a yoga session. I try to maintain a healthy home and a healthy body, and this is the reward I get. So, I have spent the past few days with a taped kneecap, taking great care as I inch along with the vigour, pace, and caution of a slug with haemorrhoids. 

On a happier note, my son and I regained our crown at the trivia last night. We have had a couple of slack weeks, probably because there has been a stream of sports type questions lately, but last night the questions were more Bingells & Son friendly. Also, my son brought along a friend who knew a few answers we did not. We were placed equal first with two other teams, so the drawer of the mystery envelope was determined by Rock Paper Scissors. My son has an almost preternatural, talismanic, and Rain Man ability to determine the odds on this time-honoured deciding code, so he was sent to the front, and sure enough: he came through with the goods and was given the right to draw a blank envelope. The envelope he chose contained the ten-dollar voucher, but the glory is still radiating from us.  Our pride (some would say hubris) sees us positively incandescent. 

Anyway, I must do a few of my physio exercises before Q&A starts. Tonight's topic is consent. Talking of which, the NSW Commish floated an idea today about consent being recorded on an app. I know lots of things are done with apps these days, but the recording of consent is flawed. Seriously flawed. As far as flaws go, it's on par with that idea of blowing up the beached whale with dynamite (and that was a seriously dumb idea, which its progenitors no doubt realised as they were hailed with debris consisting of whale carcass). The app doesn't allow for the fact that people can change their minds during the act. What if an act occurs that was NOT consented to, such as choking or stealthing? A person could be forced or coerced into giving his or her consent on the app. Sorry, Commissioner Fuller, this idea of yours does not hold water.

But that's all for now, folks. One good thing about tonight, I really felt inspired to write. This is good and makes up for hurting my knee.

Watery Blancmange & Tofu Type Blandness

 Good day, reader. This is a bland salutation with which to commence a blog post, but I'm feeling bland. Watery blancmange, dust-flavoured soy yoghurt, plain tofu style bland. This is not a way I enjoy feeling. The catalyst for this malaise is that for the past two days I've been resting and on painkillers, after moving the wrong way and doing something to my back. Pain-level, I am so much better. I feel stronger, but just apathetic and lethargic. Perhaps it's the painkillers - they've killed the pain but also  taken out any skerrick of joie de vivre I ever had. And it happened in the most ordinary and banal of situations: I was cleaning my toilet. It made for a boring story when the doctor asked me how I had hurt myself. It would have been amusing to reply, 'Well, you know how it is, doc, when you're getting spit-roasted and all that...', but instead, I had to explain I was scrubbing my toilet bowl. 

I just tried to watch a pre-recorded uni lecture, but found I couldn't be arsed. I'm back at work tomorrow, but have a long enough rostered break in which to view the lecture. I got through an assigned reading article (and enjoyed it), but I cannot be bothered thinking too much at the moment. I have been complying with doctor's orders and just lying flat on my back (although I'm currently sitting up to type), and watching television. This is what I've been looking at:

1. Some of that Meghan and Harry interview with Oprah. I am sorry for them. Being married into the British Royal Family must be dreadful, and the way the press treated that poor woman. The double standards over something as common as a pregnancy bump: there was an article showing the Duchess of Cambridge lovingly cradling her stomach, whilst the journalists practically jizzed with all the mawkish gushing over the sanctity of motherhood, juxtaposed against an article showing the woman formerly known as the Duchess of Sussex holding her pregnant stomach, with pointless and spiteful vitriol complaining she was touching her stomach for attention and vanity. Seriously, what the actual fuck? Why do people care if a pregnant woman touches her stomach? As someone who has been through two pregnancies, it is very natural to touch the bump. I suspect in my case, it was a primal protective instinct. Also, it was a good place to rest my hands at times. Is this the hill those miserable bags of negativity are going to die on? Funnily enough, or maybe not so funny if you're a grammar pedant like me, what stayed with me about the interview was Oprah speaking about the relationship of Kate and Meghan, and saying words to the effect: 'You and Kate, you're two sister-in-laws...'. Let me tell you, reader, had I not been on some kind of bedrest, I'd have thrown something at the television! Oprah, they are sisters-in-law, and I understand the term comes from old Canonical rules, but the law is singular whilst the people are the plural. Grrrrr. Thank goodness for Netflix, which lets me segue to...

2. Sex Education. I binged Series 2. If you haven't seen it, it has Gillian Anderson playing a British sex therapist named Jean, but the main character is her sixteen-year-old son, Otis. The dramatis personae are culturally and sexually diverse, and very different to my high school, I guess. The British accent Gillian adopts for her character is a bit distracting to me; she sounds like Margaret Thatcher having an asthma attack. 

3. Insatiable. I've just started on this. It's an American revenge comedy about a slimmed-down teen named Patty who, now that she's 'attractive', decides to extract her pound of flesh from the kids who made her life hell. It's really quite amusing.

Anyway, I'd best shake off some of the slump and have a shower. I'm sure that will make me feel better.