<< KEV IN, CLARE OUT ~ MAIN ~ RIOTERS RIOTING >>
RUDDWAGON JUMPED UPON
The fond farewells continue for John Howard:
My compatriots have made my day - no, my whole weekend. Nothing could delight me more than to think that the mean-mindedly blokeish regime of John Howard should finally have been booted out.
I happened to be in Sydney during the previous election campaign in 2004, and felt a deep dismay as I saw how effectively Howard had demoralised Australia and weakened its plucky, cheeky spirit.
That’s from UK-based unknown Australian writer Peter Conrad, who believes Australia is controlled by News Ltd. In a reversal of previous trends, other expats are now threatening to return:
John Howard: war mongerer and climate change cynic, presided over an industrial relations policy which crushed the rights of the ‘battlers’ he claimed to be championing. The Liberals ripped the heart out of Australia. Long live Labour. I may just get on that plane and go home.
Floo K, LondonNow with labour finally back in power Australia soon might be a place i can bring my familly back to live and embrace again..
craig gaul, chambly quebec, canada
They’ve been away so long they’ve forgotten how to spell “labor”. We don’t need these clowns coming back and reducing our literacy levels.
(Via Colin F. and s.r.intulom)
“blokeish regime of John Howard”
Just days after the election and Google News is returning hundreds of results for “kevin rudd + bloke”. Poor old Peter Conrad might be in for a blokey hell…
Posted by Villeurbanne on 2007 11 26 at 08:19 AM • permalinkI happened to be in Sydney during the previous election campaign in 2004, and felt a deep dismay as I saw how effectively Howard had demoralised Australia and weakened its plucky, cheeky spirit.
Oh that’s right. The electorate didn’t vote Howard in that year. It was all a mistake.
Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2007 11 26 at 08:36 AM • permalinkUhm, reading those frothing at the mouth comments by overseas Lefties with woodies over the demise of Howard made me slightly queasy.
The thing that gets me is this repeated horseshit about Howard lying. Can someone point out an example where Howard lied? (I mean, really lied, as opposed to playing his cards close to his chest in order to protect new policy ideas getting pinched by Labor?)
As a Commonwealth public servant I am 100% confident that - considering the wall to wall pinkos even in departments and agencies that outsiders would least expect to be bastions of ALP true believers - if Howard had lied the entire details would have found their way to some ABC shitbag journo.
I would bet my left goog on it. All this shit about AWB and children overboard is so much crapola.
Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2007 11 26 at 08:41 AM • permalinkI saw how effectively Howard had demoralised Australia and weakened its plucky, cheeky spirit.
Yup, all that low inflation, excellent share divvies, plentiful employment and rising incomes made me quite despondent- I’m glad we’re rid of the bastard, he was like this bloke in a Wallaby tracksuit.
While the meeja gets it’s shreddies in a half-hitch with the merest hint of a mistruth or misleading statement from the previous government, I wonder why they haven’t leapt on this seemingly contradictory series of statements- Kev’s set a new reckord for going back on a campaign promise in about 36 hours.
The biggest concern on Living Black this evening was how much compo is in the wind.
I think I might cash in my investments and buy a pub in Katherine.
#9.
Why doesn’t he just say “sorry”? Like this:
“Sorry. Don’t expect any additional funding but, like, sorry about what happened. Okay… TICK… what’s next on the agenda?”
What’s the big deal?
Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2007 11 26 at 09:25 AM • permalinkBTW, clowns may in fact be a litteral description- I’ve no doubt many are talented street performers with baggy pants and pockets filled with shredded silver paper who’ve had to flee the oppressive, funding-starved yartz wasteland that is HoWARd’s Australia.
Slightly off topic though, I might have to leap on the Ruddwagon, he’s only been in since Saturday night, hasn’t even signed Kyoto yet and it’s flat out being 15 degrees C up here in the sub-tropics, with summer less than a week away- I’ve had to throttle the a/c back to idle just to provide some background noise to muffle the garbos in the morning when they empty my recycle bin- it sounds like a glass A380 doing a powerdive into the tarmac when they upend the bugger.
Can’t say I ever noticed any difference in the “cheeky, plucky spirit” of Australians during the time of Howard’s reign. I expect some political-obsessive lefty friends of Conrad’s became down in the dumps over it, and that counted as Australia for him.
>Middle-aged friends of mine thought only of their superannuation payments.
It obviously comes as a shock to Conrad that he goes back to Australia and all his old Humanities mates have become more interested in money than opera, but that’s what happens to most middle-aged people. It’s nothing to do with Howard.
This is the same mistake that Greer makes. Both Conrad and Greer work at Oxbridge, and so are constantly surrounded by very bright people who are obsessed with culture and intellectual matters. They go back to Australia, to the old suburbs where their family lives, to their old haunts and old friends, and find out that these people are—gasp!—not Oxbridge Dons, and so they are forced to damn Australia as a nation of greedy philisitines. They should come visit me in Nottingham sometime. You don’t hear much talk about Renaissance painting in the bars here.
Posted by Blithering Bunny on 2007 11 26 at 09:29 AM • permalinkMy thread on the BBC discussion board…
I’m disgusted with my fellow Australians.
[murph73], London, United Kingdom
You should probably stay in London then.
Ian Graham, Sydney
My response, yet to be published:-
Thanks Ian. Maybe I will. The election result was driven by malcontented, juvenile spite. So your response was not unexpected. I do look on the bright side, however. After all, with Stalin’s lovechild in the deputy PM’s seat, I’ll soon bet getting three pacific pesos…I mean…dollars to the pound stirling again. I might come back and buy your house at a discount.
The English - and to a slightly lesser degree the Aussies and Kiwis - have a phobia about the letter “z” but a fascination with an extra “u” whenever possible, from the American perspective. Then, there’s that whole “using the wrong syllable” thing.
It’s “labor” not “labour”; “demoralized” not “demoralised”; and “tire” not “tyre.”
Separated by the same language indeed.
/sarc
#16 Huc, the Australian Labor Party is so named because at the turn of the last century in lefty circles, it was considered more “modern” to be more pro-American than pro-British. It was anticipated that when the revolution came, one of the first against the wall would be the Queen’s English, with the “modern” American way of spelling replacing it.
There are a number of amusing outcomes from that decision.
1. The revolution never came and we still spell the way God intended.
2. When they realised that the spelling wasn’t going to change, they didn’t acknowledge their error.
3. It is now wanker Australian ex-pats living in London who are the most strident in their lefty anti-Americanist outlook. (The same tools speculating on lowering the average IQ of both countries by returning.)Posted by Richard Sharpe on 2007 11 26 at 09:56 AM • permalinkIt is now wanker Australian ex-pats living in London who are the most strident in their lefty anti-Americanist outlook…
I can guarantee that in my circles there was nobody who wasn’t disappointed and about Saturday’s result. The most common opinion was that young Australians had fucked it up for the rest of us.
Time to raise the voting age I say.
#20 - I don’t know, I’m still trying to get my mind around “monging.” For 30 years now I have been part of the Department of Defense, both uniformed and civilian, so I’m pretty sure I’m a warmonger, but the thing is, I’ve never caught myself doing it so I still, after three decades, don’t know how to mong anything.
I suspect that it isn’t as much fun as it sound, though, because if it were something wacky and wild I’d proabbly remember doing it. Unless it involved booze - maybe you have to be three sheets to the wind to mong something.
Once in the Philippines I was accused of rumormongering, and again to my disaapointment I failed to note myself monging anything. Apparently rumormongering is very serious there, and one can actually go to jail for it, so you may imagine my consternation.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 11 26 at 01:57 PM • permalink#16 Richard, it was King O’Malley who convinced the Laborites to leave out the U. He was a mad proponent of spelling reform.
He also claimed to be Canadian, but was actually American, and thus ineligible to sit in parliament…..
Posted by Quentin George on 2007 11 26 at 03:59 PM • permalinkPeter Conrad: “We’ve lost a third-rate leader…”
Conrad’s from Tasmania, so what does he know?
If he does return to live in Oz, he might understand what’s gone on here for the past 11 years. Everything he knows has has probably been channelled through Their ABC, Peter Carey, John Pilger and David Williamson.
Conrad might also come to regret that statement. Very much indeed.
English English, American English and Australian English overlap in weird ways. In Oz it’s usually learnt or burnt, the other two prefer learned and burned. And you can imagine my surprise when I found the -ize suffix in the text of UK magazine articles.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2007 11 26 at 04:48 PM • permalink#16 Huc,
there’s a very good reason we spell “tyre” the way we do. In Oz, when we go to a TYRE shop, we know we’re buying TYRES for our cars.
If we were to go to a TIRE shop, we’d most probably think it sold beds or armchairs or that it was a cheap motel. Something to do when we’re TIRED.Americans also have the irritating habit of adding an extra syllable to words.
Nucular, Athalete etc. *narrows eyes and glares*
:)
#41, Pogria, you haven’t got the Kiwi vowel shift quite right, the ‘ah’ sound (as in man) becomes the ‘eh’ sound (as in men), the ‘eh’ sound (as in men) becomes ‘ih’ (as in min), and the ‘ih’ sound becomes ‘uh’ (as in mun).
So, ‘sex’ is pronounced ‘six’ and ‘six’ is ‘sux’ and ‘manly’ is ‘menly’. ‘Ten’ is ‘tin’ and ‘tin’ is ‘tun’. A travel writer once said “If your name is Kant, a Kiwi will say ‘Kent’. If it’s Kent, a Kiwi will say ‘Kint’. And if your name’s Kint, don’t go to New Zealand”.
#45 craigo,
I bow to your superior knowledge. ;)
I try not to listen to too many kiwis. I have a couple of kiwi friends, but they’ve been here long enough to re-awaken the larynx and have almost gotten rid of the glottal stop. LOL
I can’t help it, whenever I hear a broad kiwi accent, or a southern one, like Dr Phil, I have to leave the room and shove my face into a pillow. I’ve upset too many people with my hysterical laughing.
If these guys were smarter I’d speculate that “blokeish” is a sarcastic version of “voelkisch”, the German word meaning “folkish” and associated with the Nazis and their racist doctrines. Just to show how the Liberals are really Nazis, dontcherknow. Among the sinestroids I guess that would pass for seriously sophisticated sarcasm.
Funny how the “plucky, cheeky spirit” of Oz is assumed to make people vote for the collecivist, nanny-state advocates of socialism, advancing to the ultimate socialist doctrine that anything that is not prohibited is compulsory.
I’m looking on the bright side of the Liberal defeat. We can look forward to three years of Tim’s unsparing and humorous rapier thrusts at Rudd and his consiglieri. Let the mockery begin! (As if it hasn’t already.) Other than that bit of whistling past the graveyard, that jar of Sumerian mead came in right handy the other night.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2007 11 26 at 11:59 PM • permalink#40, SezaGeoff
An American colleague in Germany once ordered a “Thunfisch” pizza ... it was “the best tuna pizza he had ever had—- and the last!!”
Ah, but he hadn’t tried our wonderful pizzas in Oz - ham and pineapple, satay chicken and marine delight, for example.
When I tell my former New York neighbours about pizzas in Australia, they gag!
I wonder why?
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
Betcha they don’t. Oz already has all the illiterate journos and barmen it needs.