Posts by Joe Wylie
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Speaker: Dancing with Dingoes, Part II, in reply to dyan campbell,
How did you train your guinea pigs to do anything?
As the family doctor noted one day while paying his respects to the g. pigs on his way out, "When you're that little, you just have to eat." Especially when you're the world's smallest grazing animal and you're about 40% stomach. Such a configuration means that any intellectual development must be food-related, but once the smart one got it, the others quickly picked up the trick.
They're no intellectual giants, but in my humble experience their emotions are pretty much the same as ours. I've heard plenty about how tasty they are, but having known a few personally, I'll happily pass.
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Speaker: Dancing with Dingoes, Part II, in reply to sally jones,
But she is a she. Et tu?
Externally, definitely not.
Jackie:
we even had a pet Muscovy duck
Mine was only half Muscovy, half regular duck. He gave voice with a sort of hissy quack. Like a mule he was sadly sterile, which was why we got him for free. Lived with us for years until he perished of old age. Given to chasing cats and my younger siblings.
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Speaker: Dancing with Dingoes, Part II, in reply to sally jones,
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Speaker: Dancing with Dingoes, Part II, in reply to dyan campbell,
I have a pair of antique glass jelly moulds – rabbits –
Real glass ones!
How those rabbit moulds brightened my golden childhood, even if they were only cheap aluminium knock-offs. Even blancmange* was a treat when it was rabbit-shaped. Our guinea pigs were taught to cease their clamor and "assume the position", crouching expectantly in the pose inspired by the rabbit moulds, before they were fed.*There was a woman at Takaka back in the mid-20th century who became something of a tourist attraction by spoon-feeding the local eels. She made quantities of blancmange especially for that purpose. While I'm sure that making the stuff can be raised to a high art, to me it will always be eel food.
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Hard News: I'm not a "f***ing cyclist".…, in reply to Sam F,
So exactly what is Mike Hosking’s near-infallible technique for avoiding getting killed on a bike?
"On my bike I stay out of the way, and five years on I am still unscathed and at least part of that is because, on the road, I know my place."
As always, his place in Granny's stable of scolds would seem to be justified by nurturing whatever cankers in the public breast happen to catch his attention.
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Speaker: Dancing with Dingoes, Part II, in reply to sally jones,
I just think everything tastes better in cake – duh!
Andy Warhol was reputedly that way too, though his ideas on cake-making were pretty primitive. Somewhere among his more twee musings he described taking two slices of bread and a piece of chocolate. You placed the "candy" on the bread, then the other slice on top, "and that would be cake".
At a dinner once an art patroness seated beside him said "Oh Andy, you haven't touched a thing!", to which he was supposed to have replied "Thank you Ma'am, but I only eat candy".
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I agree there seems much that needs asking. I understand your anger and frustration and I may be the only one that thinks your venting is a little closer to home than some here may realise.
I don't think you're alone in detecting the occasional suggestion of a valid point amongst the general barfly fugue tone of James's "venting". If you're able to tease these out from the highly resistable "I'm exceptional, you individualist worms" preening, then you're doing better than I'm able to manage.
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Speaker: Dancing with Dingoes, Part II, in reply to sally jones,
Very much liked the ending
what, because it was over? :)
Heh.
Um, because I have a short attention span and it was the bit I remembered best?Truly, a most enjoyable tale with a nice kick of authenticity in the tail.
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Very much liked the ending, thank you!
I was reminded of a story about a cultural group visiting outback aboriginal communities. Among their number was a potter, who’d set up a raku kiln and have the kids make an item from the local clay, where available. When the firing was done they’d be presented with their artwork, but instead of treasuring them they tossed them as far as they could into the scrub, with lots of squealing and hilarity. Real appreciation, but not in a way that anyone anticipated. -
Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Paul Williams,
7.30 Report on ABC is hosted by one of the leading and respected journalist, Kerry O’Brien, and is formatted for longer interviews etc.
Asked about the hardest interview he has ever had to do, O'Brien said: "The interview I did with Jonathan Shier when he was my managing director at the ABC, and whom history now makes abundantly clear, made a complete hash of the job. It was about two-thirds of the way through his tenure that I persuaded him to come on for an interview. I suppose my opening question to him was a provocative question. I was staring into the eyes of my own boss. At the same time, the audience had to see that although I was asking tough and provocative questions, that I wasn’t pursuing an agenda. My opening question invited him to give us evidence he wasn’t a failure. Those weren’t the precise words that I used, but it was a tough question. I knew that it wouldn’t endear me to him. But I don’t remember feeling any qualm about it. He subsequently revealed, which I didn’t know at the time, that he had been seeking to have me removed from the program."
Is it just because we lacked the critical mass that we were unable to retain more than a token vestige of a genuine public TV broadcaster?