How we spend summer in Australia, and characteristically February is the worst month for all of this.

Next weekend we are in for temperatures around 40+ celsius ...104+ fahrenheit.

(Today. Mon Jan 20. 36 Celsius. Melbourne shrouded in smoke from bushfires 100s of kilometres away.)



Canberra 19/01/2003. 350+ houses burnt. 4 dead.

http://www.theage.com.au/issues/bushfires/index.html

Canberra fires.

"When I read such reports I am more and more convinced that we have to bomb Iraq." - John Howard.

Demonstrators against the looming war with Iraq came out in force around the world today, showing solidarity for rational thought and proving that the common individual has considerably more brains the collective heads of the western governments.

In Britain anti-war rallies took place in Bradford, Manchester and London, to name but three. In Washington, despite the alarming polls that one in every two citizens believes Iraq to be responsible for the sacking of the World Trade Centre, thousands gathered in the hopes of knocking some sense into the obfuscated brains of their fellow citizens. Australia, however, put on the best display of all when anti-war campaigners set fire to the whole of Canberra and then ran away screaming. Steve Irwin has been arrested. He is not suspected of having any involvement with the arson but has become such an embarrassment to Australians across the world that he's been charged with 'Acts of Terrorism' and sentenced to death by croc.

A spokesman for the British government in response to today's anti-war protests stuck his fingers in his ears, closed and his eyes and said, "We're not listening! Nnya nnya!"

More importantly, however, Zoe Ball and her husband Fat Boy Slim are getting divorced. When asked how, under the circumstances, this constituted news Michael Burke replied, "There will always be a percentage of the population for whom celebrity gossip fills a void in their lives that would otherwise be occupied by education, but never is." Michael Burke is currently being investigated for paedophile offences, although by whom it's not quite clear, and for being a condescending twat.

There appears to have been a bit of a rumpus in my garden shed overnight, involving a battle weary hedgehog and a flottila of Palastinian Suicide Slugs. The pots of paint that I'd carefully placed on the shelf which, in turn, was balanced precariously at one end of the broom handle, have exploded all over my bicycle so that it now resembles a leftover prop from a Noel Edmunds' programme. Fortunately a passing angel must have noticed the fracas and decided to intervene. Christians, apparently, are often touched by angels in the same manner that children are touched by Matthew Kelly and the pattern is lifted from Bernard Manning's dinner plate by his fat greasy tongue. Christians, or so they tell me, know when an angel has been spying on them because angels leave white feathers behind. Amongst the mess in my garden shed this morning there was a solitary white feather. Perhaps more disturbing though, the angel had taken a shit down my shed roof. I don't know what they get fed in heaven but it seems to be white and must be served in very small portions. Perhaps it's Jesus' spunk. Whatever the case, the hedgehog was last seen ambling towards the Mount with a very sore nose in pursuit of a limping seagull that was making a racket and the angel has mysteriously vanished up its own scented arsehole leaving me alone to clear up the shit.

"An AC-Nielsen survey shows just 6 per cent of Australians would support Australian involvement in a US-led strike against Iraq."

THIS would indicate that there are quite a few more people in Australia with a better grip on grim reality than in other parts of the Commonwealth.

Editor's note: Following a debate between Tony Benn (who, obviously, takes a firm anti-war stance) and three tabloid editors (who don't) on Channel 5 news the night before last, a phone poll was taken to determine who the audience thought had the stronger argument. A staggering 98% voted in favour of Mr Benn and thus against the war. Interesting statistics when compared to the government led polls that claim that only 68% of the population are against the War...especially when you consider that the vast majority of New Labour M.P.s and a growing proportion of the cabinet are also against Blair's narrow-brained scheme. As far as I can see the only member of the Commonwealth (and I'm not counting Canada here because, well, they're Americans really as everyone knows...not quite as loud as their overweight neighbours but every bit as politically correct and dull) who doesn't seem to be taking up the anti-War banner is Zimbabwe...and that's because Mugabe has had everyone's television humanely destroyed.

This week's Far Side cartoon...

I slipped Reg Hollis a tenner and bottle of ginger pop in exchange for some of the shocking material that was on Pete Townshend's hard drive. Click on "The Who Medley" to hear this poor abused child's cry for help.

(Requires Flash ... shall refrain from the obvious cheap shot.)

"This monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, promiscuity, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, abortions, pornography, pollution, poisoning and proliferation of crimes of all types." ~Judge Braswell Dean, quoted in Time, March 1981

January 2003. Judge Dean releases Mr. Townshend on bail, but sentences chimpanzee to 5 consecutive life sentences on each obscenity charge.

Blog Review : : << The Rant of the Week >>

"Typically, in a British kind of way, ( How insulting is that?) this blog fulfills all the requirements of insanity and smarts we have come to expect from our much less evolved and annoying cousins across the Atlantic, where English is taught as an accent used by the upper classes.

Good thing that body of water was put there when it was to keep them at a distance. How we ever got here is a mystery. I'd hate to have this kind of common sense loose in America, no one would be safe, and the kind of vitriolic ill humor it shows toward our most cherished loud mouthed loutish yet somehow farm educated politicians is very insulting indeed! As if I voted for any one of them! As if I voted at all!

Four letter words are in use, and an adult would have no business going here to read a rant if they knew what was good for them. I rate it as many stars as are available at the time. Little tiny gold ones like Mrs. Bower used to put up next to Suzy Jamison's name in 6th grade. God I hated her!"

We at ROTW are always ready to acknowledge excellence wherever it is found. (Even America.) We raise our collective titfers to this discerning reviewer, a man of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy . . . here be his gibes; his gambols; his songs; his flashes of merriment ... http://www.grafyte.com/ (And it only cost us sick squid and a set of thumbscrews to force that out of him.)

Editor's note: Sedgers...get him to sign the contracts. We have caught ourselves a very rare bird indeed, the World's first ironic American. I'll contact the patenting office. We don't want anyone else laying claim to him first.