The Wiggles offer no protection

W has a mask of the new yellow Wiggle, Sam. It's pretty creepy, and looks like this:



It's made of cheap and flimsy plastic - the sort you could easily fold in half. Which is why, no doubt, someone with a taste for the obvious suggested the need for the disclaimer.



I wonder what sort of protection they had in mind. Protection from nuclear fallout? "Do not use as a motorbike racing helmet"? "Offers only meager protection from the legal profession."

Council Committee Room

Two hours unnecessarily spent in a committee room at Parliament. And all I have to show is this...

Set Metaphizer to "mix"

Mixed metaphor of the day goes to.... me, admittedly for a deliberate one. I was describing the challenge of doing what we'd be expected to do with only the meager resources available as "making a silk purse from the smell of an oily rag". Not my best, but not bad...

"Moving forward into the future"

... is a phrase I heard many times today. To be fair, I hear it a few times almost every day, and it never fails to give me the complete and utter shits. "Moving forward into the future"?! What the fuck??

The existence of a future is inevitable, at least as far as I know, or indeed to anyone who isn't taking anti depressants or believes they will be rapturized in a glow of holy light. To get to the future I just have to wait. No moving forward, backwards or any other direction necessary. Just sit still and wait. Try it - go on.

See? The future arrived without any moving forward into it. Now try it backwards. Still works...

The next person who says "moving forward blah blah blah" in earshot will get a lusty round of me singing "I'm walking backwards for Christmas" by Spike Milligan, which makes slightly more sense to me than moving forward into the future. And yes, that's despite Article 117b(ii) of the Geneva Convention which prohibits me from singing within 500 metres of a populated area.

OK, rant dispensed, today's highlight was sitting unexpectedly in a meeting with three Ministers, half a dozen mayors and hearing the word "Winkipop" uttered by a Minister in reference to a court case. You can only smile. And repeat: "Winkipop". "Winkipop." Wonderful....

Daylight savings begins

Sunday night, the first night of daylight savings. Work seems to be going surprisingly well - I usually feel things are out of control, but I seem to be on top of things at the moment. Let's see how long that lasts. It helps (unfortunately) that I spent a couple of hours working today; partly in the office, partly at home, but I did manage to spend much of the day at Chez Thorn. Completed another Myers-Briggs test (third in 18 years; not too bad I guess), made dinner for all (Vietnamese chicken and corn soup) and started thinking about my next house move.

I will miss here (a little), and I will miss the peace, but some things are worth a little chaos.

Last week I gave a presentation (see here) of which some video evidence was created. A few seconds to remember the gig...




I spent an hour today editing the first draft of the document I'm talking about in the video, and preparing a presentation on our latest data. Lots of work still to be done...

Name change

After F made the suggestion, I've decided to just accept the compliment and rename this "Urbane Scrumping". So there.

Thursday night

...and I'm stuffed. Home late, delivered curry. A day debating the relative merits of projects from within my own division. How do I compare transport social policy (ie transport disadvantage) with the need to make our transport network more sustainable? And first thing in the morning I'm expected to talk about how we make Melbourne safer.

Can I have a moment to think about these things?