How sad that defeated New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark, could not accept her loss graciously. She spat out the sour grapes when she spoke about the new Prime Minister, John Key. He, on the other hand, displayed courtesy by paying tribute to Clark.

I can’t understand what Clark stands to gain by being nasty about her defeat. Compare that attitude with the gracious way that John McCain took the blame on himself for not winning the U.S presidential election. It says a lot about the man.

I was in New Zealand in March and everyone I spoke with told me how much they can’t stand Clark and can’t wait to vote her out.

It’s a wise person who knows how to win but an equally wise person who can accept defeat graciously.

So long Helen!

So he bought his degree instead of studying for it, so what? He paid for it in good faith. It’s not as if he stole it. Money was handed over, after all. Let’s face it, studying can be such a strain. You have to attend lectures, write essays, present seminar papers, learn stuff and then sit for exams and PASS.

In today’s world of plagiarism and pretending to be what you are not, like educated, for example, this is simply going that bit further. Raw ambition turns people into hypocrites and the Interior Minister of Iran decided he wanted to be a graduate.

He’s not the first and he’s not the last to cheat. In all honesty, I have met some graduates on whom education has left no lasting impression. Who knows if they didn’t purchase their degrees from the good old Iranian minister’s Alma Mater?

Not many people know this but there exists an institution of higher learning which is the envy of many. Entrance to its course is ultra exclusive owing to its specialised training. Only the elite graduates of the catering and hospitality industry or stars from the Cirque du Soleil company have any hope of being admitted into the hallowed profession of the cracked pepper mill virtuoso.

We all react in sheer amazement at the dexterity of a Kylie or a Shane who brandishes this most iconic of restaurant paraphernalia. With what eloquence and what grace do the waiters and waitresses offer to crack the old pepper mill for us!

And don’t we feel especially pampered when they insist on doing the cracking themselves rather than have us blunder with our clumsy efforts. Can you imagine the catastrophe if we, mere mortals, tried to handle the holy grail ourselves?

I have personally witnessed microsurgeons and neurosurgeons brought to their knees in hopelessness at having to crack the pepper mill themselves. It is simply too challenging for them to be giving the mill a twist this way and then that way over their medium rare.

Thank goodness that Kylie has taken the special course in cracking the old pepper mill or we would be in despair. What to do? What to do? It’s all so too, too complicated, isn’t it?

We may be allowed to wield the old knife and fork, the crab crackers, the salt and sugar cruets and even the tomato sauce. We may even muck around with the pair of chopsticks, but it will be a long time before we can be trusted with the prized pepper grinder.

Until then, we will have to satisfy ourselves with saying “yes please” like some kindergarten kid who is being offered a treat. To say “no” would surely be extremely rude to Kylie who has evidently trained for years at that elite institution so that she can perform this most complicated of manoeuvres.

This is an interesting bit of trivia which I remember from my study of Ancient French at university. If you ever wondered how someone could have worn a shoe made of glass, well, the truth is, the shoe was made of fur.

An Ancient French word for fur was “vair” (variegated fur) which sounds the same as “verre” meaning glass. It makes more sense that Cinderella would wear a fur slipper than a glass slipper, wouldn’t it? But as the centuries went by the original description was replaced and the wrong description has been adopted.

How stupid can some women get? The latest trend in elective surgery is to have ugly toes reshaped and cut shorter. Why? So that they can look good in those ridiculous open-toed shoes with the stilt heels that are all the rage in the world of fashion. I last read about such operations in “Cinderella,” in which the ugly sisters cut off their toes to try to fit into Cinderella’s “glass slipper.” So nothing much has changed in the past three centuries.

I am particularly nonplussed about this cosmetic surgery stupidity because people don’t seem to realise how risky any surgical procedure can be. Let’s face it, if your biggest concern is the length of your toes, perhaps a brain transplant from an amoeba would raise your I.Q.

What happened to my husband a couple of weeks ago has made me even more aware of the dangers of all medical procedures. He went for a routine colonoscopy/gastroscopy, the sort that one is supposed to have every few years, according to the medical profession, that is.

Anyhow, the endoscope perforated his bowel and this led to major surgery. All medical procedures are risky and even though you sign a document saying that you realise that there can be complications, you never really think it can happen to you. Well, it can.

My husband had to stay in hospital for eleven days and will take a long while to recover. He had four specialists looking after him and a miserable time was had by all.

So should one have a colonoscopy or gastroscopy? Who knows? Quite frankly, I’m terrified of any invasive procedure, but when it comes to check-ups we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

This week Prime Minster Rudd announced a rescue package for many Australians in need of financial aid. His intention was to give money to certain groups so that they would have more available cash to kick-start retail spending.

Well, in one small business with half a dozen employees only one of them qualified for Rudd’s generosity. She was a single mother who cheered on hearing about her windfall of $1000.

“You beauty!” she yelped. “Now I can book that holiday in Bali.”

So much for helping our Aussie economy. No doubt she’ll live it up in Bali, get herself pregnant again and be eligible for more government handouts.

Here’s hoping there aren’t too many people like this one or Rudd’s largesse would have been wasted.

There is a huge billboard in the Kew area of Melbourne advertising a new model of Mercedes-Benz. The wording beside the picture of the car is “The day Italians start dreaming in German”.

Has Mercedes-Benz already forgotten that this is not the first time that Italians have started dreaming in German? What about World War II and Mussolini’s alliance with Hitler?

Are the fellows in charge of advertising so immature that they haven’t a clue about history?

If we can be subjected to nonsense such as this one, no wonder the government is promoting a broader History curriculum. There is no time to waste or some ignoramus will create a commercial associating Kokoda and Changi with our Aussie passion for sushi.

Talk about necessity being the mother of invention. A country has to endure suicide bombers who kill and maim its citizens. It tries to defend itself and even wants to come to some peaceful arrangement with its destructive neighbours. All to no avail. Continue reading →