The Hon. MICHAEL COSTA: This censure motion is a joke, just like everything else that Opposition members do in this House. I have absolute contempt for Opposition members because they are lazy, they do not produce policies and they do not do their homework. That is why I have contempt for them. They should give their salaries to the members of the press gallery because they are the people who prepare questions for them. Every question I am asked by Opposition members is a regurgitation of some newspaper article. They ought to give their salaries to members of the press gallery. A number of journalists are doing all the hard work for these lazy Opposition members.
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Gummo Trotsky has a delightful recollection of a particularly teacher who we have probably all encountered in some form, in some class, which has sent memories flooding back to the daze of secondary school.

One such teacher I can recall was a science teacher who used to swing a helicopter blade against the table to frighten students caught failing to pay attention (down with those do-gooder PC-types who suggest that teachers shouldn’t be entitled to use rocket launchers to instill discipline). This eventually led to an unfortunate incident, resulting in one student losing part of his finger, when the teacher miscalculated with his cruel swoop of the blade, and severed a child’s outstretched finger. Luckily, I was not in that class to witness this foolish event, it happened the year after I had left.
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According to the Guardian

Football’s most senior administrator attracted the wrath of the women’s game last night by suggesting female players wear tighter shorts to promote “a more female aesthetic”.
Sepp Blatter, the president of the world governing body Fifa, said women should have skimpier kit to increase the popularity of the game. “Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball,” he said.

Pauline Cope, the England and Charlton goalkeeper, said the comments were “typical of a bloke”. “He doesn’t know what he is talking about,” she said. “We don’t use a lighter ball for one thing, and to say we should play football in hotpants is plain ridiculous. It’s completely irresponsible for a man in a powerful position to make comments like this.”

But, is this all we can think of in the era of sports promotion gone crazy? What about nude curling, lewd chess – although this could lead to more complaints that certain physical attributes provide certain players with unfair advantages. Can anyone come up with a new way to market croquet?

You’re Bhutan!
With the body of a gnat and the mind of a dragon, you are a bundle
of energy.  You enjoy mountain-climbing, rock-climbing, stair-climbing, pretty much any kind of climbing you can manage.  This has lifted you into the clouds in more than one way, helping you achieve some inner peace above the fray of madness all around you.  People would seek you out for advice if they could ever find you.
Take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

Don’t know about the climbing, although it has been a bit of a Sisyphian existence over the last few years. Maybe this is the prelude to some sort of Nietzschean ascension. Now where did I put that boulder?

Hoping for a rise in Gross Domestic Happiness in coming years. Maybe I’ll just have to fudge the figures.

In his usual idiosyncratic fashion J.M. Coetzee has orated his Nobel Lecture through the persona of Robinson Crusoe. With great plagues, decoy ducks, parrots and mutliple Defoe references Coetzee weaves a fascinating tale of isolation, unease and confused identity. Worth a read.

While in tragic news, short-listed Nobel candidate Janet Frame has been diagnosed with cancer.

Its just three weeks from Christmas so I thought I’d help those news organisations with a few ole trusty news angles that appear every Christmas. Early this month we had a new variation with Cocaine Christmas cards from Chile, which I believe would provide a new style of season greetings for all the family. So here are a couple of stories you can expect in coming weeks.
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The votes are in the ABC’s search for Australia’s favourite book, and the winner according to the voting public is Tim Winton’s ‘Cloudstreet’.

Now, these lists may only be useful for conjecture, and I think like most lists, this one also tends to favour the more recently published books. But I must admit, this list is a considerable improvement on the Modern Library reader’s list of the Top 100 Novel’s of the 20th century as voted by the public. Luckily there are no sightings of Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard in this list, it seems there was no need for the Randians or the Scientologists to vote on mass (which even lead to the absymal ‘Battlefield Earth’ leading the Movie Show film of the year poll in 2001)
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Congratulations to J.M. Coetzee for winning the 2003 Nob(el)le Prize of literature. Of course, being a Nostradamus-like figure that I am, he was one of the four writers I highlighted for the Noble gong last year, (even if I couldn’t spell his name.)

When I have a spare moment, which will be some time in November, I’ll blog a little more on this wonderful writer. But as time is of the premium, you’ll have to scan the press release and hear what the Noble Academy said.

PS – This article is interesting if anyone is interested in the politics of the Nobel prize. It was written back in 1998, the year that my thesis topic Jose Saramago, finally won literature’s grand poobah award