The months of October and November are sometimes referred to as suicide season in Darwin. Even when, like me, you’re having too much fun to consider such a drastic solution for existential angst, the unremitting humidity still breeds rampant crutch rot while the screeching of fruitbats fighting over juicy mangoes before dropping them on tin roofs from a great height keeps you awake half the night. It’s enough to send the most placid, best-balanced psyche into lunatic overdrive. Hence the expression “going troppo”, a state to which I graduated years ago and where I happily remain.
I can only assume that the progressive onset of global warming has provoked a southwards expansion of climatically-induced mania. How else could we explain the farcical Pandagate saga documented on Rob Corr’s blog? Don’t these people have better things to do with their time? Especially since most of them are uni students who should have been studying for final exams.
And what else could account for Niall Cook’s foolhardy decision to blog about his recent unhappy resignation from his job in the finance industry, which sounded awfully like a sacking in his initial self-revelatory post? This provoked a predictable if distasteful attack by the increasingly repellant Tim Blair and his gang of mongrel dogs masquerading as human beings, which in turn provoked (so far) unfulfilled threats of defamation proceedings by Niall.
Then there’s Paul Watson’s decision to give up blogging so he can devote himself without interruption to complete inactivity on the dole. I’m sure there must be some convoluted reason why babyboomers are to blame, at least in Paul’s fevered imagination, but we’ll probably never find out now.
There’s something strangely reassuring about knowing that so many others are just as loopy as me. It’s a sort of languid, amiable version of schadenfreude.
Maybe its a post election thing. I never really understand the blurring of lines between blogging, or net activity generally, and real life.
The mirandapanda thing is normal student politics, spiced up by being available on the web for all to see as opposed to being a few yellow blurred roeneoded (sp?) shit sheets on campus with added value by having Andrew Bolt do a spray at a lefty potty mouthed blog that is 10 times wittier and smarter than his column.
Niall’s job burst is just weird.
I’ll miss Paul Watson. Some of his stuff was very well researched and often provoked my thinking. His accumualated stuff on the Catholics clergy and child sexual abuse cover ups and Pell’s role is one of the most comprehensive, insightful and damning that has ever been written. I’ll be downloading lots of it and archiving. On the other hand Pauls obsession about so called baby boomers is puzzling and generally incomprehensible. However after a while I began to get irritated when he didn’t blame baby boomers in every posts.
Paul I’ll miss you. I want you to keep on writing. Thanks for all your effort.
I’m of the view that people use “schadenfreude” in the wrong sense. It seems to be used to indicate pleasure at enemy’s misfortune. I had always thought the more precise use of the word “schadenfreude” was to indicate a guilty pleasure at a rival’s misfortune but that an essential part of the guilt hinged on the fact that the rival was a friend or well regarded person.
Fcuk, its been freezing here. Global warming my arse. I’m still using an electric blanket at night.
Francis, where does Iago’s pleasure fit in?
Ken, you know what they say, lunacy loves company.
….Iago’s action is intelligible; and indeed the popular view contains enough truth to refute this desperate theory. It greatly exaggerates his desire for advancement, and the ill-will caused by his disappointment, and it ignores other forces more important than these; but it is right in insisting on the presence of this desire and this ill-will, and their presence is enough to destroy Iago’s claims to be more than a demi-devil. For love of the evil that advances my interest and hurts a person I dislike, is a very different thing from love of evil simply as evil; and pleasure in the pain of a person disliked or regarded as a competitor is quite distinct from pleasure in the pain of others simply as others. The first is intelligible, and we find it in Iago. The second, even if it were intelligible, we do not find in Iago……
I’ll second Francis’s observation that the miranda stuff is regular stuff that’s taken place online. Usually these things fade into dim spoken legend. Now there is a written record: whatever passes for Crikey in 20 years will find it easy to make fun of all the participants.
A shame, actually. I haven’t met Miranda to my knowledge, but Alex Llew is a nice guy. The MULC outfit are quite capable by national standards, a real boots-first crowd.
Southern Troppo can never equal Northern Troppo and nothing beats Darwin Troppo except Port Moresby Troppo.
Fact of psychic geography.
For Lords Sake! It’s my blog, I put in it what I like. No better nor worse than anything here or elsewhere for that matter. Get over it, Ken. I resigned, I was NOT sacked. In fact my erstwhile employer is paying me to sit on my arse until mid January, not that it’s any of anyone’s business.
I expect Blair to write purile crap for the sake of it, but expected better from you, Ken.
Niall
You certainly can write whatever you like on your own blog, but it’s a good idea to remember that it’s a public website not a private personal diary, that some of the people reading it are likely to be unfavourably disposed towards you, and some of them are going to be malevolent fuckwits. If you’re happy to accept those consequences, then by all means blog about sensitive personal stuff to your heart’s content. It’s a lesson I’ve learnt the hard way, and your own reaction suggests that you’re not happy to accept those consequences, so circumspection would probably be a wiser choice.
And the fact is that your initial post (or at least the part available to unregistered readers) DID make it sound like you were sacked. Naturally I accept your word that you weren’t, but it’s hardly surprising that Blair and his charming little bovver boys took the opportunity to sink the slipper into your groin.
At the risk of inflaming cross-blog disputes even further, I’ve read Niall’s post and I personally don’t see anything implying he was pushed rather than jumped.
Anyway, Ken, surely you’re not trying to imply the tropical north has a monopoly on people going nuts? We’ve always been blessed with an unfortunately endless and self-renewing supply of idiots down here in the more temperate end of the wide brown date…
James
All I can say is that you must have been reading a different post to the one I did. However, I’m not courting an argument with Niall; he’s got enough aggro over at Chez Blair. I would however suggest that it’s a bad idea to threaten defamation proceedings unless you’re going to follow through. Blair has been a journo long enough to know that most such threats, even when delivered via a solicitor’s letter, are just hot air, so he’s unlikely to back off at least until proceedings are commenced (if then). Niall would be unwise to proceed unless he’s prepared for the “immediate superior” he defamed much more seriously than Blair and his mates defamed Niall to (a) give gleeful evidence against Niall; and (b) counter-sue Niall for defamation as well.
Legal fees? Circa 100K if it goes to trial in the Supreme Court, and double that if you lose, and double it again if the “immediate superior” counter-sues and wins. Feeling lucky Niall?
You make a sound point, Ken, but I fail to see why I need to alter my blogging style to suit the likes of Blair. Be it a personal diary-style site or full-blown political commentary site, I reserve the right to write what I like, when I like. Blair, by contrast, can cut-and-paste what he likes when he likes, but when it comes to libelous content, such as Blair has foolishly posted, I see no reason to tolerate it. He attacks me professionally, and that’s crossing the line.
James reads quite correctly, as always. As it happens, I was offered a very congenial and beneficial exit. Certainly not what an angst-filled ‘sacking’ would encompass. Regardless, what difference does my employment dance make to anyone’s lives just because I write about it? To be quite honest, storm in a tea-cup is a graphic over-statement. Of course, as usual, it’s Blair who’s stirring the brew, but you lot are drinking it! Time for a reality check, methinks.
The morally superior among us blog about motorcycles.
I’m of the view that people use “schadenfreude” in the wrong sense. It seems to be used to indicate pleasure at enemy’s misfortune. I had always thought the more precise use of the word “schadenfreude” was to indicate a guilty pleasure at a rival’s misfortune but that an essential part of the guilt hinged on the fact that the rival was a friend or well regarded person.
My Wahrig German-German dictionary defines Schadenfreude as: “boshafte Freude ueber den Schaden oder das Missgeschick eines anderen”,
which I translate as: “malicious delight in the injury or misfortune of another.”
Nothing guilty about it, and any unfortunate will do.
Thank you Goetz – I’m sure your knowledge of the language is better than mine. However I don’t see anything all that unusual in taking delight in the misfortunes of enemies. I therefore still need a word for taking guilty delight in the misfortune of those non enemies but potential rivals.
Ye Gods! Tex reads Troppo!
Possibly only to see whether I’m still alive to send him his salty plums. I am and I will (very soon). Sorry Tex.
Ye Gods! Tex reads Troppo!
I do it to make you happy Niall.
I see nothing particularly distasteful about Blair’s mocking of Niall. Stupidity and arrogance are always hilarious, particularly in someone who believes in the limitless virtue of tyrants, terrorists and the stealing of taxpayers money to promote moonbat causes. It sounds like Niall’s allegedly incompetent boss gave him the “A fine, ambitious man in the prime of life deserves to pursue better opportunities which this company cannot provide you with” speech and Niall actually believed it. Jesus, the twat actually thinks 7 weeks severance pay is a sign of appreciation and amicability! And the twat compounds his idiocy by advertising his gullibility on a blog, while badmouthing his boss!! Jesus H. Sanchez, you cannot make up stuff like this.
You must admit, Niall’s little rant at his boss did sound delightfully Brent-like. Niall frequently unconsciously parodies himself, like most of his kind- the self-important, irrelevant little prats that inhabit the nooks and crannies of our bureaucratic culture, permanently and petulantly infuriated by the world’s failure to recognize their genius.
Come on, seriously, the guy got the boot. His boss got rid of him because he just couldn’t take Niall any more. God knows, Satan knows, Tim Knows, Tex knows, we all know. At the back of his big, fat head, even Niall knows. You know it Ken and, to your credit, refuse to get involved in an idiotic, meaningless argument with one of the Australian blogosphere’s most idiotic, meaningless members.
As one of the mongrel dogs masquerading as humans populating Tim’s site, I’d like to offer this olive branch across the divide of ideology in the form of one simple thing we can all agree on- Niall is a real dick.
Take your olive branch and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Amos
It’s not so much an olive branch as an invitation to share a bleeding hunk of meat.
I like olives. Especially Chili Kalamata.
I can’t resist tossing this quote from Boris Johnson into the salad mix:
“My chances of being PM are about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive.”
Permanently floating in a martini, one presumes…
I wasn’t offering it to you, Niall, you bearded menace.
But I put tabasco sauce on it, the peppery tang of conciliation
You could marinate and slice it and put it in one of those layered electric dryers you can get at K-Mart, and sell it as Niall’s Death Beast Jerky – chew on it as your boss chews you out.
please ken … niall has pictures of himself on his webcam in stages of undress …. i don’t want to even think about his beef jerky …
So, writing about life in my blog is wrong??!!
Marvellous thing, this blogging stunt. You get scum like Blair constantly searching for any chance to engage on the lowest…