The pond has never been to an actual live horse race or event. Not one, zilch, nada, nihil.
The pond has only been on a deserted race course a couple of times, once in Tamworth because the parents said not to to do it, and a couple of other times for filming. The pond did of course watch the trots at night at the Tamworth show, on the basis that sideshow alley had already taken all the cash in paw to hand, and long ago sidecar racing on the dirt track was also a thing, but the pond has never understood or shared the need to watch horses train hard so they can pretend they're involved in a human sport, nor the need to gamble on the results of same ...
Perhaps all that explains the pond's idiosyncratic and eccentric approach to the world. Whatever, be rest assured that this day's posting will also not stop the nation, nor cause the mildest flicker of interest, nor even lead to punting on who is the silliest reptile of them all ...
As usual, the pond first surveyed the field ...
Strange. The pond has long been accustomed to important matters - the war on Ukraine by a sociopath, the war on the planet by reptile sociopaths - being downgraded or ignored, but here events in Gaza have also been pushed down the page.
After the ravaging Media Watch dished out to reptile coverage last night - the pond is still astonished by the sight of simpleton Sharri - name used with some difficulty - and had expected a reptile hue and cry in response, but they've never been nimble on their hooves, so it might take a little while. At least at the lizard Oz they seem to have decided that China's a better bet for the moment.
When the pond wandered down below the fold to the comments section for a squiz ...
... the pond quietly accepted its fate ...
Yes, there was Geoff living the Media Watch Gaza dream, and there was the Jennings, doing the bro's job and getting hysterical about China, and there was simplistic Simon also frothing and foaming at the mouth about dictator Xi, but the pond could have thrown to the immortal Rowe without any of that sort of prompting ...
What is it with all these movie references? John Carpenter? And down below, there's an infallible Pope celebrating Peter Weir ...
But before getting to the infallible Pope there will be much groaning, and a Riddster celebration of CO₂ ...
After the pond put out an urgent call for a psychotherapist - in the vain hope that they might know a way to explain the Dame's latest groan - the pond knew its duty.
There'd be another groaning and it'd all be about alarming and dangerous furriners ...
Truth to tell, the pond has even less interest in Dame Groan's groaning than it has in horse racing, but for some reason she still manages to attract cultists devoted to picking over her musings.
Even the Groan herself admits in her first gobbet to repeating herself, as in "last week I banged on about this in a truly boring and unimaginably tedious way, and that's why I'm going to bang on about it again today" ...
No, it's not interesting to note, though the pond will allow that it might be interesting for a psychiatrist to explore the root causes of this mind-numbing obsession ...
So what should we think? Is thinking really necessary? Isn't it more a matter of fear and doubt at the thought of furriners, pesky and difficult, invading the country, and somehow the asbestos lady is in the thick of it, and you can even see them walking around in the quadrangle that's near to the pond ...
Of course all that smiling and looking happy and at ease is just fuel for Dame Groan's fire. None of them can speak bloody English and none of them look like they came from the mother country (though come to think of it, isn't a bloody furriner in charge of the show there, and one of the best of their bigots is also an import, in a bravely groaning homelessness sort of way?)...
Who knows what drives the old biddy's deep, dark fears? All the pond knows is that each week it's pleased when it's over and the pond can leave the track and let the cultists go to work ...
Will Dame Groan ever stop beating the furriner drum? Probably not, it's probably the easiest way to dress up racism and bigotry as a kind of economic treatise ...
Couldn't she at least have tried a rant about dictator Xi? The pond would have loved to have thrown in a cartoon to break up the sense of tedium and ennui ...
Meanwhile, keen eyes will have already noted that the Riddster was also out and about this day, and the pond knew its duty ...
The reptiles seem to have stopped aggregating reptiles' work by name, but by Google's reckoning, it's been some three weeks since the derelict, disgracefully lazy Lloydie of the Amazon scribbled anything, and back then it was a little blather about the High Court going electric and producing taxing times for road users ...
So here we are for the bonus ...
It seems the Riddster has settled into his IPA gig and knows how to hit all the required talking points ...
As if to give the Riddster a place in the reptile firmament, they ran a huge snap of him, and a little later, a huge snap of his mortal enemy ...
The pond didn't much care for the distraction, and downsized them and lumped them together...
Stripped of the huge snaps, there wasn't much flesh on the Riddster's bones ...
Of course all that handwringing and fancy footwork about the environment and farming and such like has just been a distraction ...
If you wanted to rant about the destruction of farmland, you only need to take a look at the Hunter Valley and imagine what could be done to the Liverpool plains ...
Instead we get a classic IPA line ... "At least for the Murray-Darling farmers there is one thing going in their favour - rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration ..."
Yep, while some cartoonists get a bit bolshie ...
... the Riddster is on hand with the good news that carbon dioxide is good for farmers, so good that if he keeps saying it, he won't be sent to the cornfield by the IPA ...
Now there's a novelty, "city nobility". You may now scribble a comment to Lady Pond, and the pond will advise you in a courtly way that the Riddster is fair game ... (yes, the pond came from Tamworth, but when the pond hit the city, the pond became quite posh and regal, almost up there with King Chuck. As it seems it's a movie day, way back when, the Commonwealth Film Unit showed how to make the move in 3 to Go: Judy).
To start off the Riddster ribbing, the pond was charmed by that reference to the Riddster being the "chair of the Australian Environment Foundation".
The pond has always thought that the sign of desperate faux nobility is the attempt to dress themselves in fancy airs and garments, of the "foundation" or "institute" or "think tank" kind, but hadn't quite reckoned on the wretchedness of this particular "foundation" ...
That's it? That's all they could muster? A blogger and Al Moran (what a temptation to make a pun), and the Riddster, and a Bostock and a Rae who didn't care to put down their day jobs (you can find them on LinkedIn if you can be bothered, but the pond can understand why they wanted to hide).
As for the 'about' page, this was all they could muster, a tattered thing, of rags and patches...
Strange, the pond didn't find "we value increasing carbon dioxide" but no doubt they'll get around to it some day ...
And so to the infallible Pope of the day, and it doesn't have much relationship to anything above, but at least it does feature a horse race, which is where the pond began, and it does show this brand of Papism is into Peter Weir in a big way ... so many movie references, so little time ...
Meanwhile, here's that tragic tale ...
Made by The Commonwealth Film Unit 1969. Directed by Brian Hannant.
Episode 2 of a three part series. The problems of a young girl living in a country town in Australia. Judy is a young girl who lives in Tamworth. Like most girls her age, she longs to get out and see life, to find the fun, romance and adventure. She wants to go the the big city to work, to lose herself in the crowd and to find herself as an individual. The film shows the last few weeks before she leaves home. We meet her parents, workmates and boyfriend, and in their comments discover some of the problems a teenage girl like Judy has to face.
The pond hates the bug in the corner, there's absolutely no need for it, and it gets in the way of some splendidly nostalgic snaps of the mighty city of light ...
"The pond has never been to an actual live horse race or event." Oh dear.
Well I have at least tried to satisfy my Aussie social duty by attending one, and only one, of each of: Melbourne Cup, Aus-GB cricket Test at the MCG and AFL Grand Final (1966).
Done and dusted. By the way, does anybody remember Roy Higgins ? And the way he got Red Handed over the line in 1967 ?
The pond's partner scored that trifecta GB if you count the VFL as the AFL - Collingwood-North Melbourne draw, and can't remember the horse that won or even the year. The pond has only a double, and can barely remember Melbourne getting flogged by Essendon, they always seemed to be playing at the other end of the ground. We both shouted "ooh aah Glenn McGrath" to try to pretend we fitted in, after slipping in for a free afternoon session as the game was winding down. Warnie was also playing, so that gives an idea of the vintage of that short experience.
I found the "3 To Go: Judy" interesting. It's not cinema verite, but it's as close as we are going to get to 1969 Tamworth. The sausage sizzle at the 20:17 mark immediately brought to mind holiday cookouts at my uncles farms at the time. The people, clothing, all evocative of the time, be it Tamworth or Ontario or Jersey in 1969. For what the film is, it's better than it needs to be, so it has a certain charm.
That's high praise JM for what it was. The neo realist quasi doc tone was because it was produced by the Commonwealth Film Unit, a federal government production body (inspired by assorted British government production bodies - "Night Mail" - and the NFB of Canada - Stanley Hawes was the first head of production), and the brief was to make films of "social and cultural value" often pushing the message of government departments of the day. One area was to pay attention to country towns. Gil Brealey always wanted to make a feature film so he cobbled together three films to make one, not that it did any business - one of the others was a silly Peter Weir movie Michael about revolution at Circular Quay in the radical '60s and the other was a traditional tale of migrants, a young Greek woman Toula. The NFSA site where you watched Judy has a lot of the old CFU/ Film Australia back catalogue, and some of them are a hoot and some of them have a kind of period nostalgia ... As for the bush, yes, there's sometimes not much difference in some areas between Australia, Jersey or wherever ... travelling the backroads in the States was unnerving, with some things almost the same, but never quite ...
"The NFSA site where you watched Judy has a lot of the old CFU/ Film Australia back catalogue, and some of them are a hoot and some of them have a kind of period nostalgia ..."
Thanks for the information and another resource. That sort of film has always interested me. Hopefully the CFU/Film Australia have footage of the Opera House being erected. When I was a kid I recycled a school paper about it for years. Looking up "3 To Go: Judy" a link sent me to the Australian Television Information Archive. Amazing facts - In a remarkable achievement an Australian TV series in 1969 was the most popular on the planet, even spawning an theatrical version. Eclipsing even the then mighty Bonanza., it especially appealed behind the Iron Curtain. Translated into 25 languages in 128 countries with a weekly audience of 300 million. I was one of them, it had me believing a Roo could play piano and pilot a helicopter over Sydney with the help of her sidekick Sonny. I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer back then.
Made by The Commonwealth Film Unit 1972. This short film was produced in 1972 from historic and contemporary footage of The Sydney Opera House including footage of its complex construction and the site's previous use as a tram depot. It has a musical score but no narration and is our first offering to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Opera House on 20th October 1973. This incredible building by architect Jørn Utzon has indeed become a landmark.
Another one the pond had a soft spot for was A Steam Train Passes, though you have to be into coal-devouring monsters ...
Made by Film Australia 1974. Directed by David Haythornthwaite. Generally regarded as Australia’s finest railway film and winner of many awards the world over, A Steam Train Passes is a nostalgic, imaginative essay on one of the majestic C38 class steam locomotives. This fine locomotive has been restored at the Newcastle State Dockyard. The film follows the 3801 on a journey through country New South Wales as it seemingly moves back in time with each stop at a railway station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VC_RcNyF_g
The site boasts about it being in 4K, but it was originally presented in widescreen in its theatrical release, not 4:3. The NFSA can be relied upon to get things wrong ...
You little beauty, DP! Now I get what that phrase really means. Are there any more like you at home, willing to move to a fellow ex-colony of Mother England? We don't really speak as you hear on The Sopranos. Well, perhaps a tad. I just watched "A Steam Train Passes", it was lyrical, 5 minutes in I was trying to absorb everything the director was up to. Nice touch, the cat. I will watch the Opera House link later, I have to now go share with various choo choo trains nuts I know this wonderful short. I will be golden after this one, it's gotta be good for four or five rounds and din din at Addams Tavern. Best railroad film I have ever seen, John Ford or Howard Hawks would be proud to claim it. Thanks pal.
Train spotters unite JM, and that Addams Tavern looks like it serves heart attack treats.
No disrespect to Ford or Hawks intended, but trust you're also keeping up with Budd Boetticher (the pond's father was heavily into Randolph Scott) and those two Monte Hellman western gems.
Addams Tavern is named after Westfield's most famous son, cartoonist Charles Addams. You are correct, it's a mecca for the serious trencherman or woman. I just watched Budd's "Decision at Sundown", one of "The Seven" he made with Randy, I always suspected it was their answer to High Noon and much more realistic.
Hmmm, Groany: "...most international students have to work here to pay student fees and living expense." and "...the English language skills of international students don't always improve during their time in Australia as they mix only with those from their own countries." Oh, right; so all the Uni/TAFE lecturers are "from their own countries", and all the jobs they get are only working for, and serving, those from their own countries, and so on. No, maybe that doesn't improve their English language skills as much as a formal course or two, but they do, surely, have to learn something. Don't they ?
You can't hang around for up to 6 years and not learn something of the local language, can you ?
Not when that local language is English, GB. And note how the Groaner's reference to 'migration' is conflated with 'temporary student visas' in the first two paragraphs. Just to 'set the scene' as the Dame would say. Sure, a lot of them stay, but unless you're going to do some analysis (she doesn't) the numbers are just meaningless.
Well now, English is one of the very easiest languages to learn to just a 'daily survival' level. So English has one of the very smallest 'base vocabularies' - ie the words that if chased down through a dictionary are basically defined in terms of themselves and so you just have to know them - and it has one of the smallest 'working vocabularies', the words you have to know to just get around and survive each day (about 1500), it is also non-gendered and its base grammar is in fact so simple that almost any other language's grammar fits into it. It also has by far the largest vocabulary (about 600,000 'non-technical' words and a dictionary big enough to hold them all).
So, in case you weren't aware, the sum total of all that makes English "very easy to pick up, but impossible to master". And hence why it is the default lingua franca.
The Riddster: "But damaging these industries perversely increases environmental harm." They just have to persist with it don't they: "We've got to do bad things, because if we don't, somebody else will." Time and time again they trot out that 'rationalisation'. And they can never understand why other people don't enthusiastically support them.
And then, there's just outright lies and distortions: "...we must import from countries where sustainable forestry, which has been practised in this country for decades*, is merely a dream." Yep, no doubt about us, we're just such totally good global citizens, and Australia now, is like it's always been. Except for the brumbies, of course. * "we" have been here for centuries (235 years), but "sustainable forestry" has only been practised for decades.
So, in conclusion, let me say just this ... "We need a fresh start, beginning with a review of the science behind agricultural policy." Which, of course, the Riddster would be only too happy to conduct personally.
I did give brief attention to the bait trailed by the Riddster, particularly when he identifies with the Australian Environment Foundation, a body which was a little more interesting when Don Burke was in the chair, trying to convince his diminishing number of listeners that it was not astroturfing from the IPA. Does anyone recall what happened to Don Burke? Anyone? Up the back there? No?
But to the Riddster, and his dedication to the facts. First up - restrictions on some methods of commercial catch are not ‘damaging’ to the fishing industry - they improve it, that is why they are applied.
The claim that ‘continuously tightening regulations on Australia’s fish catch resulted in Australia becoming a net importer of seafood in 2007.’ is about 40 years out of date. We have understood we import more seafood than we produce commercially since we got serious about gathering statistics in the 1960s, going through to a national survey of seafood consumption from all sources in the early ‘70s. Essentially, we harvest high value seafood, and export much of it, while importing low value fish for general consumption. Think fish fingers, which are known to contain some fish - and you don’t want to know about the other constituents.
On fishing for Barramundi with gillnets - Riddster has already been upstaged by the polymath Nick Cater. It is just 6 weeks since I shared with readers here Cater’s interview with fish chappie in North Queensland, and the revelation from fish chappie that -
‘he had written to ‘the 19 scientists who had written the report’, and they ‘came back with ‘the fishery absorbing carbon dioxide. If we stop you from taking the fish they’re gonna hold it in under the water and it’s not gonna go up into the ozone layer, and it’s not gonna go out there and cause climate change and bleach the reef.’
Cater ‘You’re kidding? That is the best they can come up with?’
End of cross-examination; Cater apparently satisfied that random fish chap and his 19 imaginary scientists had nailed the issue.’
That interview was on TV, so had to be correct - ADH tv at that, Moorice Newman’s contribution to truth in television.
Oh - the Riddster did get close to some truth with his mention of white-spot disease in prawns. It is fair to remind readers who was Minister responsible for national biosecurity at that time - save you looking it up, it was Barnaby, whose tenure saw substantial reduction in national capacity for biosecurity, and blind acceptance of often imaginary ‘objective risk assessments’ written by harried public servants.
He - Riddster - really does not have much to offer, even to the Flagship. Kinda places him as second reserve to Lloydie of the Amazon.
The Riddster is a rising talent, and given the dereliction of duty by Lloydie of the Amazon, could well become the next big reptile thing ... especially as he livens up the comments section ... so the pond will keep an eye out for fresh offerings straight from the IPA ...
Chadwick said "Essentially, we harvest high value seafood, and export much of it, while importing low value fish for general consumption."
And the same for all other produce.
In the 80's, in Australia Square's level -1 shopping precinct, I came across The Export Fruit & Veg Shop.
I didn't need to read the sign. Never had I seen better bigger f&v. And prices to match. I asked the boss who said "we buy from exporters, not at general auctions".
I've look at much of Woolies Coles etc f&v and think... where is the export quality?! Oh. Exported. Like our gas.
"Titled Gone: Australian Animals Extinct Since the 1960s, the report cites the work of 10 biologists who in 2019 found that of the 100 extinct species studied, 36 were killed off by land clearing." Invasive species top killer list as biologists honour Australian wonders lost to modern extinction since 1960s https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2023-11-08/native-species-lost-to-modern-extinction/103055638
Dorothy - as you say, when Dame Groan herself tells us she is going on repeat - even devoted cultists anticipate boredom. It was good of her to take a look at the numbers for us, and help us through the difficult calculations - 665 000 take away 555 000 leaves 100 000. Saves me having to fire up the trusty HP-65 to do that.
Otherwise - when she cites ‘anecdotes’ and ‘some evidence’ (yes, I did continue to read - you never know when something new might pop up, however accidentally) but does not tell us which of the books of wisdom she draws that from - she truly tests the devotion of her cult. And we were warned.
The pond thought that one might be a testing experience Chadders. It's not so much the level of compulsive obsessive scribbling as that the reptiles allow this form of what can only be described as a kind of mental illness to be paraded each week. The pond realises migration (one issue) and foreign students (another issue) are policy matters that can be discussed sensibly, but it's not possible to have a serious discussion with dementia on parade. Dame Groan really should be quietly put out to pasture, it would be a mercy, but the pond suspects that there are not that many bright young things drawn to the rag.
"The pond has never been to an actual live horse race or event." Oh dear.
ReplyDeleteWell I have at least tried to satisfy my Aussie social duty by attending one, and only one, of each of: Melbourne Cup, Aus-GB cricket Test at the MCG and AFL Grand Final (1966).
Done and dusted. By the way, does anybody remember Roy Higgins ? And the way he got Red Handed over the line in 1967 ?
The pond's partner scored that trifecta GB if you count the VFL as the AFL - Collingwood-North Melbourne draw, and can't remember the horse that won or even the year. The pond has only a double, and can barely remember Melbourne getting flogged by Essendon, they always seemed to be playing at the other end of the ground. We both shouted "ooh aah Glenn McGrath" to try to pretend we fitted in, after slipping in for a free afternoon session as the game was winding down. Warnie was also playing, so that gives an idea of the vintage of that short experience.
DeleteI found the "3 To Go: Judy" interesting.
DeleteIt's not cinema verite, but it's as close as we are going to get to 1969
Tamworth.
The sausage sizzle at the 20:17 mark immediately brought to mind
holiday cookouts at my uncles farms at the time.
The people, clothing, all evocative of the time, be it Tamworth or Ontario
or Jersey in 1969.
For what the film is, it's better than it needs to be, so it has a certain
charm.
That's high praise JM for what it was. The neo realist quasi doc tone was because it was produced by the Commonwealth Film Unit, a federal government production body (inspired by assorted British government production bodies - "Night Mail" - and the NFB of Canada - Stanley Hawes was the first head of production), and the brief was to make films of "social and cultural value" often pushing the message of government departments of the day. One area was to pay attention to country towns.
DeleteGil Brealey always wanted to make a feature film so he cobbled together three films to make one, not that it did any business - one of the others was a silly Peter Weir movie Michael about revolution at Circular Quay in the radical '60s and the other was a traditional tale of migrants, a young Greek woman Toula. The NFSA site where you watched Judy has a lot of the old CFU/ Film Australia back catalogue, and some of them are a hoot and some of them have a kind of period nostalgia ...
As for the bush, yes, there's sometimes not much difference in some areas between Australia, Jersey or wherever ... travelling the backroads in the States was unnerving, with some things almost the same, but never quite ...
"The NFSA site where you watched Judy has a lot of the old CFU/ Film Australia
Deleteback catalogue, and some of them are a hoot and some of them have a kind of period nostalgia ..."
Thanks for the information and another resource.
That sort of film has always interested me.
Hopefully the CFU/Film Australia have footage of the Opera House being erected.
When I was a kid I recycled a school paper about it for years.
Looking up "3 To Go: Judy" a link sent me to the Australian Television
Information Archive.
Amazing facts -
In a remarkable achievement an Australian TV series in 1969 was the most
popular on the planet, even spawning an theatrical version.
Eclipsing even the then mighty Bonanza., it especially appealed behind the
Iron Curtain.
Translated into 25 languages in 128 countries with a weekly audience of
300 million. I was one of them, it had me believing a Roo could play piano
and pilot a helicopter over Sydney with the help of her sidekick Sonny.
I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer back then.
Try this one JM ...
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlSSl5CjGs8&t=16s
Made by The Commonwealth Film Unit 1972. This short film was produced in 1972 from historic and contemporary footage of The Sydney Opera House including footage of its complex construction and the site's previous use as a tram depot. It has a musical score but no narration and is our first offering to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Opera House on 20th October 1973. This incredible building by architect Jørn Utzon has indeed become a landmark.
Another one the pond had a soft spot for was A Steam Train Passes, though you have to be into coal-devouring monsters ...
Made by Film Australia 1974. Directed by David Haythornthwaite. Generally regarded as Australia’s finest railway film and winner of many awards the world over, A Steam Train Passes is a nostalgic, imaginative essay on one of the majestic C38 class steam locomotives. This fine locomotive has been restored at the Newcastle State Dockyard. The film follows the 3801 on a journey through country New South Wales as it seemingly moves back in time with each stop at a railway station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VC_RcNyF_g
The site boasts about it being in 4K, but it was originally presented in widescreen in its theatrical release, not 4:3. The NFSA can be relied upon to get things wrong ...
Hmmm: 1 to get ready 2 to get set 3 to go
DeleteSome things just take a while to surface in memory nowadays.
Dorothy,
Delete"A Steam Train Passes"
You little beauty, DP! Now I get what that phrase really means.
Are there any more like you at home, willing to move to a fellow ex-colony
of Mother England? We don't really speak as you hear on The Sopranos.
Well, perhaps a tad.
I just watched "A Steam Train Passes", it was lyrical, 5 minutes in I was
trying to absorb everything the director was up to. Nice touch, the cat.
I will watch the Opera House link later, I have to now go share with various
choo choo trains nuts I know this wonderful short.
I will be golden after this one, it's gotta be good for four or five rounds
and din din at Addams Tavern.
Best railroad film I have ever seen, John Ford or Howard Hawks would
be proud to claim it. Thanks pal.
Train spotters unite JM, and that Addams Tavern looks like it serves heart attack treats.
DeleteNo disrespect to Ford or Hawks intended, but trust you're also keeping up with Budd Boetticher (the pond's father was heavily into Randolph Scott) and those two Monte Hellman western gems.
cheers
Addams Tavern is named after Westfield's most famous son, cartoonist Charles Addams. You are correct, it's a mecca for the serious trencherman or woman.
DeleteI just watched Budd's "Decision at Sundown", one of "The Seven" he made with
Randy, I always suspected it was their answer to High Noon and much more
realistic.
Hmmm, Groany: "...most international students have to work here to pay student fees and living expense." and "...the English language skills of international students don't always improve during their time in Australia as they mix only with those from their own countries." Oh, right; so all the Uni/TAFE lecturers are "from their own countries", and all the jobs they get are only working for, and serving, those from their own countries, and so on. No, maybe that doesn't improve their English language skills as much as a formal course or two, but they do, surely, have to learn something. Don't they ?
ReplyDeleteYou can't hang around for up to 6 years and not learn something of the local language, can you ?
Not when that local language is English, GB. And note how the Groaner's reference to 'migration' is conflated with 'temporary student visas' in the first two paragraphs. Just to 'set the scene' as the Dame would say. Sure, a lot of them stay, but unless you're going to do some analysis (she doesn't) the numbers are just meaningless.
DeleteWell now, English is one of the very easiest languages to learn to just a 'daily survival' level. So English has one of the very smallest 'base vocabularies' - ie the words that if chased down through a dictionary are basically defined in terms of themselves and so you just have to know them - and it has one of the smallest 'working vocabularies', the words you have to know to just get around and survive each day (about 1500), it is also non-gendered and its base grammar is in fact so simple that almost any other language's grammar fits into it. It also has by far the largest vocabulary (about 600,000 'non-technical' words and a dictionary big enough to hold them all).
DeleteSo, in case you weren't aware, the sum total of all that makes English "very easy to pick up, but impossible to master". And hence why it is the default lingua franca.
The Riddster: "But damaging these industries perversely increases environmental harm." They just have to persist with it don't they: "We've got to do bad things, because if we don't, somebody else will." Time and time again they trot out that 'rationalisation'. And they can never understand why other people don't enthusiastically support them.
ReplyDeleteAnd then, there's just outright lies and distortions: "...we must import from countries where sustainable forestry, which has been practised in this country for decades*, is merely a dream." Yep, no doubt about us, we're just such totally good global citizens, and Australia now, is like it's always been. Except for the brumbies, of course.
* "we" have been here for centuries (235 years), but "sustainable forestry" has only been practised for decades.
So, in conclusion, let me say just this ... "We need a fresh start, beginning with a review of the science behind agricultural policy." Which, of course, the Riddster would be only too happy to conduct personally.
I did give brief attention to the bait trailed by the Riddster, particularly when he identifies with the Australian Environment Foundation, a body which was a little more interesting when Don Burke was in the chair, trying to convince his diminishing number of listeners that it was not astroturfing from the IPA. Does anyone recall what happened to Don Burke? Anyone? Up the back there? No?
DeleteBut to the Riddster, and his dedication to the facts. First up - restrictions on some methods of commercial catch are not ‘damaging’ to the fishing industry - they improve it, that is why they are applied.
The claim that ‘continuously tightening regulations on Australia’s fish catch resulted in Australia becoming a net importer of seafood in 2007.’ is about 40 years out of date. We have understood we import more seafood than we produce commercially since we got serious about gathering statistics in the 1960s, going through to a national survey of seafood consumption from all sources in the early ‘70s. Essentially, we harvest high value seafood, and export much of it, while importing low value fish for general consumption. Think fish fingers, which are known to contain some fish - and you don’t want to know about the other constituents.
On fishing for Barramundi with gillnets - Riddster has already been upstaged by the polymath Nick Cater. It is just 6 weeks since I shared with readers here Cater’s interview with fish chappie in North Queensland, and the revelation from fish chappie that -
‘he had written to ‘the 19 scientists who had written the report’, and they ‘came back with ‘the fishery absorbing carbon dioxide. If we stop you from taking the fish they’re gonna hold it in under the water and it’s not gonna go up into the ozone layer, and it’s not gonna go out there and cause climate change and bleach the reef.’
Cater ‘You’re kidding? That is the best they can come up with?’
End of cross-examination; Cater apparently satisfied that random fish chap and his 19 imaginary scientists had nailed the issue.’
That interview was on TV, so had to be correct - ADH tv at that, Moorice Newman’s contribution to truth in television.
Oh - the Riddster did get close to some truth with his mention of white-spot disease in prawns. It is fair to remind readers who was Minister responsible for national biosecurity at that time - save you looking it up, it was Barnaby, whose tenure saw substantial reduction in national capacity for biosecurity, and blind acceptance of often imaginary ‘objective risk assessments’ written by harried public servants.
He - Riddster - really does not have much to offer, even to the Flagship. Kinda places him as second reserve to Lloydie of the Amazon.
The Riddster is a rising talent, and given the dereliction of duty by Lloydie of the Amazon, could well become the next big reptile thing ... especially as he livens up the comments section ... so the pond will keep an eye out for fresh offerings straight from the IPA ...
DeleteChadwick said "Essentially, we harvest high value seafood, and export much of it, while importing low value fish for general consumption."
DeleteAnd the same for all other produce.
In the 80's, in Australia Square's level -1 shopping precinct, I came across The Export Fruit & Veg Shop.
I didn't need to read the sign. Never had I seen better bigger f&v. And prices to match. I asked the boss who said "we buy from exporters, not at general auctions".
I've look at much of Woolies Coles etc f&v and think... where is the export quality?! Oh. Exported. Like our gas.
"Titled Gone: Australian Animals Extinct Since the 1960s, the report cites the work of 10 biologists who in 2019 found that of the 100 extinct species studied, 36 were killed off by land clearing."
DeleteInvasive species top killer list as biologists honour Australian wonders lost to modern extinction since 1960s
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2023-11-08/native-species-lost-to-modern-extinction/103055638
Yep, "sustainable forestry" at its very best.
Dorothy - as you say, when Dame Groan herself tells us she is going on repeat - even devoted cultists anticipate boredom. It was good of her to take a look at the numbers for us, and help us through the difficult calculations - 665 000 take away 555 000 leaves 100 000. Saves me having to fire up the trusty HP-65 to do that.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise - when she cites ‘anecdotes’ and ‘some evidence’ (yes, I did continue to read - you never know when something new might pop up, however accidentally) but does not tell us which of the books of wisdom she draws that from - she truly tests the devotion of her cult. And we were warned.
The pond thought that one might be a testing experience Chadders. It's not so much the level of compulsive obsessive scribbling as that the reptiles allow this form of what can only be described as a kind of mental illness to be paraded each week.
DeleteThe pond realises migration (one issue) and foreign students (another issue) are policy matters that can be discussed sensibly, but it's not possible to have a serious discussion with dementia on parade. Dame Groan really should be quietly put out to pasture, it would be a mercy, but the pond suspects that there are not that many bright young things drawn to the rag.