northbysoutheast

The recent rain in rural areas, mostly rusted on National Party enclaves, seems to be driving some of that party's supporters a little frisky. Even non-supporters are getting whatever kind of troppo one gets in this climate. Witness the odd buttering up (ummm...) of Nationals leader and deputy PM by Matt Price on page 6 of yesterday's Australian commenting on the how dull the procedings were in the absence PM Howard:

Anderson led the Government's defence, and the most handsome man in parliament - by a considerable distance - vehemently denied any deal with the US. But the spectacle of the Gay Icon as military muscleman did not wear and Question Time sans the Peace Missionary was flatter than Ando's stomach.

And here in the Queen's own Land the new leader of the Nats, Laurence Spingborg is probably winning over a similar constituency with the endless footage the tv news ran of him cycling in a baggy red singlet and jogging shorts, then sweating on a parliamentary gym treadmill and in one of News Ltd's other papers, a rather nice pic of him in his pool wearing speedos. Now HE has a flat stomach. (My nephews and their cronies refer to speedos as "dick togs" but Laurie probably wouldn't be aware of that.)

In the interests of equal opportunity or something, the picture of Nicole Kidman on page 4 of the same paper was enough to make me turn. Something about that face that manages to evoke lost decades of Hollywood Goddess style and sexiness while also appearing intelligent, sincere, just so damn beautiful. Gosh.

Probably another symptom of the recent rain. Reaching for limes will never be the same after a rather agile Common Tree Snake raised a bit of a sweat. I am assured that Dendrelaphis punctulatus is completely harmless, but it's still a snake goddammit.

Just picked up an app for a 20 hour a week job that will pay actual money. Wish me luck - I'm skint. And now four and a half kilos of material for this terms subjects has just arrived. Got to go.

Yesterday when the earthmovers started whining again, I wondered what the crazy old couple opposite could possible be removing after Sunday's scoriation. Turns out they needed heavy duty crane and wide load lorry to have a concrete water tank taken away. My guess is that it was where they stored to bodies and now all that remains of their enemies are bleached bones that will crumble into invisibility when the tank is crushed into landfill.

Meanwhile in that convoluted way these things have, Sarah whom I revisited through a link from M. Plastique has led me to Konfabulator which she describes thus "It has all these, like, things, and they’re all, like, on your desktop. And you can get, like, more things, and even, like, make your own." which is totally accurate.Goes well with iMol which is a gadget for 3D animation of common molecules ( I can't remember who referred it) that I'm sure has real use but for shallow persons like moi, is nice to look at. Why couldn't I have had these toys when good acid was around and I still had the stamina and youthful bravado to ingest it?

While on les temps perdu and youth...I'm rather enjoying the adventures of Bartosz especially the way "old" Europe is made fresh by his apparent optimism.

The expanse of green that I look out on is now punctuated by a patch of cloudglare. The couple diagonally opposite who have a block alongside the one they live on, have just had it bulldozed bare. The eucalypts, acacias, citrus, mango in fact all of the trees and shrubs have gone. Bare soil and bright sky remain revealing a line of mismatched ugly garages along their northern boundary. Now the flock of white parrots circles down to where they used to roost in one of the trees and are walking around on the bared earth before flying up to occupy in long lines the power cables. And saddest of all is a couple of herons I've watched most of the day, taking turns to stand on the roof of the house and look out to where the garden once was in the dumb hope, I guess, that their nesting tree will reappear.