Archives for October 2004

This upcoming election in Australia has got me thinking about who’s governing our country more than ever before. It’s only the last couple of elections (federal and state) that I’ve bothered to put numbers in all the boxes rather than do the lazy one number at the top and not even know where the preference votes were going. To do this, however, I want to be more informed about where I’ll be placing certain parties in my list.

After reading an entry at Alert but not alarmed, it reminded me I had been meaning to find out more about the Family First party which I hadn’t heard much about before but sounded a bit too good to be true. I started looking at their website and then opened up the long policy document. To me, the Family First name sounds good but what is their definition of family? Read on..

Some quotes from the Family First policy (PDF document) with my thoughts after each quote.

‘Family grows out of heterosexual relationships between men and women.’

This is discounting quite a bit of the population who are not heterosexual

‘Principle 4
The interests of children are best served by growing up in a happy,
understanding, safe home created by a loving mother and father supported by the extended intergenerational family and a supportive social, legal and economic foundation.’

With families being smaller, the divorce rate being higher this seems quite shortsighted. Many extended family members don’t live near each other so children having this constant support isn’t always viable.

‘Principle 6
Marriage between a man and a women is the surest approach to the
establishment of stable family life and is therefore worthy of positive support and promotion by government and society’

Again, doesn’t take into account the divorce rate and the fact that many children are looked after by sole parents.

‘Family First believes that the ratio of suiciding fathers as against mothers is up 18:1 a situation that has come about as a direct result of the frustration, anger and despair that fathers are experiencing in relation to custody arrangements.’

There was no evidence in this policy document to back this up. Have there been studies undertaken to confirm this? I speculate it’s more a case of men find it more difficult than women to seek help and talk to others about their problems.

‘Family First is committed to winning the war against terror. Family First
acknowledges the need for careful deployment of our armed forces, in cooperation with allies and the international community.’

Just plain disagree with this. Saw an excellent film (compilation of short films) called ‘Time to Go John’. Sounds like Family First is in agreement with the Liberal Party regarding the war in Iraq despite the fact that the Australian sentiment was mostly otherwise.

Well this has decided where my vote won’t be going. Family First, you are down towards the bottom of my list.

Had two girlfriends round the other night for a ‘singing’ get together. About a year ago we all decided to form an acapella group and get together about once a month to sing. We’ve ambled along for the last year or so not doing much at all. Having said that we have actually performed in public at a friend’s birthday afternoon drinks. We’d rehearsed the Friday night beforehand (the birthday was on the Sunday) and then again that morning. It was a song I pretty much already knew the words to, ‘Walkin’ after Midnight’ by Patsy Cline. I sang the melody and my 2 friends did some accompaniment. Our other friends enjoyed it and actually asked us to do it a second time. It was good fun.

It’s hard for the three of us to get together and I’m a bit of a driver in it, suggesting a date and chasing them up. This was the first time for a while that we hooked up for this purpose as one of us had some throat problems so didn’t want to strain her voice.

Well we didn’t do much singing but did lots of talking and some brainstorming about our direction. We wrote down a heap of songs we could choose from and we decided to choose our top five and bottom three out of the list below. We’ll compile the top five and see if there’s any crossover and the bottom three will probably come off the list altogether. We also decided to do a medley of our songs of choice.
Here’s the songs. The ones with a * are the ones that we all liked that will go on our top five already. If anyone reading this knows the artists I’ve missed or if I have any incorrect ones please leave me a comment.

*Devilgate drive – Susi Quatro
Walking after midnight – Patsy Cline
Funky town – Pseudo Echo
Pussy town (Machine Gun Fellatio)
Old fashioned morphine – Jolie?
*Goodtime girl – Nancy Sinatra
Did you ever – Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood?
Pop musik – M
10 wheels for Jesus – Beasts of Bourbon
Alone with you – The Sunnyboys
Coco cobana – Barry Manilow
Fashion – David Bowie
Took the words right out of my mouth – Meatloaf
Love triangle – New Order
Wanna be in my gang – Gary Glitter
London calling/Jimmy Jazz – The Clash
Rock me – ABBA
Shame shame shame – ??
Disco queen – Hot Chocolate
Any Madness song
Mad world – Tears for Fears
This is not a love song – Johnny Rotten (can’t remember name of band)
Saturday night – Bay City Rollers
Stray cat strut – Stray Cats
Lord’s prayer – Sister ????
So lonely – The Police
Any 80s thrash
Institution – Suicidal Tendencies
Do the crusher – The Cramps
Joker – Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66
??? – Exploding White Mice
Sheila is a punk rocker – The Ramones
Don’t eat the daisies – Doris Day
Push the little daisies – Queen?
Wonder woman – ??
Teach me tiger – April Stevens
Partridge family
HR Puff n Stuff
Buggaloos

I’m hoping we can pull this off as there’s quite a mix in there….

My top 10 reasons for loving spring:

1 The orange blossom smell
2 It’s warmer during the day and at night
3 Other flowers are out in bloom and things are just generally growing well
4 My birthday is in the middle of spring
5 People are coming out of hibernation
6 It makes me feel better and happier
7 Can walk along the beach without shoes and not freeze your feet
8 Jaycee Junior can play outside more
9 Winter is behind us
10 The days are getting longer

Was watching Neighbours the yesterday, yes I do watch it, and I noticed that Coopers Brewery did quite well out of it. I guess it’s got to be by design that a stack of their beer featured in one of the scenes lasting about 3-4 minutes. So as I have a newly acquired digital camera I thought I’d take a photo of my telly which is why this is such bad quality. Here’s a picture of Connor talking to Lou (unseen) with the lab of Coopers Pale Ale in the background. I guess I really noticed it because it’s a drink of choice for me and I don’t usually see advertising in Neighbours apart from things like Red Nose Day.