.... joining the blowhards

Shane at his new desk

G’day petals

I’ve got a new desk and had a bit of a make-over but more of that later in Wombat Droppings.

Here is some new ballet stuff from the rehearsals and mid-year performance from Ballet Theatre Australia.

Being the first ballet shoot since returning it was interesting to me, at least, just how different it felt after six weeks of shooting landscapes, candids, architecture and other tourists.

 

It felt nicely fresh and I was a little surprised …very relaxed.

The performance shots are in B and W as I found the lighting disjointed and the colour, well, garish…. Sepia suits the rehearsal stuff…

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Question: How long can you look a “Gift-Horse” in the mouth?

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Wombat Droppings

or  Australia’s slide from egalitarianism into fascism.

…or if you want to watch it on video, here’s the address… and the reason for the make-over.

https://youtu.be/z8VF2zyilnw

It seems that our Prime Miniature, Rabid-the-Hun Abbott is motivated solely by the need to destroy Labor’s Faux-Leader Bill Short-Stuff and pretend he’s securing our borders as well as shirt-fronting “Death-Cults” abroad. 

This seemingly punch-drunk ex-university pugilist appears to know nothing except is how to start a fight and if you think it’s a good idea to have Rabid sideline the judiciary and have some-one with the intellect of the ex-Copper “Dodo” Dutton deciding who can or can’t be Australian… be afraid Petals, be very afraid.

The Ruling Rabble apparently poll quite strongly amongst the unaware on the issue of national security so all Rabid has to do is campaign hard on the promise of Keeping-Australia-Safe, so in constantly talking up terrorism it really suits his political objective to make most Australians feel very, Very Unsafe.

But given that Rabid-the-Hun’s record of NOT keeping promises is, the only exemplary point of his rabble’s administration; feeling safe from this English liar’s plans to create a sort of Fourth Reich Down-Under, is a problem in itself.

It’s horrifying to think that all this was planned…(well, the detail …. in the past 5 minutes) was from the “Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe” (the IPA) Handbook.

It was some 2 years ago that I wrote of this rabble’s possible election and postulated that their following of “The Coot’s” Policy-Thought-Bubbles would result in the degrading of “Civil-Society”.  Well the rabble’s been elected and, Voila!

 Now we have to look on as we suffer a further diminution of the nations humanitarian standing as Rabid–the-Hun is “open for business” like people smuggling which brings us closer to a genuine and serious Diplomatic confrontation with Indonesia whilst the rest of the world sees us as being morally bereft.

It seems too, that our Prime Miniature, can't hear his Pope’s encyclical on climate change for the noise of the Wind Turbines.

Having “discussed” Joe “Toyota-Killer-Eleventy” Hockey’s acute aesthetic revulsion of these symbols of the future with Sydney shock-jock Alan “Toilet-Boy” Jones, Rabid decided in another dictatorial “captain’s call,” that we shall have a Commissioner for Wind Farms.

This commissioner, probably as impartial as the Speaker of the House, “Kerosene-Pompadour” Bishop, will, likely only listen to the 12 or so people who complain of the imagined deleterious effects of these “aesthetic monstrosities”, and then, ignoring all 23 previous studies into this alternative energy source will, one by one, close them down; thus keeping faith with the Coal miners who funded so much of the Liarbrils election.

In an effort to distract the public from these first two “droppings,” Dis-Education Minister, Chwissie ”The Whyne-and-Perfect-Prat-of-a-Prefect” Pyne has laid a third by indicating that the government believes it has a particular responsibility only for independent schools and no time for public schools.

“The Whyne,” implied that, in returning to a medieval model of education it would save us from having to soil our dainty fingers counting out the pittance public schools get and it would also give the States something to do in their spare time. Only the privileged should be funded by the taxpayer!” 

Besides, as the poor don’t drive cars…. Only have to get a good job to buy a house and obviously don’t need medical attention or pharmaceuticals, why waste money on educating them?

Let them eat cake!”

What pile of droppings, eh?

Hoo-roo, Possums.

Shane

Eleventy's Dreaming

Citizen Shane

G’day Possums,

Now that the dust in the burrow has settled on “the trip” and even though much less was shot than last time, I'm well into what seems an interminable “post-process” and able to reflect on what are becoming the salient memories of those six weeks.

Jardin de Plantes, Paris The Inspiration for Saint Sa'ens', "Carnival of the Animals"

The Cathedrals seen in Britain; Wells, Exeter, Southwark and the local churches all had a liveliness probably because they are used extensively and are not dank, damp spaces. Also the fact that the architecture being a century or so later in most cases and “English Perpendicular” has found its soaring, full formal restraint which is so different from the “Flamboyant” of French Gothic.

Wells Cathedral Chapter House Stairs

At Wells Cathedral I was hard pressed not to attempt to channel the spirit of Frederick Evans when confronted with the stairs going up to the Chapter House and had a twinge of regret that I wasn't lugging around a Field Camera with tilt and shift movements. It was only a twinge, as the gear I had bagged weighed in at 7 Kg and most was often left in the car for discretions sake. I had wrist straps for both cameras and they proved very useful in that the camera was always “at hand” and not flailing around your neck or protruding a lens in front like some priapic tourist in Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita.”

Scotney Castle

The gardenswere beautiful: Sissinghurst, Scotney, Trebah and the delightfully warm Lacock Abbey and even the walk to Petworth House but then nearly every French Village is a picture in itself and Versailles (apart from the selfie-hordes) has that expansive dignity and a singular charm in the Petit Trianon.

Versaille

Sissinghurst, Petworth, the Wallace collection, now administered by the State were all from immense private wealth, whereas wandering through the castle at Vitre or the ramparts of Dinan you’re conscious of a formidable awareness of Nation and region and even though The Victoria and Albert in London has a large Artwork Neon sign in its foyer telling the masses “This belongs to You” the Opera Garnier in Paris seems more publicly owned.

Petworth

Perhaps it was because the British renounced their Commonwealth, returning to a forelock tugging monarchical system whereas the French embraced Republican Liberty, Egalite’ and Fraternity that restaurant food and service is generally so much better in France?

Sissinghurst

Jardin des Plantes, Staircase

Wombat Droppings

A chronicle of the demise of Egalitarian Oz and its embrace of Fascism.

Rabid-the-Hun, leader of the ruling rabble, this week refused to deny that when he said, “…we are open for business,…” he meant the business of people smuggling.

It has come to light that in the free enterprise spirit some refugee boats have returned to Indonesia after thousands of dollars have been given by Oz Immigration to the captains of those vessels. This is irritating to those Military and Police in Indonesia who are complicit with this trade, as it will force them to lower the prices for the asylum seekers and pay their captains more. A real win-win for people smugglers.. ahhh, the talent of the ruling rabble.

Coming at the same time as Rabid was floating the idea of sending more troops to the hell-holes from where many of these refugees originate and mounting another four pronged assault on the Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs for suggesting that the Indonesians might stop listening to us on other matters if we continue violating their territory, his Treasurer Joe “Eleventy-Toyota-Killer” Hockey had us all “in the aisles” with his profoundly original observation that we will all need a good job if we wish to buy a house.

Eleventy ignored the fact that there are five people for every job at the moment and that self-employed and contract workers are not welcomed by the banks for home mortgages and that $100,000.00 university debts and a privatised health system and lower wages were not really a recipe for community building.

Pryor Cartoon, The Saturday Paper 13-6-2015

The $390,000.00 a year Free Speech Commissioner and ex Liarbril, ex “Coot-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe” (aka IPA), Timmy “Twat-Freedom-Man” Wilson popped his head up this week, too. At the Sydney Geriatric Institute he apparently opined that the judiciary should not be the ones dealing with human rights as this could be left to his mentor George “Bookshelves” Brandis or even “Dodo” Dutton but only after they’ve finished assaulting his boss, Gillian Triggs. Timmy didn’t see much use for any thing like a Magna Carta either… other than as a tourist attraction for lefty wimps.

It has yet to be ascertained what proportion of his $390,000.00 remuneration this thought- bubble was worth.

Peta "Bloody-Idiot" Credlin

Full of this spirit of Democracy, Rabid-the-Hun’s advisor, Peta ”Bloody-Idiot” Credlin was reported as telling a press photographer to delete the files she had shot of her. Having of late been less visible monstering her ruling rabble colleagues, this was a welcome return to form that we have missed appreciating in person; although if Rabid’s pronouncements on housing prices, wind farms, marriage equality, security and environmental matters are anything to go by, she is still showing equivalent acumen in her advisory role.

“Dodo” Dutton was at his rollicking charming best, too when the bullying Sydney radio noise Ray Hadley played him a song about Green’s Senator Sarah Hansen-Young’s adventures of being spied on by Wilson Security when she visited the refugee concentration camp on Manus Island.  Hadley has to be congratulated in getting a laugh from the dour faced Dodo even if it was, as another of Hansen-Young’s colleagues Larissa Waters said, “Sexist claptrap!”

It is interesting to note that with all the expensive Royal Commissions going on and nothing of import coming from them that in Queensland and Victoria the new governments are uncovering some very interesting messes that were allowed or were fostered by the previous Liarbril regimes in transport, education, sport and law… and I suspect that the vicious attacks on Gillian Triggs or anyone else who contradicts or opposes this ruling rabble will have similar treatment meted out like that of Hansen-Young; after all, look at the way Gillard was treated by these “adults”.

Much as I said there was a stench in Victoria which is now emerging…. this federal rabble are so  “on-the-nose” in so many areas and the corrupt stink is coming from the very top.

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane.

Versailles, Petit Trianon

Watts Chapel

Ahoy....

G’day Possums,
The old truisms that travel broadens the mind and history repeats itself became apparent t’other day when reviewing photographs from the trip and was reminded how delightful the sculptures of Honore’ Daumier in the d’Orsay were and just how little things have progressed since Daumier visually excoriated these blundering pollies and legals in the magazine “La Caricature” and got himself six months jail for his efforts.

Hmmm... shades of the recent Oz legislation to incarcerate nurses, doctors and social workers who attempt to
inform the public of the reality of conditions in our refugee concentration camps.


“Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.” (Michel de Montaigne)

What surprised me most about these sculptures, apart from their delicious handling was just how much they looked like members our present ruling rabble, so it is with a little bit of malicious humour I present....

Senator Eric Abetz by Daumier

How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us?”

Jeff "Foot-in-Mouth" Kennett

“No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.”

Senator Cory "Bestiality" Bernardi

“It is putting a very high price on one's conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account.”

Senator MacDonald

“We are all blockheads.”

"Reboxetine" Robb

“We should tend our freedom wisely.”   (Michel de Montaigne)

 .......and it’s all Wombat Droppings,
the chronicle of Oz’s slide from egalitarianism into Fascism.

The rust-bucket SS Liarbril is still floating... and although there seems to have been some improvement in it not sinking as quickly, its passage is still a confusingly circuitous one.

Captain Rabid-the-Hun faced mutiny in the officers mess when he  had  his Parrot “Dodo” Dutton attempt  a promulgation that not only passengers with dual nationality status but also single state Orstryans be stripped of their nationality if they had holidayed in places the Liarbrils don't like.
This was immediately followed by a leak so monumental in detail as to make Rabid-the-Hun’s captaincy look as weak as it actually is and officer solidarity non-existent.

The innumerate Bursar on SS Liarbril, “Eleventy-Toyota/Cereal-Killer” Hockey had earlier in that week’s voyage, been slapped down by Captain Rabid for suggesting that women’s sanitary goods be freed from the GST. “I’ll have no bleeding Hearts or whatever on my ship,” he fumed and then avoiding reality, found a photo-op cuddling a child just after foreclosing another Women’s Refuge. These Bligh-like autocratic tendencies just might backfire if the growing push over his own dual citizenship gets greater publicity and as Rabid is a poor “Off-the-Cuff” performer, throwing him overboard is still an option for a crew that is looking and sounding less than chuffed at how they’re sailing.

It was interesting to note on return to Oz just how much more critical the press seems, almost as if the they are sick of reporting the repeated same old three word slogans as it becomes more obvious that this is really an incompetent rabble or .....it could still be the West to East jet lag they are suffering from, too.

Apart from stripping Orstrayans of their nationality, if you want an Arts Grant you have to apply direct to “Bookshelves” Brandis whose taste in all things looks greater than the Sun King’s derriere and for a medical prescription, Sussan “Bimbo” Ley will decide how much more you’ll pay, while Chwissie “the-Whyne-and-Perfect-Prat-of-a-Prefect” Pyne will organise a maths course for you. (Pity that he couldn’t enroll "Eleventy” Hockey for a arithmetic refresher).
We wont bang on about Officer “Hayseed” Joyce interfering in a private legal matter or “Bestiality” Bernardi making a mess of Halal products or Captain Rabid retreating from the gales presented by the mining lobby or the whole rabble’s childish retreat from a Private Members Bill on marriage equality or questions in Parliament being ruled out of order before they are uttered by the psychic (should that be psychotic?) Speaker “Pompador” Bishop ...it’s just good to be back in this still nearly lucky country...

.
Hoo-roo Petals

Shane.


PS and one of BH in a rainy  Battersea Park a couple of weeks ago....

...and the bloke with all the quotes...Michel de Montaigne