...Spring is Boing

G'day Petals,

Wombat Kinder 2 and I took a trip to the State Library in the city t'other day to see an exhibition of colonial artist William Strutt. 

"Black Thursday" and "Bushrangers on St.Kilda Rd" being amongst the visual descriptions of colonial Melbourne's life, manners and costumes he meticulously recorded.

State Library, Bunyip and St Joan.

Strutt's drawings are delightful and although their anecdotal detail is engaging, one of the Bushrangers being I believe, local lad Capt. Moonlight, the paintings are less memorable because of their histrionic Victorian sentiment.  We followed these with a wander through the building and its display of the history of printing with some very beautiful examples of Audubon and Gould illustrations as well as the more salacious covers of pulp fiction from the early 60's.

State Library Reading Room

Wombat Kinder2 is a keen dressmaker who wanted to peruse some vintage material so we trotted off to the Mitchell Building in Lonsdale St which has a startling Art Deco foyer only to find the material shop closed but after meeting up with Mrs Wombat we tried the Phillips Shirt Factory with more success. One of the last Australian firms to manufacture shirts, Phillips' has a huge amount of material and clothing for sale in a visually interesting but derelict workshop.

Phillips Shirts

I was surprised to see an industrial material cutter that was manufactured in Oz.... and found that they still are... how rare!

Time for a drink ... so we climbed through a very visually busy and quite disorienting series of floors to a rooftop bar in Hardware Lane. It was interesting to note that the "busyness" became more muted and spaced the higher we went so I think it would be correct to assume the artist started on the lower levels.

Things then took a bridal turn.

 

Triple Grooms with Fries

Leaving Hardware Lane I discovered three groomsmen who had temporarily escaped the focus of the photographers and were snacking before the reception at a fast food place.... then the vintage cars with sundry drivers and others of the wedding party all lined up having a smoke and.... Voila... the full frou-frou shebang at the old Post office!

The Princess Carriage, by-the-way is not from this bridal party, it's tourist transport. 

More important frou-frou happened this week with the return of Federal Parliament after a four month break and Truffles-in-a-Muddle's near death election result.

Ex Freedom Boy and IPA clone, Timmy Twat Wilson teared-up during his Maiden speech. Which will probably be the last time he will do anything in that place which seems genuine. Irrelevant but genuine, he avoided calling himself a hypocrite in supporting the wasteful $160,000,000.00 plebiscite and repeal of 18C so that the minority group he's a member of will be vilified and treated unequally for years more to come.

It's no wonder then when "intelligence" like this abounds at The-Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe that one of the IPA's past directors, Roger Neave has tipped a bucket on them and put on record his disgust at how far-right the organisation has become. In an interview for The Saturday Paper, Neave charts the demise of this once liberal group and says at article's end that, "...because of the surge of the right in the demonising of refugees/asylum seekers, of "children overboard" and (that) we imprison them...I want my pride back in being an Australian." 

Hmmm... too late methinks!

 

The Mitchell Building

Bestiality Bernardi has been gathering signatures of other feeble-minded fascists (when not asleep on the job) to repeal 18C and who, excited by their newfound solidarity are ignoring Truffles-in-a-Muddle's exhortations not to fragment what's looking like a terminal adventure for Ruling Rabble Mk2.

Ex IPA mediocrity, Wunderkind Paterson having been in parliament for fully five minutes and who probably wouldn't know truth if he fell over it, is one of the worst offenders in seeming not to realise that destabilising an already rickety rust-bucket like the S.S. Liarbril may have consequences beyond his instant gratification in seeking notoriety.

Phillips Shirts

Bestiality has also been having a fine time railing against the poor judgment of Sammy Halal Dastyari who had a Chinese business type (with links to Chinese Gov) pay for some trips and a couple of bills. In his muddled incoherent tirade, Bestiality really only exposed what a simple minded buffoon he appears to others and even to his some of his own side, to be. An intellectual pygmy would probably have made a better fist of it but at least Bestiality looked happy in his role of chief assailant; his Easter Island faux impassiveness occasionally breaking into smirking as he found pleasure in firing blanks at an embarrassed Dastyari.

Then on Day two Senator Jacquie Lambie rounded on Bestiality with this: "I think it is important to make this point around the debate about Australian political donations to the Chinese communist government. Liberal senator Cory Bernardi lecturing this parliament and displaying mock outrage regarding Labor senator Sam Dastyari and Chinese political donations is like an angry prostitute lecturing us about the benefits of celibacy.

And before I receive unfair criticism from the sex workers, I apologise to them profusely in comparing them to senator Bernardi. I know that is a really terrible low down thing to do because I can tell you prostitutes are far more honest, sincere, humane, compassionate and better bang for buck than senator Bernardi will ever be able to deliver."  

So there!

Silly Sammy Halal's proto-Liarbril  financial blunderings managed to divert attention from the ICAC findings in NSW where two Liarbril shonks will probably be referred to police for charging and Arfuh Da Spiv Sinodinas got a Scottish verdict from "not sufficient evidence," proving that early onset dementia, temporarily, is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

Funky Art in bar  Hardware Lane

Horse-Shite Cormann vibble-vobbled with shonky figures as he and his innumerate treasurer Scummo Morrison attempted to bully Labor into supporting their 2014 budget. It's hard to know whether like Scummo's predecessor they too, think that cruel, anti-social, neo-liberal penny pinching is a sure way of getting to Washington and double dip at entitlements or either that "thinking" was never really part of this fiscal equation.

According to Rabid-the-Hun and Chwissie The Whyning-Perfect-Prat-of-a-Prefect, Pyne their  well regarded whistle-blower and "Lion-of-the-Union-Movement," Kathy Jackson, has finally been referred to court by police on 70 charges of being a very naughty and selfish gel with $1,400,000.00 of her Union's money.

Craig Thompson was not heard to respond and is probably certain not to ask for visiting rights in the future!

 

The Bride to Be, Hardware Lane.

I watched Parliament question-time on the first day back and it was interesting to note the body language and facial expressions on the Ruling Rabble minions behind the front bench. I think they of the Ruling Rabble Mk 2 know they're well and truly f****d!

An address for those interested....

Phillips Shirts 274 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000.

Hoo-roo, Possums,

Shane

To Advance Australia Where?

G'day possums,

Shane being Patriotic.

It's Straya Day  and for the first time we are being exhorted to sing the National Anthem at midday tomorrow.

That this rather Americanised concept of plastic patriotism/jingoism is gaining a foothold in this country at present is a definite indication that there's actually little to celebrate.

But as a loyal, patriotic and involved member of "Toim Striaya" I have penned an alternate version for tomorrow's festivities....

... To the tune of  Advance Australia Fair

Advance Australia Where?

Bogans all let us lament

That we are full of fear

We've privatised all in making wealth

For investors not from here

Our abundant natures gifts are raped

For compensation poor

Oft wrapped in flags of Chinese make

For ranting mindless slogans of hate

In words fully three and sometimes more

Advance Australia Where?

Below our smoggy Southern Cross

All things made wrecked by Rabid whim

And 457’s on the rise

Our future does look grim

We say to those fleeing shock and awe

“We’re bloody full so fuck right off

Illegal Queue jumpers welcomed here

Only if your Burqa’s doffed”

Still Oz Flagged wrapped in sentiment fake

Advance Australia Where?

Chained Indigineous People

It's interesting to note that until the 60's the Aborigine was classified under Flora and Fauna.

We popped down the The Greendale Pub to have a gander at their Striaya Day celebrations....My anthem would probably not have been appreciated by many...wrong audience. Hey-Ho.

Wombat Droppings 

or the chronicle of the inexorable slide of a country into Fascism

Rabid-the-Hun has been (allegedly) catching up on his reading because Campbell "Il Duce" Newman, Dictator of the Deep North will not invite him to participate in his election games.  Rabid's behaviour is rather suspect at the moment as "Il Duce" looks like losing his own seat and his Fascist rabble are perilously close to being made the opposition after only one term like "DoDo" Naptime was recently in The Tardis State of Victoria (Where-All-Goes-Backward) election. 

Newman has amused many of us with his defence of his regime by accusing Labor of receiving funds through the CFMEU Union  with funds allegedly  donated by Outlaw MC Clubs.
When pressed publicly as to where the evidence was for this, "Il Duce" said, ".... we should look it up on Wikki!"

Most of us were unaware that "Ozone-Hole" Hunt, Federal Pretend Environment Minister was advising the Deep Northerners on research method or that these "donations" were any different from receiving  cash "assistance" from mining companies or property developers in brown paper bags and envelopes.
 Making legislation retrospective to avoid friends' illegal practices embarrassing the government though, is quite another matter.

Rabid-the-Hun has, I understand, been been reading  Julius Ceasar By Will Shakespeare, particularly the "Ides of March" bit and  reportedly has been seeking alternative interpretations of the text from his lowly back-benchers.

It is also apparent that the pirate vessel, he Captains, the S.S. Liarbril is not steering too well as it keeps steaming  in circles, which is not quite what the driving instructions supplied by "The-Coot's-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe" (aka the IPA) intended.

 First Mate "Bloody Idiot" Credlin is thought to be at blame for this although the Navigator, Joe "Cereal/Toyota-Killer" Hockey is obviously in difficulty reading charts and calculating Latitude and Longitude but does have some excuse as his assistant, "Horse-Shite" Coormann only issues direction instruction in either broken English or Belgian: only one of which does Joe "Cereal/Toyota-Killer" partially understand.

 Captain  Rabid said he has tried scraping some barnacles off the hull but S.S. Liarbril's plate is so thin that its hull is now in danger of collapsing and she is settling lower and lower in the muck it has churned up.
It is unfortunate that the IPA's original instructions were very limited in concept and sophistication and were not related to how to build things but only to disassemble.

Many passengers have left the cruise early and it would seem that the toy-maker, "The Ugly American" Murdoch and his minions at CWQIFaPU, (IPA) have not done their respective reputations much good.

 The stench coming from the boiler room at this time is not at all like the Coal these pirates so like, it's more akin to the funk of a wounded animal waiting for the Ides of March.

Breaking news: In the Australia Day Honours lists Captain Rabid has given Phil-the-Greek (Betty Windsor's other half) a gong, a knighthood! Now Australia's Prime Miniature bestowing a knighthood on a British Monarch's hubby might seem a little bit cart before horse  but that's the way things are being done around here. That it is an entirely ludicrous idea and likely to have more people crying out not just for 1/ a Double Dissolution of Parliament, 2/ a Republic, 3/ Revolution or 4/ Rabid-the-Hun's committal isnot too fanciful.
That his own crew might be brought that much closer to mutiny with this insane display arse-licking fawning is also not out of the question.

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane.

with Putrid Prose and Callous Thought

Once as a middling nation remember being able to hold our heads up world-wide and be heard for impartial sober advice?  Not now. The ASPIRATIONAL BOGANS are in charge.

Shane at Ballarat Showgrounds

 G'day Possums,

Mrs Wombat and I recently popped out of the burrow and up to Ballarat to the market to re-stock with some of the very good hand-made soap sold there.

I wondered what I was going to photograph and why, and vaguely entertaining the thought of looking for parallels for the Wombat Droppings’ rant.

When this presented itself ….

Ballrat Showgrounds, Australian Child crying..

And Wombat Droppings’ Chronicle of the Demise of Egalitarian Australia became apparent.

Bronwen backs down on Burqa ban in parliament but balks at being clear about why such a decision was made in the first place… wouldn’t have anything to do with Rabid-the-Hun’s meeting with new Indonesian Prez Widodo would it? Or that Rabid didn’t need to give the Indonesian any more to belt Oz about the ears with; like illegal incursions into Indon waters by Oz Navy cruelly returning refugees to their jump off point?

Then we saw these young people making a fine noise and on approaching to say what was happening was told that as all the mother's were not there to give their approval this pic couldn't be posted....  hmmm... perhaps they should have a sign saying "no photographs" or "that this is not a public space and we are not on show" or, they could all wear Burqa's or perhaps just play a record with no-one there? 

P.C. gone mad or "Helicopter Mums" in full flight?... whatever.... no wonder Rabid-the-Hun get's votes!

Healthy religious ammunition

Rabid-the-Hun will not send medical staff to fight the Ebola epidemic. Peter “Enema” Dutton (Liarbril, alleged Health Minister) says it’s not in our region yet and we’ll wait till it is.

Just like Iraq is next to South Australia and the Ukraine is only slightly North of Perth!

Perhaps they should talk to “The Drone” Morrison’s Born-Again Friends (no, not the paedophile ones) at Hillside and Catch the Fire Ministry’s to send their Faith Healers to strut their powerful stuff?

The science of Climate Change is crap, this lot say …let’s see if that works.

Medibank Private is also on the market. No longer will the profits benefit all Australians, they will now go to a limited number of shareholders and with it’s sale, the brake on rising Insurance costs will be broken and it will further the imperil the Medi-Care systems ability to contain costs.

Which is what the “Coot’s-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe” want in their Free-Market Frolic: to destroy Australia’s social contract.
And now, the final irony.. today (21-10-14) the architect of Australia's noted free health system, free University education, recognition of China, and many other reforms has died. Vale Gough Whitlam: we'll not see your like again. 
One only hopes that Rabid-the-Hun and his venal rabble do not attend his funeral as the hypocrisy of these unimaginative destroyers being there would be too obvious and in such bad taste!
It was interesting to note one of The Ugly American's minions Greg Sheridan on radio, playing the right-wing troll even before the corpse has even cooled in the grave. 
Vicious, nasty and tasteless is what these cretins do best. What a sad place this Oz has become with these amoeba in power.

Terror Australis

Arfur “Da Spiv” Sinodinas has had a five page faux apologia in “The Age, Good Weekend” (Jane Cadzow,18-10-14)

I’m not sure it will help his cause in returning to a senior position with Joe "Cereal/Toyota Killer" Hockey and Mathius “Horse-Shite” Coormann and assisting in dismantling what’s left of Australia’s economy.

Mummy’s boy, Arfur “Da Spiv” comes across as a political dilettante  in whom a sense of self preservation and entitlement seems paramount.

Jumping ship when “Little Johnnie” Howard was going “On-the-Nose” to feather his own nest in a Corporate World, Arfur, who is “…resourceful and savvy..”  get’s mixed up with Eddie Obied.

Now, I would have thought that if I, in my Wombat Burrow down here in Vic knew “interesting” stories about Eddie “O” then a New South Welshman like Arfur (who, sort of running in the same circles though on the opposite side) would, too.  Accepting 5% share in “Sydney Water Holdings” and a director’s fee of $200,000.00 for 25-45 hours work a year with a possible pay-off of $20,000,000.00 from the Sydney taxpayer might make you think all is not quite kosher!

Council assisting the Royal Commissioner seems to have Arfur neatly summed up when responding to Arfur’s defense of his onerous hours and spruiking at social functions, he said, ”What, should we add on 90 seconds over a Gin and Tonic to the other 45 hours a year?”

Arfur’s capacity of ”…absorbing a mass of detail” seems, sadly to have disappeared with his 60,  “I don’t remember / recollect” during the Royal Commission as did his credibility for re-entering parliament (for a Senators paltry $141,000.00) “I want to work on something big and important.. larger than myself” and “Always doing the right thing.” Particularly when attending a meeting as State Treasurer of the Liarbril Party and Finance Committee Chairman and didn’t hear that developer monies as donations were not allowed under state law was being discussed.

Arfur… you stink!

Oohh, what going on there in that dark place or Where's Arfur? 

...and this lady had a very deft hand in cutting out stencils... much practice,me'thinks...

Dylan at Espresso Mobile Cafe

I was really impressed with this set-up.. functional, neat, a compact mobile great idea and design...   www.cafemobile.com.au

Man with hats Ballarat Showgrounds
who looked uncannily like the "interesting" Liarbril Mayor of Geelong but probably wasn't as his hair was almost normal.

And then a shock on leaving to find this ....

site....

Ronaldson's Wall, Ballarat.

which used to be this....

and this in detail


While it may have seemed an eye-sore to many its visual appeal is obvious... I'm glad I have a reasonable record of the old wall...

on way home : Silky Terrier in Mustang:

Incongourous combination....as are most things these days..

Liarbrils and Fair Play, Labor and Pokies....Arfur"Da-Spiv" Sinodinas and entitlement..it's all a muddle where we're all besmirched . Then there was another nail in the Liarbril coffin, Professor Spurr selected to review changes to the English curriculum gets himself "outed" with racist and misogynist emails to colleauges...

The other heads of the curriculum review, fellow right-wingers, Kevin Donnelly and Ken Wiltshire, did not comment on the Spurr emails…… they no doubt probably agree with their sentiments.

The faux-education minister, Christopher Pyne, (the Whyne-and-Perfect-Poodle-Prat-of-a-Prefect) has dismissed the attacks, saying Spurr was independently selected to be a “special consultant” on the English curriculum. Spurr was hired by Sydney University as chair in poetry in 2010 (Guardian Australia on Friday).

Typical, Pyne-the Whyne and Perfect-Poodle-Prat-of-a-Prefect.”

“Not me .. I didn’t do it. “ And another Liarbril thought–bubble, silly idea goes pear-shaped.

Then one  Peter Grace c/o Face-book added this little ode dedicated to the Professor of Putrid Pensiveness….

a professor of pomes was asked  what he thought 

of the English and History our children are taught

so he said what they wanted to hear him say, 

kissed the right arses and picked  up his pay

now it would seem he’s an old racist prick 

trying to pull the old “No, not me!” trick

with a pathetic excuse where he calls it whimsy 

the rest of us reckon that’s a little bit flimsy

and then in the end when the uni suspends him

not even Christopher Pyne defends him

“We didn’t hire him so don’t look at us! 

It’s the people who hacked him who caused all this fuss.

He was hired by the people we hired 

and his opinion still stands and he won’t be fired

from the role of advising us on education 

that nothing much happened before Federation”

he should pack up his stuff and they should send him home

that’s my “F**k You Pome Bloke" pome.

Peter Grace (Facebook)

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane.

Prado, PUPS and Puerile Government

Shane Wombat with Prado pictures

G'day Petals,

Mrs Wombat and No2 daughter and self all took a jaunt to the National Gallery of Victoria t'other day to have a look at Italian masters from the Prado, Madrid.
An exhibition which contained a variety of surprises and oddly enough, parallels for this week's "Wombat droppings".

Pavi Sculptures and Children
There were in the Federation Court, sculptures.... well very colourful and big stuffed Polar Bear toys, that children of all ages were engaged by ... which was one of those odd parallels I mentioned...

Photographer with Pavi sculpture
....whimsical, one-liners and as said, the children enjoyed them but reflecting on them after viewing the Prado works a vague relationship to Australia's present social state and the religious iconography in the Prado show became apparent 

Italian Masters from the Prado, NGV
Although there was a very small sign and graphic meaning "No Photographs" on entering as my camera was in plain sight and no-one said anything .....I assumed it was mainly to deter people using flash.. which occasioned an amusing exchange...  standing next to a woman who was pointing her mobile at a work I said quietly, "I hope you're not going to use flash." "No,"  she replied as quietly, "It's turned off." "You saw the sign on the way in then?" I added,  "Of course." she deadpanned and proceeded to take her pic.
 I took few shots in the exhibition ...who want's a "scene"?

Pieta: Crespi
This work was one of my favourites. Lively paint handling, real weight of the figure of the dead Christ allied to the sense of Mary's supporting or lifting with the very expressive faces; and like others in this show an unusual composition that in this case rests on repeated squares within a subtle pyramid. Perhaps to avoid the liveliness that Baroque diagonals would have produced rather than this almost "Nature Morte."

Prado, Titian, Phillip 2
Titian is well represented and in the earlier works the influences of Bellini and the Florentine criticisms of the Venetian predilection for colour and paint handling rather than drawing as the basis of their art is very apparent.  The armor in this is beautifully handled but the portrait is almost too truthful of this arrogant, distrustful monarch and gives the work a hint of what is to come when Goya represents the Royalty of his times.

Doubting Thomas: Stom,
Matthius Stom (Stomer) presents another wonderful composition of a diamond within a circle and an assured hand.

Prado, Tiepolo
Tiepolo's son Domenico worked closely with his father and this is apparent in the "Crowning of Thorns" where the figure in the shadow on the left probably appears twice in Giambattista's "Banquet of Cleopatra"  at the NGV. Wonderful drawing again but the little work to the right "A New World" was a gem, a slice of Venetian life that perhaps signalled that had Domenico Tiepolo been born the the C20th he may well have been a Photo-Journalist.

Hugo Shaw
Then I was watching the real deal, Hugo Shaw an artist from Adelaide drawing  the people opposite him in fine fashion and a happy, willing conversationalist, too.

The NGV for those who don't know it, has a water wall behind the arch of the main entrance and I took a few shots as we were leaving....

Water Wall, NGV
A show well worth the effort of attending particularly as the works with most gravitas were not the religious pieces but the pieces like the 

Ribera: "Touch", the small Venetian Scenes by Tiepolo, and in the details of the cloth in Titian's Salome's dress and the pure exuberance and deftness of the paint handling in the late Baroque works. In contrast, the formulaic religious pieces became rather a lesson in why Monty Python humour exists...and why the monsters in Dr Who are as they are and have such resonance.... which brings us to 

WOMBAT DROPPINGS  or low-down Oz Politics.

The Palmer United Party or PUPS have been making merry with "Rabbutt-the-Hun's" excuse for a budget by inviting them into the kennel and giving them fleas. Demonstrating what an incompetent rabble these Liarbrils really were and are. 

With Our Second Biggest Miner and PUPS Leader, Clive, hogging so much of the limelight it has caused Nick "What's-my-Next-Stunt" Xenephon (SA, Right-Leaning Independent) and the "The Human Torpedo" to come down suffering Attention Seekers Deficit Syndrome. and doing whatever they can to get their faces in front of a camera and in Thorpe's case for a $400,000 fee. 

Both Mrs Wombat and I announce that we will both "come out" for a lot less... negotiations are now open. 

After years of accusing the Gillard-Rudd regimes of dysfunctional incompetence, stupidity, economic wantonness, arrogance and other sins, it should come as no surprise that was a case of "pot-calling-kettle-black-bum! "

They have turned as I always thought they would, into the very nasty, venal  incompetents they were in opposition and pathologically accused everyone else of being.

Their abject cruelty to the asylum seekers is making Australia a pariah in world affairs.

Their climate denial stance and soon to be legislated removal of Carbon Pricing with no effective Climate policy to replace it has Australia a laughing stock in the world.

Their final destruction of Australian manufacturing must have all those who take our raw materials laughing behind our backs,  particularly the Japanese, who 30 years ago were wanting this as an outcome for Australia.  

We, in their wishes were to be nothing but a hole in the ground and a source of raw food.  Now we have this rabble of a Government handing it to them and then praising their military of WW2.  

Shades of "Pig-Iron" Bob.... this mongrel lot is an embarrassment. 

(The only thing they're consistently good at)

Matthius "The Conman-of-HorseShite" Coormann has deregulated financial services so that the financial advisors DO NOT have to have the best interests of their clients at heart.

And they waste $60,000,000,000.00 on a Royal commission or two when the Commonwealth Bank has fleeced its customers of Hundreds of Millions of Dollars but this doesn't warrant investigation... guess who gets funded by CBA?

There's a FB page titled "The Worst PM Australia's Had".... of which I thought initially, that's a bit strong... but now... it's not strong enough. What is taking place is the destruction of democracy in this country being led by "The-Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe", The Institute of Public Affairs the thought-bubble tank for this rabble....Minions of Murdoch "The Ugly American" and Gina Rinehart (our Biggest Miner) and Tobacco companies.... we are in interesting times petals...

Into the Abyss...Night Movement


Cheers, Petals,
Shane