The High Wood

A couple of weeks ago our wheelie bin disappeared. It lives in the back lane near the garbage bins for a block of flats so we wondered if it was in the flats somewhere. But it wasn’t.

Puzzled, but resourceful, we rang the Council and told them of our plight. The good people sent a new bin a couple of days later. Pretty good service for a council.

Two days later, our bin disappears again. I search extensively, including the vacant building block up the end of the lane but no bin. It has apparently fallen through a gap in the space-time continuum just like its predecessor.

The question now is, do we ring the council? To lose one garbage bin might be considered carelessness but two? We dithered for a while, sneaking our garbage into the flats’ ones instead. There’s one woman who gets most unpleasant if she sees us doing this. It’s probably just as well she didn’t spot me this time because I wasn’t in a good mood and we might have been obliged to have words.

It turned out that we were right to dither. The house next door is rented and the back of their garden is a bit of a jungle. Said neighbour came round and told us that she had found two wheelie bins lurking there. Either they flew in or we have a feral bin-tosser on the loose.

Anyway, we now have two wheelie bins. We are keeping one down the side of the house at the front and one in the alley at the back. We’re fairly confident that the phantom tosser won’t get both of them.

I still don’t understand why, having tossed a bin over a fence, you would come back the following week and do it again. At least if it happens a third time we’ll know where to look.

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First off, let me congratulate the Australian people for finally taking my advice and Voting the Little Bastard Out. See, I was right all along.

I stayed up to watch the whole election coverage. The only problem with that was by the time it finished I was too tired to dance in the streets. A colleague at work has told me that, in Darlinghurst where he lives, there was much rejoicing including dancing in the street, drinking and general feelings of merriment.

While Kevin07 is still an unknown quantity I am confident he cannot possibly be worse than the man he replaces. He is not, after all, superhuman. It is his task to drag Australia back into the 21st century where it ought to be and out of the slough of the 1950′s.

I would like to thank the following people for making it all possible:

1. John Winston Howard for his hubris in attempting to stay on too long
2. All the spineless jellybacks in his cabinet for letting him do it
3. Peter Costello for managing to be considered a worse alternative than John Winston
4. Maxine McKew for providing the unexpected entertainment of ousting the Prime Minister from his own seat of Bennelong
5. Peter Costello again for taking his bat and ball and going home leaving the party with the unenviable alternatives of Abbot, Nelson and Turnbull for the new leader (my money on Malcolm Turnbull)
6. Glenn Stevens and those wonderful people at the Reserve Bank for raising interest rates in the middle of the election campaign
7. And last but by no means least all those Aussie Battlers who finally realised that the Liberal party was not on their side. Without you, none of this would have been possible

Thank you linesmen, thank you ballboys

[Exits singing]

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Scene 1: ASIO’s Cuddles Avenue Headquarters
B15: Are you thinking what I’m thinking B16?
B16: I think I am B15
Together: It’s Terrorist Time!

Scene 2: a nearby pub
B15: Hey, what about this guy Izhar ul-Haque?
B16: Doesn’t he play cricket for Pakistan?
B15: I don’t think so. He’s a doctor.
B16: Can a doctor be a terrorist?
B15: Well, he was a student first and all students are ratbags
B16: True. What University?
B15: Dunno. NSW maybe?
B16: Oh yeah, right. The one near the railway station.

Scene 3: the doctor’s house
B15: You’re under arrest
B16: Take him away
B17 (a very junior banana): Where sir?
B15: Goulburn Jail you idiot. Stick him in solitary and threaten to beat him up. We’ll be there later.
Dr Ul-Haque: Can I call my lawyer?
B15 and B16 (together): Of course not. You’re a terrorist.

Scene 4: the NSW supreme court
Judge: B15 and B16, you’ve been very naughty bananas.
B15: It wasn’t us, honest.
B16: Must have been some other fruit
Judge: I am satisfied that you committed the criminal offences of false imprisonment and kidnapping at common law and also an offence under Section 86 of the Crimes Act 1900.
B15: Well, if you’re satisfied then we are too
Mr al-Downer (Government representative): We are too, your honour
B16: Can we go now?

Exeunt omnes, pursued by a teddy-bear

It’s hard to believe but the judge actually said all that stuff about criminal offences. He also remarked that the conduct of the otherwise unidentified bananas was “grossly improper and constituted an unjustified and unlawful interference with the personal liberty of the accused.”

He went on to remark that it was reminiscent of Kafka and “a gross interference by the agents of the state with the accused’s legal rights as a citizen.”

I don’t often rant about matters political but this one, as well as being a black comedy, is also extremely serious. The government has been desperate to find some terrorists in the lead-up to the election so they can look tough, even if they have to throw them overboard themselves. So some stupid bananas in ASIO decide to go along for the ride. (Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?)

Well, we’ll never get to hold anyone in government accountable except, in a general sort of way, at next week’s election (where I hope we finally kick the bastards out). But ASIO must be held to account. After the judge’s remarks I hope someone at the DPP’s office is taking a serious look at B15 and B16 and whoever gave them their orders.

Toss ‘em in the salad bowl and throw away the key, I say. After all, there’s plenty of legislation which makes doing so perfectly acceptable…

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Well, possibly the most boring cricket world cup ever is finally over. And I’m not referring to the interminable number of matches in the early rounds or strange umpiring decisions like the one that required the last three overs of the final to be played in near darkness.

What bored me, and I say this as a fan of Australian cricket, was that the only possible interesting question was “who would Australia beat in the finals?” South Africa, England and New Zealand all put their hands up. Tell them they’re dreaming. In the end it was Sri Lanka who made the finals. They did brilliantly to be only beaten by 53 runs.

I loved the last Ashes test in England where the English team managed to regain the sacred urn. This was not because I wanted to see Australia beaten (although I think it did the team a lot of good) but because it went right down to the wire. No one knew who was going to win. Real edge of the seat, hurling objects around the room in disappointment, cheering with excitement, stuff.

Contrast this with the world cup. Australia won their first game handily; and the next one; and the next one; and the next one… wake me up when it’s over someone. None of the games were even close. Couldn’t we have given away a few boundaries just to make it more interesting? Give Adam Gilchrist a bowl? Get Glenn McGrath to open the batting? Play with only ten men? Something.

It may be satisfying to the players to clobber everyone in sight. For me it is as boring as bat droppings. I tell you, it’s just not cricket.

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I’m probably not allowed to say this any more but when I was younger there was a saying “Too many Chiefs, not enough Indians”. My apologies to any Native Americans who might be offended by this. No insult is intended. The saying is apposite to the situation at work at the moment.

Possibly due to the pending move to an inconvenient part of Sydney as mentioned in The Office there has been a spate of resignations. Quite a number of senior management have left (which also makes one ponder the saying about rats and sinking ships and hope they don’t know more about the state of the company than the rest of us) but I daresay they will be replaced by others. There is an old Russian proverb – put out a trough and the pigs will come – which I mention in passing but which has no relevance in this case.

More seriously, there have been a lot of resignations at the bottom of the termite mound where I work. Typically, the more competent a person is (at least in the technical areas), the more easily they can move around. This is an excellent thing when you are hiring because you can usually find good people if you are prepared to pay enough. The downside is that when people leave it tends to be the competent ones who go.

The good news is they seem to be hiring people to replace the programmers who are leaving. The bad news is that they seem to be replacing them with project managers.

This is probably because people tend to be hired by managers. I’ve met a lot of managers who seem to think they produce something. They don’t. They facilitate the production of things by other people. Up to a point this is a valuable activity as it frees up the productive people to produce things rather than having to organise things.

Beyond this point, things tend to break down (read Parkinson’s Law sometime). Managers cease to become facilitators and start getting in the way. Because they live and die by reports, plans and forecasts, and because the more managers you have the less chance that any given manager will understand the subject matter in sufficient depth, they start asking the technical people for reports, plans and forecasts. Technical people hate this sort of thing so they leave to try and find a place that will let them do their job.

Oddly enough, the solution to this is not to hire more managers. You would think Blind Freddy could work this one out but then, Blind Freddy isn’t making the decisions.

I shall try and convince someone that we need more people who actually produce something. But frankly, I think I’m flogging a dead metaphor.

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Over the last year or so, New Scientist has been publishing a lot of stuff on what affects health. I thought I might provide a summary for those who can’t be bothered to read it all. Broadly speaking:

• - Eating healthy food is good for you
• - Moderate exercise is good for you
• - A moderate amount of sunlight is better than none or too much
• - Taking drugs is bad for you
• - Getting a decent amount of sleep is good for you
• - Having more money is good for you
• - Stress is bad for you
• - Growing up in a supportive family with your natural parents is good for you

Or, in other words, be a good boy, eat your greens, go outside and play but stay out of the hot sun, don’t get drunk, relax, be back in time for bed and we’ll give you your pocket money because we love you.

Who’d have thunk it?

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Just received an email concerning ‘Project XXX’ (not its real name). We had asked what was happening with ‘Option YYY’ (not its real name either). We got this reply:

“We have reviewed XXX in the light of YYY. We have two options – proceed with the changes exclusive of YYY or proceed with changes inclusive of YYY”

It’s comforting to know that the great brains over in Corporate can encapsulate every possible option in just a single sentence. Now we just have to choose between these two options.

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Robert goes to a pre-school run by a nearby Baptist Church. I am not a great fan of the Baptists but the pre-school is terrific – run by really good, caring people. Which is ultimately far more important than their brand of religion.

Every year, as these things do, they have a little presentation by the kids – singing a few songs, doing a little dance and so forth. I have no objection to this – I would even encourage it.

However…

They hold the thing inside the church. It is a modern building and, in the manner of many Dissenting religions, is firmly non-ritualistic. There is an altar but it is just a table and it was pushed across to one side to make room for the kids. Very sensible.

The ghastly part was not the kids, nor the decor. It was the singing vicar and the rock band pounding out happy songs about the love of a certain deity. They were a good band too – tight timing, good sound. Couldn’t fault that bit.

Back when I was growing up, going to church was all about boredom. You sat on a hard pew, listened to people singing simpering Victorian hymns and tried to sleep through the sermon. At Christmas the hymns became carols which at least had good tunes but the principle was the same.

So, somehow, all this happy singing goes against the grain for me. To my mind, a quick look around the world knocks the loving, merciful god theory firmly on the head. Seeing a bunch of beautiful young people, singing about how wonderful things are, irritates the hell out of me (if you’ll pardon the expression). The pretty girl playing the piano was wearing pearl earrings for god’s sake (that unintentionally has a clever double meaning so I’ll leave it in, with apologies).

No, I am firmly of the opinion that church services should be about suffering. If it was good enough for me, it’s good enough for this young generation of whippersnappers.

Never did me any harm.

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The company where I work, which shall remain nameless, has a system whereby a customer can elect to receive an SMS when a delivery is on the way. Very sensible, you might say, and so it is.

At the same time, the delivery company was requesting two customer phone numbers on the consignment note in case they couldn’t contact the customer at the first one. Again, very sensible.

However, some Charlie (not his/her real name) decided we should now force the sales and customer service people to collect two phone numbers. It didn’t occur to Charlie that some people only had one phone number, some didn’t want to give a second number and some reps just couldn’t be bothered.

So, what happened is that a small coterie of reps started entering a bogus mobile number as the alternate contact number. Stupid, but harmless you would have thought. But, at the same time, the were clicking the ‘Send SMS’ checkbox.

Yet again, you would say stupid but harmless. Unfortunately it turned out that this (admittedly bogus-looking) number was a real one. Some poor sod started getting a flood of SMS messages telling him his order would be delivered shortly .

He, not unnaturally, called us to say ‘what the hell is going on’. We had an urgent request to turn off the SMS system. Then we had to run a fast bit of SQL to fix up the database. Then we had to make some software changes and rush them into production.

I hope the poor sod was offered some freebies as compensation and that the reps were firmly reprimanded with a blunt instrument.

Doh!

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There are people who complain about train travel. I have done so myself. Yesterday I discovered I owe the trains an apology.We had been up to Gosford to visit my parents. On the way back we suddenly found ourselves in a traffic jam. After inching forwards for about half an hour we finally came to a full stop. Reports indicated that two semi-trailers had been doing the funky gibbon about 10km ahead and there was going to be a delay of two to four hours.

I can recommend not having a five-year-old in the car when this happens. Robert is a great kid and he survived for a while playing with the laptop but he eventually spat the dummy. I had sympathy. I would have liked to spat it myself.

We were seriously considering that Robert and I make a 5km walk to the nearest railway station while Pamela waited to bring the car home. I thought this was going to be a bad idea because Robert would not be in a good state by the end of it. Probably I would have to carry him part of the way. This did not appeal.

Nevertheless we were just about to make the trek when fortunately some traffic police came past and warned us all that the road had been cleared and we would shortly be on our way. Pass the lord and praise the ammunition.

It then cleared fairly quickly. Probably we hadn’t lost more than one and a half hours.

But it wouldn’t have happened on the train.

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