Let's Get Some Light On This

We are in an age when the population is growing exponentially. Correspondingly, the natural resources of the earth are being consumed at a record rate. More humans consume more, directly and indirectly. A component of this increased consumption is the greater use of electricity. Most of the electricity, at the moment, is generated by the production of heat from the burning of non-replenishable deposits of oil and coal.

One component of the consumption of electricity is the production of light. It is now a case of “Let there be light – flick- and there is light.”

Much of the world now uses light bulbs and light tubes with gay abandon, and Australia is no exception. We complain about the dwindling of natural resources, and we complain about the effects of greenhouse gasses including serious climate changes. We complain, and we run scared for future generations of humans and many other species, but we quite often fail to take elementary steps to ease the situation.

Many Aussies now are conscious of the electricity consumption ratings that are exhibited on household appliances, and are conscious that energy-saving light bulbs are a way to use less electricity per unit light fitting. However, we treat these devices in the way that we treat low-alcohol beer, whereby we allow ourselves to drink more to get to the same point of intoxication. We thus see the low-energy light bulb as a licence to use more light bulbs, to use more light bulbs at the same time. We also see it as a licence to leave unoccupied rooms brightly lit by these frugal inventions. We should be developing habits of personal light bulb parsimony. Further, we should be developing a culture, even a global culture (no pun intended) in which an important value is the conservation of electricity. If a light or other appliance is not in immediate use, switch it off.

The youth of today does not know what it is to enjoy darkness. At any hour of the night, even if their residence has no electric bulbs illuminated, the residence is not in darkness. Irrespective of the phase of the moon, no light needs to be switched on in order to walk comfortably about. The light of the city envelops all. Outside in the streets, the place is in semi-daylight because of all the lights that are left on, including street lights that are almost totally unnecessary.

Nowadays, though, we are not the only citizens. We now have “corporate citizens.” It tends to be forgotten, though, that these corporate citizens are incapable of flicking a light switch or even seeing where a light switch is. These things are done by ordinary citizens, ordinary people like you and me. The actions of corporate citizens are, in the final analysis, the actions of living, breathing human beings.

However, corporate citizens differ from ordinary citizens in that they comprise many ordinary individuals and quite often have a sub-culture that differs in various ways from the broader culture in which it is imbedded, either wholly or partly. Many of these corporate citizens have head offices that occupy whole sky-scraper buildings or significant portions of them. In many ways, they mirror the strengths and frailties of their individual human members. They can be forgetful, wasteful, “egotistic” and arrogant.

When one visits a major central business district such as that of Sydney, one is struck by the glow of the place. There are lots of very tall and very large buildings, most of which are lit up at night like some sort of childhood-dream fairyland. The workers who populated them during the day, have all departed for home or drinking tavern, and only a handful of shift-working cleaners remain within their glowing intestines. Whole acres of their surfaces are alight and sending out their signals for all to see for many miles (or kilometres, if you are up with the times.) They shout out to the world, “Look at me. Aren’t I gorgeous; aren’t I just the most beautiful and attractive corporate citizen that you ever laid your lustful eyes upon! My architect was Little Lord Fauntelroy. Do you like my lights?”

Just think of the amount of electricity that could be saved if all companies mandated that their unused lights should be switched to darkness.

Crankyfella

Who'll Start the Bidding?

Come on you New South Welshmen (and Welshwomen, just to observe the ridiculous political correctness.) Come on, now, don’t just stand there. You’ve all been registered as bidders and you all have your cards. Lift up those cards and start bidding. If you take the bull by the horns and flash your bidding card, you are highly likely to pick up a real bargain, here today.

As you prepare yourselves to start bidding rationally, let me again remind you of what is on offer. Here, today, for auction, with no reserve price, yes, you heard correctly, ladies and gentlemen, with no reserve price, we have a complete State Parliamentary Labor Party. There is something in there for everyone. No matter what your taste, it can be satiated by this lot. Clever historians have already predicted that this particular group will go down in history and will be the subject of at least ten books and fifty doctoral theses. Children in the year 2100 AD will sit around in their hermetically sealed cocoons that they need for protection against the unbearable ultra-violet radiation and the extremes of weather that will be upon them as a result of dillbrains such as you see in this lot, and will laugh at the top of their poor little asthmatic lungs at the doings of the very same dillbrains and their ilk.

With this lot, ladies and gentlemen of this once proud-enough-to-limp-by State, you get lock, stock and barrel. On this lot of specimens whom I would call freaks except for the fact that my mother made me promise that I would never sling off at those less fortunate than myself, I believe that the RSPCA has agreed that no charges will be pressed if the buyer fails to give nourishment and sustenance to these creatures. In fact, the RSPCA, I believe, has offered the opinion that the sooner the poor creatures fade away to absolute zero, the better it will be for the remaining species of this State.

Look at them, now, you who will be bidders, and see what a potential bargain they could represent. Imagine the long queues, six abreast, stretching three times around the showground, waiting to catch a glimpse of these whatchamacallems for a sum certain in money. They would be treated to an hilarious fantasy of bullies picking on Superman would-be’s-if-they-could-be who would be correctly attired with their underpants on the outside, but would have forgotten to don the other garments under their underpants. Your showground business would run in admirable smoothness, with your accounts being overseen by absolutely unskilled but very conscientious financial know-alls. Although the freaks may well be starving, they would have their very own built-in health guru who knows nothing about health but is expert in making inane statements. The head representative of this lot would keep the others in line for you by the judicious use of his cricket bat that he took home with him when the others refused to play cricket according to the rules if vigaro. Never a day would go by, ladies and gentlemen, when you were not treated to some new, unique form of odd behaviour from these poor souls.

Come on, now bidders, hold your bidder identification cards proudly up high and start calling your bids.

Ah, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, I have an opening bid. What was your bid, madam? No, I’m sorry, madam, sixpence is not an acceptable bid. Those little silver things went out at the time when some of our creatures in the lot were just failing kindergarten. Ladies and gentlemen, if you please, kindly bid in decimal currency.

Is that a bid there, sir? Yes, we are off and rolling. The bidding has been opened at ten cents. I have ten cents. I have ten cents. Yes, I have ten cents. Who’ll offer a bit of sensibility and start the real bidding rolling? Yes, the bidding is now with you, sir, in the Paisley shirt at the back. Twenty cents, I have twenty cents, let me hear those raises on twenty cents. Twenty cents I have from Paisley shirt. Yes, twenty cents I have. Come on bidders, let me hear you. Twenty cents I have. From here on, I will accept increases of one cent. Twenty cents I have. Who will make it twenty-one cents? Twenty cents I have. Twenty cents I have. Are there any increases on twenty cents? Do I hear twenty-one cents? At twenty cents, is there any further bid? At twenty cents once. Come on, ladies and gentlemen, I have twenty cents once. Twenty cents twice! This is the bargain of a lifetime, bidders, the bargain of a lifetime. I have twenty cents twice. Twenty cents twice! Twenty cents three times, sold! Sold to the Paisley shirt at the rear for twenty cents. Come forward, please sir, and complete the paperwork. You will, of course, under the conditions of sale, have to remove this riff-raff lot from here before sundown.

Some people will buy anything at auction!


Crankyfella

Dancing the Pride of Errors

How many university degrees in music would a fair dinkum Aussie battler need to be able to fathom the messy dance routine that goes under the description of present-day Aussie politics?

At the Commonwealth level, we were promised a whole newly choreographed routine, a new era in Federal-State politics and relations. Our Prime Minister, Hairpin Rudd, selected his dancing partner, Julia Killhard, from all of the pretty girls on the side benches of the house, and promised us that they would dance a dance that had never been danced before. Unfortunately, we, and I assume they, are still waiting for the band master to wave his baton and kick the music along. After all, it is not much fun dancing without music, and, for that matter, it is not much fun watching even a lovely young couple dancing without music.

Hairpin and Julia promised us faithfully that not only they would be dancing this wonderful new step, but so also would be all of the handsome couples from the States. It was to be a ball reminiscent of the balls of old such as the Euabalong Ball where everybody was a winner when they drew the lucky door tickets out of a fur-felt hat made from genuine Aussie rabbits that had migrated from the Old Dart and had done very well, indeed, in the new country.

The dashing young Commonwealth couple must be sorely disappointed as they flick their heads over their shoulders in a pseudo-tango pose, to see that there is none of the State samba exponents behind them, or anywhere else to be seen in the refurbished barn.

If only such a thing as a telegram boy still existed, he could take one of his telegrams to the Federal foxtrotters to inform them that there is a plague besetting the State stations, and that this is preventing the samba exponents from joining in the fun of the dance, to say nothing of a few swigs of bombo down behind the hall when the gala affair is over.

In New South Wales, the sociable and outgoing (well, certainly outgoing) leader of the lads, Morris Dilemma, publically declared in no uncertain terms that if the boys in the band were not going to play his style of music, then he certainly was not going to dance, and they could have their ball without him. Fortunately, young Nothing Rees put up his hand and offered to take the place of Morris on the dance floor, even though the State could not afford to even hire a nice suit for him to wear, since their credit rating was not all that secure. With a sweeping bow, he proposed that the house special, Caramel Tebbutt, might join him as his special partner. They would arrive late at the barn, but that would be better than not arriving at all.

Over in West Aussie, that great, rambling country lad of a State that tries its best to keep us all in tea and tucker, a most unruly fracas was going full pelt. No girls had shown any interest at all in going to the ball. As a consequence, all sorts of unseemly smooching started, in a sort of pig-in-the-middle love triangle. The Liberal leader, with not a liberal bone in his body, Colon Burnitt, started to woo the Nationals’ Bendon Gills. Overcome with jealousy, the Labor leader, with not a laboured bone in his body, Alan Chippy, took it upon himself to offer the poor, innocent Bendon Gills a much larger bouquet to wear if only he would go to the ball with him. Who knows with whom he will go to the ball or if he will deign to go to the ball at all?

Perhaps the ball will be drawn to a premature halt by Hairpin and Julia, because the band master has failed to achieve his performance indicators.

Battler