Sunday, April 05, 2009

Broad Accent, and Proud of it!

"You do have a foreign accent sir!"

Spoke the sub-continentally accented Australian Public Servant Lady, mentioned in the post below, explaining that the communication difficulties between her & Mine Host were not due to any deficiency in her verbal non-Australian English.

It is true that Mine Host does not possess a SydMelberra composite "New Australian" accent, nor the ridiculous rounded plummy accent of the southern newsreaders & soap actors, nor the proto-New Zealand flattened vowels (just like on commercial TV advertising) coming from the mouth of most of SydMelberra's Australian born population.

His accent is 200% Australian, generic, to be found the length & breadth of this land.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

Psst! Is that Bin Laden over there? (Part 2)

The groovy new laws, as described below in (Part 1) are nowhere near as simple to comply with as one would think.

For public servants are involved.

Commonsense would be for Mine Host to simply be issued (by the Office of Gaming Regulation or Aus-Trac) a stack of forms with which to report Big Wins, accompanied by a stern letter instructing Mine Host to report all "Big Wins" or else face big strife.

A simple list of current Gaming Licences would reveal to Aus-Trac who is to be contacted about this new law.

Aus-Trac did use this list to contact Mine Host, but to give a deadline by which the Wayside Tavern had to register ONLINE. This registration was complex, being page after page after page after layer of pages at an Aus-Trac website. There was so much difficulty filling it out that Aus-Trac engaged a team of telephonists to phone to all gaming sites and TALK us through filling in the form. The form was nothing more than an acknowledgement that Mine Host is aware of the new law and intends to comply with it.

Once the form was filled out (along with some acidic observations as to the pointlessness of the form) Mine Host presumed that would be it.

Hahahaha..... Commonwealth Public Service are involved, so dickheadsmanship shall reign supreme.

Shortly afterward Mine Host received yet another telephone call, reminding him that he had to fill out YET ANOTHER complex online form. This next form being to confirm that one has filled out the previous form. (This is not a joke)

Of course, filling out these forms was a frustrating and time consuming experience. Mine Host was unable to see the point of it.

Expressing this to the public servant (unhelpfully a new Australian with severe accent difficuties) Mine Host detected in her a complete and total incomprehension of why Mine Host would consider he had better things to do with his time than fill out forms to say he has filled out another form that he has filled out to say he is aware of a particular law, and why had just this one law been singled out to have forms filled out about it?

Becoming more & more frustrated, Mine Host pointed out that he did not blame the (fresh from the sub-continent) Australian public servant helping him to fill out the form, but that he did blame the Federal Government for inflicting this, this, this.... bulldust.... upon working Australians (ie, upon Mine Host).

A meaningless "cluck-cluck" of fake sympathy from the sub-continental if-you-insist-upon-speaking-in-that-accent-don't-expect-me-to-understand-you-sir Australian Public Servant triggered something in Mine Host.

He pointed out that he DID blame the federal government, and contrary to what the sub-continentally accented Australian Public Servant lady said, Mine Host actually COULD do something about it. He could use his vote, he could speak to his federal member, and most effective, he could influence the regulars.

In particular, Mine Host would be making it plain to all punters that their privacy was being invaded by the federal government, & perhaps they should consider this at voting time.

Mine Host went on to point out that his federal seat was held by the government, but quite marginally, and if every one of his customers changed their vote, the seat may well change hands.

Brief pause:

Then supercharged shock from the sub-continentally accented Australian Public Servant lady:

"You mean...... vote against... KEVIN?"

She could have reacted no more frantically if Mine Host had suggested we privatise the Commonwealth Public Service, or perhaps repatriate all Hindus.

Mine Host (quite reasonably) pointed out that if "Kevin" was going to make laws that caused inconvenience, discomfort, and social embarrassment to the punters of the Wayside Tavern, then "Kevin" could quite reasonably expect those punters to vote against him. If the Wayside Tavern had enough votes to cause a seat to change parties, and the government had a margin of one seat, then this would cause the government to fall. (For "Kevin" to lose government - in language understood by the sub-continentally accented Australian Public Servant lady)

Mine Host had the impression that the sub-continentally accented Australian Public Servant lady had never before encountered a coherently stated calm belief that Kevin should be voted out.

It shocked the living daylights out of her.