History!

Taken in the bar last Saturday night. Election night in the mighty state of Queensland.

Look at those numbers accross the bottom!

Target: 45 ALP 6 LNP 75 Oth 4 ALP -45 LNP +44 Oth -2

ALP -45 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll never see anything like this on a TV screen again in my life.

The really good news from election night?

Margaret Keech lost her seat! (fantastic)

The bad news from election night?

Fiona Simpson held onto hers. (oh well, I can't win 'em all)

Skitch 'im Bluey!

Bar Manager is out of hospital. He's shaken, but back at work.

He was beaten, and also kicked several times in the head.
In addition they sooled a dog onto him.
The man has dog bite marks in several places.

It transpires that he was accompanied by one of the chefs, who is sporting even better dog bite wounds, now turned septic.

The chef's dominant memory is of one of the attackers continually commanding the dog to attack.

Turns out they extracted themselves from the attack & made it inside the house. The attackers then set to work to break into the house, stopping only when a nearby resident recognised them and spoke to them by name. So the door is only half kicked in.

The police were phoned, and before agreeing to attend, gave one of the better quotes you'd hear: "We won't come if there are any more than two. How many of them are there? Only two of 'em eh? That's alright then, we'll send someone, but there had better not be any more than two of 'em when we get there!"

Equal Before the Law

Bar Manager is unable to make it to work.

He's in hospital. Beaten up.

Returning at midnight to his home, from an evening excursion, he was set upon in the street by a gang of youth. The gang were all south pacific islanders. In between punces/kicks (etc) they screamed out that tonight they wanted to "smash up a whitey".

The bar manager made it into his houseyard, where for some reason he believed he'd be safe.

Heaven knows where he got this idea, for this is where the worst of the flogging occurred. They came into the houseyard, where they really set upon him.

The police know who the perpetrators are, and will "pick them up" later on.

This being a "race hate" crime, the perpetrators will have a raft of extra legal pain to wade through.

Naturally.

They will be charged with lots of extra "race hate" things. Won't they?

The Magistrate will throw the book at 'em? Surely?

Buyer's Remorse?

You know that part of a wedding ceremony where the bridal party signs the register?

Important tip: If you are a soloist playing the wedding music, it is this section of the ceremony that will bring you unstuck:

For if you have only a tune or two of the sort of soft trilling music to play during the register signing, & are (like me) wondering how you'll cut it short without sounding you just stopped in mid-note, worry not. No matter how many tunes you have ready, you'll play them all and be halfway through them all again before the register is signed.

No matter how many times it has been rehearsed & planned etc etc et-blanking-cetera, on the big day an incredible amount of fussing around will occur at this point in the ceremony, and quite an amount of time will be used up (sort of like a teenage girl in the shower) for what should be a half dozen or so quick and much rehearsed signatures.

Paint dries more swiftly.

Single Bill

Australia's major telephone & internet provider, Telstra (its 3rd name during Mine Host's dealings with it) a few years ago spent really really big on advertising the fact that they now offered "Single Billing":

All your telephone & internet services could be put onto the one bill. For your convenience.

With something like thirty-five telephone lines & at least ten adsl internet connections, and just about all of them on their own individual monthly bill, the office at the Wayside Tavern was in a constant state of "pending" bills to Telstra.

Single Billing certainly appealed to Mine Host. Get it all onto the one bill. Get rid of all the confusion, and make it easy to see if Telstra is slipping in any extra services.

Single Billing hasn't happened yet. There have been several false starts over the past few years. Anyone who has had the experience of being a Telstra customer will know what I mean. They start a project, in this case consolidating your phone lines onto a single bill, then several months later when you enquire how it is coming along, they have "no record" of the matter, and the account executive you asked for "left the company months ago sir".

The current attempt has been underway for almost six months. It is the most successful so far, having actually gotten most services put onto the one bill.

Some services continue to be billed individually (it seems Telstra is unable to swap everything at once!) and some services have (inexplicably) been put onto the bill of the next pub up the street.

Abortion

Anyone who has followed, even peripherally, the policital dogfights of our cousins in the USA will have noticed that the practice of aborting unborn humans is a hot issue there.

A quick straw poll of Australians, conducted just now by Mine Host, has revealed that 99% of Australians have never given abortion a thought, have no idea what (or even if) the laws on it are. Those who had given thought to abortion fell into one of two schools of thought:

• Those who say it occurs when your cows eat the wrong type of grass, or something and,
  


• Those who say it occurs when your ewes eat the wrong type of grass, or something.

However, in contrast to his tuned-out (& un-american) fellow countrymen, Mine Host has strong opinions on the subject!

Mine Host's view on abortion has been formed in the crucible of experience.

It should:

• Be legal at any time from birth through to 24 years of age.
  


• Be decided by a spontaneous but unanimous vote of 4 sober adults who have no criminal convictions.
  


• Be be carried out on the spot, within 30 seconds of the vote.

Under Mine Host's rules most "abortions" will be carried out near to a pub, shortly after closing time.

Anyone who has been present - and in a state of sobriety - when a nightclub closes, will understand & be an enthusiastic supporter of the above "abortion law".