Banks feeling Heat?

"Any publicity is good publicity"
The sentiment behind this very common saying is very sound.

Unless you're a bank, in which case the saying is:
"Any publicity is bad publicity"

In the past couple of weeks, Australian mega-bank Westpac announced a profit that was remarkable in size by just about any metric ones wishes to use.  (eg, percentage of deposits, percentage of loans extended, blah blah blah)

Concerned (justifiably) that making lots of money at the expense of the Australian public (only the most ingenuous or foolish harbour thoughts that banks are there for their intended purpose - to facilitate the economy and public economic benefit) Westpac mounted a survey of customers ("We've just made a record profit that'd choke a horse; do you feel (a) ripped off, (b) extremely ripped off, or (c) totally cheated out of your money?")

Mine Host knows this as he is not a Westpac customer yet received a mysterious telephone call:

The call was a survey about the "customer service experience" of his dealings with a Westpac staffer by the name of; Mr. Rapacious Lender, a business banking manager.

The only contact with Mr. Rapacious Lender was several weeks beforehand when the Wayside Tavern's accounant had telephoned once with a most basic enquiry.

The telephone surveyor was somewhat stunned to discover that nobody in "the household" had ever dealt with, nor even met, Mr. Rapacious Lender, nor was any member of "the household" in any manner a customer of Westpac.

It would seem that one phone call was sufficient for Mr. Rapacious Lender to report Mine Host & the Wayside Tavern as "new customers" to HQ in the big smoke.

I'm not that crook of a Shot.

Former Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard
This photo mock-up is a reaction to last night's federal budget delivered by the opposing political party.

Mine Host struggles to comprehend the mentality of those posting this picture all over the junk medium of Twitter.

1/. Julia Gillard was not the Prime Minister at the last federal election.  Her own government fired her from the job some time beforehand.

2/. That aside, the government of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd (the fellow with whom she job-shared the role of Prime Minister) was so bad that even someone who has had a frontal lobotomy could not maintain a straight face to post the above photo.