Single or Double?

Mine Host, in the Really Big Smoke on business, books a room at his preferred pub, the Stamford Plaza.

Booking online, Mine Host is faced with a choice of the following room rates:

Double occupancy (with breakfast): $366 per night.
Single occupancy (sans breakfast): $385 per night.



You couldn't make it up!

You Think You're Hard Eh?

Scene: Beer Garden of the Waysider Tavern. Time: Mid-evening.
Cast: Assorted onlookers
          Handful of bikies (all aged 45+)
         Hard-looking manual labourer. (aged 55+)
Action: Bikies lounge around suggestively, making the most of the new street cred they have courtesy of the state govt's groovy new anti-bikie laws.

Hard-looking manual labourer glares at them.
Bikies hesitate a little, then muster a return glare. (The manual labourer has the appearance of one who is dreadfully physical, and the look of a one who has very fast reflexes and plenty of match practice when it comes to brawling.)

Hard-looking manual labourer speaks, in a very very thick Irish accent: "So ye think ye're hard ones do ye?"
Total silence from the bikies.
"Ye wooden know wot hard is, boys"
At this stage one of the bikies points out their pedigree, and their "reputation".

Like a crack of lightning the labourer is on his feet, his chair flies backward several feet.
"Ye think ye're as hard as the IRA do ye?"
"Do ye even know what is the IRA?"
"Well, are ye hard like ye sayz? I don't think ye're hard, I think ye're so soft I could clean the lotta ye up, on me own!"

This assertation is not contested by the bikies, who've already taken a collective few paces backward.

None of the bikies dare meet the Irishman's gaze.

A few minutes later the labourer is back to softly chatting with his friends, the bikies have slunk off with tails firmly between legs, and Mine Host is busy burning the security camera file to disc, for later viewing pleasure.

I only did what you Told Me To!

A line Chef has similarities to a production line worker.  They will perform one task in a line, that alone will not make a meal, but contributes merely a part of it, put together finally by the Senior Chef on Duty.

(There are some...er.... issues surrounding Chef performance - being as most at the Wayside Tavern have come from countries where labour is cheap.)

One particular morning the Exec Chef details Chef to unpack a freshly delivered pallet of foodstuffs,  store it ".....then get back to watching your grill plate, mate."

Some many minutes after completing the unpacking line Chef is observed by Exec Chef to have not done another stitch of work.

Furthermore line Chef is observed to have adopted a most strange stance............ resembling that of a diligent watchdog.

..........He's.... (would you believe it?) ...."watching" the grill plate.  Standing there...... doing nothing but..... gaze at it.

So continues life under the big tall white stovepipe Chef's hat!

You'll Never Please 'em all.

A newly checked-in guest presents at the restaurant for dinner.

From Singapore, with limited English, he is a specialist tradesman, here to perform one task for his company.

Dismissively sneering at the menu he instead demands to eat some obscure dish from his homeland.

It is the Head Chef's first night, and a particularly busy one too.

Cooking an off-menu dish is quite an undertaking.  It upsets the rhythm of the kitchen, as nothing is prepared, laid out, defrosted, etc.

However, the Head Chef, a Chinese, says he can do it.

As the guest strolls back through the reception area, Mine Host, puffed up with pride at the ability of the staff to meet seemingly all demands, enquires of the gentleman how was his dinner?

The reply was most abrupt:
"Too slow, in Singapore that usually served in two minutes."
The guest then stumps off unhappily to his room.

So Mine Host adds Forty Dollars to the guest's dinner bill.

Thus continues life behind the bar...

There are actually Three different forces you know

The seemingly complete and total cluelessness of journalists about military matters ("army stuff") is one of the sadder aspects of the output of the modern university journalism courses.

 

Anyone who is aware there is an Army, a Navy, and an Air Force is ahead of many journalists.

 

Examples abound of instances where journalists can't tell a machine-gun from a mortar, a Sergeant from an Admiral, or a submarine from an aircraft carrier.  (If you think I'm joking, you need to pay more attention to newspapers/TV)

 

But they can still tell the Army from the Navy, can't they?   Who knows, but try this one:

 

 

Favourite part of the recent International Fleet Review?

For Mine Host this was in the ABC TV coverage, which at one point ran a short magazine style story on "Women in the Navy", consisting entirely of footage showing ladies dressed in the uniform of the Royal Australian Air Force.

Screenshot taken by Mine Host, during ABC-TV "Women in the Navy" clip.

President Obama proves he CAN seal the Border!

The borders of U.S. National Parks that is.

In what will become the defining image of the USA for 2013, the world is being treated to the spectacle of open air monuments being barricaded off and placed under armed guard.....

..... to "save money".

It would make as little sense to barricade off telegraph poles, and station armed guards around 'em.

The real damage?  To the image of the US National Parks Service.



American Taxpayers paid for this



Instead they get this

Nobody Tells Him to Wear Pants

A chef is detected chronically failing to wash his hands.

By the Health Inspector.  Who brings this to the attention of the Exec Chef.

The culprit, whose finely tuned radar has detected that he may have just brought some serious boss heat down on himself, is summoned to the office for a "no-coffee" discussion.

This sub-continental's reason for not washing his hands, ever?

"It's not my fault, you've never run a training course on washing hands, so how would I know what to do?"  (Oh brother....)

Mine Host (already clicking the computer screen through to hireachef.com or somesuch) enquires somewhat acidly of this goose when did he last attend a training course that showed how to put your pants on?

This was too oblique, or too deep, for the sub-continental.  The response was a blank stare.

Mine Host followed up with a supplementary question as to when had been the most recent training course that showed how to get food into your mouth?

This at least brought a quizzical grunt of incomprehension.

Mine Host then delivered his final line of the interview;
"Well, you do manage to eat food don't you?"  

Zero Times Each Day

Sometimes a stopped clock isn't even right twice a day.

The Australian deep south is a foreign place.  They do things differently there.  Just how differently sometimes has to be seen to be believed.

For part of the year they change the clocks to a different time.  This can be quite a shock if you encounter it, for it is akin to discovering that the sun has turned around and is setting in the east.

However this act of dickheadsmanship thousands of miles away in the deep south has little to no impact at the Wayside Tavern.

Some people have never encountered it, but those of us who are more well read, or well travelled, have learned of this clock changing.

This time changing  has many names, the most polite name used in the Wayside Tavern is "Brokeback Mountain Time" a most apt phrase.

Aficionados of this clock changing may wish to reflect upon this terminology, and the degree of esteem with which they are held by the working population.



Yesterday the morning staff arrived for work an hour early, without knowing it!

They'd taken their time from the display on their mobile phones.  In an act of supreme incompetence Telstra (the telephone company) had brought forward the time by an hour.  No reason, except that in the deep south, irrelevant to Queensland, the clocks had been brought forward by an hour.

Telstra (not ever likely to be a contender for "smartest corporation") changed their time signal in mighty Queensland, just because some King Canute type in Victoria imagines they can "save" daylight by doing so!

The Six staff who start the day off had never encountered the concept of Time being Tinkered with, are totally puzzled by it, now think Telstra are complete idiots (they got that part right) and will never again take for granted what they see on their screens or phones (this lesson is not necessessarily a bad thing)

Turns out none of these wallies owns a wristwatch ("a whaaat?")

Not Connected

You would think that "everybody" has a mobile phone these days, correct?

Well, "everybody" apart from homeless, weirdos, great-grandparents (fuddy-duddy types) and farmers from places where there isn't mobile phone coverage, correct?

Normal people in bog-standard western economies (ie Australia) all have mobile phones, correct?

Think Again:

Five of the Wayside Tavern staff do not have a mobile phone.  Weirdos?  Drug-addled loonies?  People on the run?

Nope!

A married man in his forties,  A married woman in her thirties, and three single ladies.

Each of them is as normal and well adjusted as can be.  They've just never ever had a mobile phone.

The married man is a most suave and interesting chap, has spent most of his life overseas or working on cruise ships, mostly as a senior clerical officer/manager.

The married woman is a former law student now married to a tradesmen who is on a long-term contract in the district.

One of the single girls is a chemo nurse in her mid-thirties, very slim, very attractive and intriguing,  having a break from her career, spending a year working in "the general economy".

Another is a very attractive and interesting girl in her mid-twenties, working to accumulate a grubstake.

The other is a super-duper attractive twenty year old girl with a most infectious smile, who makes an adventure of everything.  She's already been all around the world.

And none of them have a home phone or landline either.

The Boss is Wrong!

"Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum."
 BOB HAWKE, after the historic victory of the yacht Australia II in the 1983 America's Cup.

Such a statement would be unthinkable today.
When Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke said this, in memorable circumstances, just plain old not coming to work was grounds for dismissal.

Times have changed markedly.  A boss who sacks anyone for not turning up would today be entering a dual world of legal pain and financial penalty.

Think I'm joking?  Just try it and see!

Someone once did not turn up for work at the Wayside Tavern.
Three weeks later Mine Host informed them they were not welcome back.  That only came about as the person actually turned up for work (after three weeks would you believe) as if nothing had happened.

Mine Host then entered a world of financial and legal pain, one in which due process was absent, and his "guilt" was taken for granted by the (cough) impartial system and (cough) unbiased commissioners.

Hearing the above phrase of the (then) Prime Minister quoted, as it is from time to time, is a "trigger phrase" for Mine Host.   Though it is unlikely there will ever be retribution or atonement for the wrongs perpetrated in the name of "unfair dismissal" legislation, in his more maudlin (or perhaps more realistic) moments, Mine Host dreams of someone carrying out the brutal thrashing of an ALP politician.

In the circumstances, such an event would be most deserved.

Under the Weather

The outcome of the recent Australian Federal Election caused an interruption to posting, for Mine Host has sought to seek solace in drink......

.... Principally Moet !

Normal posting to resume forthwith.

Uncoloured Boys

Two police officers strut into the office of the Wayside Tavern!

[Here we go again] thinks Mine Host, seeing the determined look on the faces of the police officers, a look somewhat remniscent of that adopted by dogs when their dinner bowl is interfered with by a possum.

"There's two members of the Rebels in your bar!" ejaculates one of the officers.

"Er... how interesting" says Mine Host, stifling a yawn.

"What will you do to rectify this situation?"  demands that other officer.

"What situation?" says Mine Host, affecting yet another yawn.

"Well....Outlaw motorcycle gang members shouldn't be in here!" stammered the first officer.

"Are they wearing club 'colours'?" enquires Mine Host.

"Er.... no, but you shouldn't be letting them in here!"

"Why ever not? If they're not wearing 'colours' how on earth am I to know they are members of an Outlaw motorcycle gang?"

"Er...... Um......"

"Am I supposed to spend all day gazing at every person who enters, to see if they 'look like' they may be members of an outlaw bikie gang?  In fact officer, what does an 'Outlaw-bikie-in-mufti' look like?"    (I lost the coppers with the word 'mufti')
"Should I insult every last stranger with intrusive questions about their possible affiliation with bikie gangs?"

"Er...... .... Um.... "

The two police officers left, with a facial expression resembling that adopted by a dog that has tail between legs.

First Time for Everything !

On their way home from putting their kids in to high school, two ladies break the two days of flying with an ovvernight stop at the Wayside Tavern.

Neither of them has ever before entered a restaurant.

They have never before had a cocktail.

They have never before heard of a cocktail.  They have no concept of what a cocktail is.

They ate a restaurant meal, they drank a cocktail (a "mai tai" each)

The Wayside Tavern dishes up the best tucker north of Adelaide.

It was the first night on duty (and his second night in the country) for the barman in the Wayside Tavern's cocktail bar.

This country is much larger, and the backgrounds and experiences of the natural born citizens more diverse than one may first think.

Wish Granted!

Been griping about the amount of air time ABC news & current affairs programmes have been devoting to the Global Warming scam?

Been hurling the sherry glass at the tv screen in sheer frustration at the amount of airtime ABC news & current affairs have devoted to the 100th-tier issue of "gay marriage"?

Your wish has been granted!

For some years the abovementioned two matters have been (to the ABC) the biggest event since Adam & Eve ate the apple.....

..... not any more, for the ABC hasn't a moment to spare, so busy it is getting stuck into Rupert Murdoch.

You'd swear Mr. Murdoch is the Anti-Christ incarnated.  (If you actually believed what you see and hear on ABC news & current affairs, that is).

The ABC's fanatic obsession has been pursued to the point where their Murdoch-666 obsession has become comedy.

The nadir came on Monday night's Media Watch programme on ABCTV.
Nobody can produce and actually put to air an episode such as Monday night's, not and maintain any claim to be journalists.

Prime Minister Abbott:  Don't just cut ABC funding to the bone - the news & current affairs section needs to be completely dismantled, and started again, with entirely new faces.

Vote Winning Policy

Reasons to vote for the Liberal Party in the upcoming Australian Federal election are manifold.

Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott provides yet another:

He will legislate for small businesses to receive the same consumer protections that individuals receive.

This alone is sufficient to be worth voting for him & his party.

********               *********                ************

It is not possible to overstate the deleterious effect to a small business of not having any rights as a consumer.

Big business, government, and particularly gypsies & conmen, all brutally capitalise on the fact that small businesses have (pretty much) no consumer rights whatsoever.

There is an entire industry of rip-off artists and conmen who are allowed to exist, purely to fleece unsuspecting small businesses.

There is an entire section of big business that exploits small businesses without any mercy.

The Labor Party, during their current term in office, was given the opportunity to enact these protections.  However the Labor Party, by deliberate inaction (as opposed to brainless incompetence) chose to not protect small business.

One may conclude that the Labor Party is the party of Big Business.

One may be correct.

*******              ***********             **********

Mine Host looks forward to Prime Minister Abbott protecting the little blokes from the brutes of the corporate world, and from the vultures of the gypsy world.

Mine Host is unsure how many voters he can influence, but Tony Abbott has convinced him to try. The federal electorate which hosts the Wayside Tavern can at times come down to only a few hundred votes. On a good day Mine Host may be able to influence that number of voters.

Don't vote for the Dingo

Reasons to not vote for the Liberal Party (in the upcoming Australian Federal election) are manifold.

Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott provides yet another:

Just before a recent leaders debate, Tony Abbott announced a $5,000,000 (Five Million Dollar) gift of taxpayer money to a Brisbane Rugby League Football club.

The lucky club is already one of the wealthiest community organizations in the nation, for it has been granted (at no cost) 280 poker machines, which collectively yield say $10,000,000 annually.

.... and Tony Abbott gives this club another $5 million that has been hoovered from taxpayers.

             *********                      ************                ************

Mine Host to Tony Abbott:  Where is my $5 million (to extend the Wayside Tavern building, and provide "better facilities" for my community?)

The Wayside Tavern has already been levied more than $100,000 (One Hundred Thousand Dollars - from a country pub) for extensions and redevelopment at Lang Park (cynically known now in the hotel industry as: "pub park" or "hotel park").

Mine Host is unsure how many voters he can influence, but Tony Abbott has convinced him to try.  The federal electorate which hosts the Wayside Tavern can at times come down to only a few hundred votes.  On a good day Mine Host may be able to influence that number of voters.

America is Kaput

This has gone too far!

Every rodeo clown in the USA should strike.
Every rodeo rider should strike.
Every American should boycott every state fair.
Every decent human being should wear an Obama mask and march on Washington DC.

Perhaps a million-mask march.

For Richer or Poorer, in Sickness & Health.... etc

Perhaps Mine Host fosters a workplace culture of enterprise and individual achievement.
Perhaps Mine Host selects enterprising types as staff.
Perhaps it is pure chance.

But at least three (3) people who have been low level employees of the Wayside Tavern (with seat out of their pants, blah blah) have within a few short years become larger than average entrepreuers.

Two of them with debts now of more than $5 million.  (Good on 'em!)

A third, having made a lot of money with nothing more than his hands and a mobile phone, has entered into a business where he places capital at risk (a shop).

This has gone quite badly, it looks as if he'll lose his shirt.

But it ain't over yet.  He's putting tremendous effort (likely in vain) into saving the business.

His wife, has she pulled out the stops to support him, making the home front as much a sanctuary as possible, cooing & cah-ing over him, and giving him both refuge from the worries of the world and mental/spiritual comfort, in his time of distress?

Pig's rear end she has!  The bitch has just about pulled the plug on him, calling his judgement into question, implying he is a failure & "loser", and haranguing him day & night at home, over his "blowing" of the fortune he had built up.

She's on the verge of moving out with the kids, and going back to her parents (who are rich - very rich)

Perhaps it is confirmation bias, but this is a very common response by women to their man facing financial or other hardship.

The added distress for this man is almost impossible to imagine.  He never considered even looking at another woman, lives for his kids and what he can provide for them, and loves his wife dearly.
The distress caused by just the thought of his children no longer living under his roof, is, to a practicing Roman Catholic almost intolerable.

He is young, resilient and resourceful.  He'll make another fortune (and if she pulls the plug she won't share in it.)
Neither will she notice or care, as her father is not just rich, but Rockerfeller type rich.

Even if she doesn't move out, she is making his life hell at a time when he needs support and reassurance that he has a loving family.

Instead she's jerking the rug from under him.

Hell has a special place for such women.

Can't tell Daylight from Dark

A depressingly common theme is the inability of (some members of) the general public to recall very recent events and movements in their daily life.

Specifically, which pub they were in last night, this morning, or even ten minutes ago.

Many times has Mine Host's time and patience been wasted by a person angrily demanding replacement or refund (or something) for defective liquor that "was bought from your pub mate" - this often despite a price tag or some other label clearly showing the name of another pub.

When this is pointed out, the complainant will become angry, defensive, and (to cut a long story short) mystified how the other pub's name got there ".... coz I know I got it from your place mate".

Finally they wander off, believing they've been had by Mine Host, but unable to figure out how.

This happens only with dim-witted bogans and Kath & Kim types?  Think again.

Think that well critiqued & properly constructed online reviews for hotels are left by sophisticated white collar types who are smart enough to at least know which hotel/resort they stayed at?  Think again.

At the online customer review site Trip Advisor, two of the reviews of the Wayside Tavern are clearly and obviously intended for another business.

These two reviews go into detail of the building, the layout, method of construction, materials used, and lots of other things that are a dead giveaway.

Yep!  Some people are so stupid that they leave a trip advisor review on the page of the wrong business.

*********************

As can be easily guessed, both of these reviews are very negative.  If anyone has the faintest idea how to get Trip Advisor to remove (or move) these reviews, it would be gratefully received.

Full Employment Economy

Believe the current polls/reports/whatever that suggest unemployment is on the increase in Australia?
Consider this:

The Wayside Tavern advertises a skilled job (on one of Australia's leading job bulletin sites).
The job ad, including the headline, clearly states the location as:

Beyond the Black Stump, Queensland.

There are a mere Three (3) responses:

The first applicant was well qualified and oh so very suitable, but upon discovering the job is not in Melbourne, flatly refused the position.

Mine Host is unable to comment on the other two applicants, as neither of them answered their phone.  Well not for 14 days - which is when Mine Host gave up trying their numbers.