Fear of not-quite-flying

 

 

“Good morning. I'd like to thank you for choosing to fly with Ascheapaschips Air, the new sub-budget Australian airline. Please pay attention to the safety announcement. Unlike certain national carriers we don’t spend money recruiting ‘resting’ actors and celebrities to make amusing parodies, just to win kudos on YouTube. In fact, we care as little for your safety as we do your dignity, but the Civil Aviation Authority makes us do this, so listen up and let’s get it over with.

 

Your captain today is Mr Bobo, who is with us as part of an exchange program with the Primate Department at Taronga Zoo, to which we provide uneaten airline meals for the monkeys to fling at the tourists. Apparently, intelligent apes are unable to distinguish between this and their usual readily available projectile matter, but airline food has been deemed safer for both the flinger and the flingee, as long as the monkeys don't eat it.

 

Mr Bobo has undergone a full day of intensive training in the flight simulator, where he graduated dux of his class, largely because he chewed off fewer knobs than his peers.

However, please don't be alarmed if you hear terrified screeching from the cockpit. Mr Bobo's pretty cool with flying, but the Flight Engineer is only human.

 

You will have noted, on being herded aboard, that we have embraced new technology to eradicate the need to print boarding passes and merely swiped your credit card instead. Luckily, your credit card is included in your free cabin baggage allowance, along with a small tissue with which you may care to mop your brow in the event of an in-flight emergency. Should this fairly unlikely event occur, you can access the lifejacket stowed under your seat. Your credit card will automatically be debited with a sum that will be determined by the rate of descent of the aircraft and the likelihood that Ascheapaschips Air will be required to pay damages once the wreckage has been recovered.

 

Cabin crew will now indicate the location of the emergency exits, fitted with token- operated turnstiles to facilitate the smooth exit of those passengers who opted for the Survivor Fare upgrade.

 

Should the plane ditch in the sea, we advise you to wave frantically to any passing plane as soon as you have placed the lifejacket over your head, as the cardboard from which it's constructed isn't suitable for immersion in water. The lifejacket is also equipped with a whistle, as a nice little tune may help distract you from your imminent demise.

 

Planes in the Ascheapaschips fleet are subjected to rigorous pre-flight testing on the first Thursday of most months, as long as our maintenance facility in Bangladesh isn't under water at the time. Kind of ironic really, given the contribution we're making to global warming.

 

Thank you for flying Ascheapaschips Air. We hope that you enjoy your flight today, and, in the absence of a long hard look at your standards, book your next journey with us.”

 

 

Making a song and dance about Eurovision

Australia was both excited and confused this week having unexpectedly found itself dining at the cool kids table - the Eurovision Song Contest. Sure – the Aussies could get their heads around the idea of competition, but were completely flummoxed by the absence of a ball. Cynics of course suggested that the work experience kid in the Eurovision office had just put the invite intended for Austria in the wrong bag. That sort of error might be expected of Americans, who tend to classify anywhere foreign as either 'dangerous' or 'Canada' and regard it all with deep suspicion. England, on the other hand, is pretty good at knowing its countries, having been something of a collector in years gone by.

 I strongly suspect therefore, that Australia's 'wild card 'invitation to participate in Eurovision was Pommie-inspired. A return joke for the one Prime Minister Tony Abbott played on England when he offered the Duke of Edinburgh a demotion to being a mere knight.  It's the sort of mutual pranking that seems really funny at a particular point in the evening, but is inevitably going to end up with someone waking up and wondering where all the traffic cones came from.

There were fears that our initiation rites into Eurovision would involve becoming part of the single currency and handing over our lunch money, dinner money and the contents of our national bank to Greece, the equivalent of having the Euro-gang flush our Aussie heads down the financial toilet. Luckily the threat of a retaliatory repatriation of Leo Sayer brought a rapid back-down.
 

England clearly felt safe from any sort of musical competition from Australia as Kylie wouldn't lower herself to those sorts of shenanigans and Rolf's diary was a bit full for the next six years, which pretty much left just Peter Andre. This is much like realising that you've only got Francesco Schettino available to cox your rowing eight. However, England didn't bargain on Australia's famed resourcefulness, finding as we did  someone who had won a singing competition only a dozen years before and who wasn't doing anything in May.

Guy Sebastian was an obvious choice, with the dual qualities of having a voice that didn't make your ears bleed and a crazy afro hair-do, which is pretty much as wild and gender-bending as Australian entertainers get. At least those that want to eat regularly and not get a good kicking when they tour regional towns.  The 'Go Guy' campaign hit a hurdle though, with the discovery that the man known and loved across this wide brown land as ‘The 'Fro’, had had a haircut and looked worryingly normal. Unfortunately, singer Redfoo had come up trumps in the ballot to wear the nation's token mad hair style, and clearly we weren't desperate enough to ask him to represent us. Guy was duly despatched with a ''good luck mate'' and an emergency bag of sequins in his back pocket.

 

Of course, now we were playing with the big kids, Australia had to familiarise itself with the delicate Eurovision politics if it wasn't to end up with 'nul points' and turn instantly into Norway. In a set-up that relies on more mutual back-scratching with close friends than a humid night in a psoriasis clinic, Australia was feeling a bit lonely without even its tormented kid brother, New Zealand there. It had been very carefully explained too, that any ‘sledging’ or boisterous badinage with competitors about the sexual proclivities of their family members vis a vis close relatives or domestic animals would not only be frowned upon but likely result in armed warfare. As would suggesting that the leaders of any Eastern European countries looked ‘a bit gay.’

Tough though the competition was, Australia would not adopt any dodgy palm-greasing tactics- it wasn't after all, the Football World Cup. Any brown bags in Guy Sebastian's vicinity contained only vegemite sandwiches and it was a safe bet that no non-Australian was going to touch those.

With no gimmicks or political alliances, Australia was going to have to fall back on its vocal talents alone, historically, a pretty insubstantial safety net at Eurovision. That said, in achieving fifth place, Guy Sebastian scrubbed up pretty well. There have been some lessons learned and next year’s contestant will no doubt apply for funding to upgrade the bag of sequins to magic glitter and develop a killer six pack, as this can only be what got that funny little Swedish song over the line.

 

© Wendy Wardell

WA Inc-arnated again

Suddenly every minister in the WA cabinet wants to pop a little extra onto car registration fees as a way of topping up their budget in the absence of regular funding from the State’s coffers. I think this means my little Peugeot will be sponsoring its own Government department. I'll put my hand up for Culture and the Arts – at least ballet dancers don’t eat much.

 I recall that there was a surcharge added to the car rego fees in the 1990's to pay for the indiscretions of WA Inc, for which we, as drivers were held responsible. I never quite figured that one out. I had assumed that rego fees would be reduced again once it was paid off, but after only twenty odd years my optimism has faded. Maybe the government took out a mortgage to pay it off, at 'private bank' interest rates, and they will start to pay off the capital any day now. That Laurie Connell was a lad and no mistake!

Now it looks likely that we'll have to pay a bit more each year by way of a Congestion Fee, because the current pittance hasn't been steep enough to keep us off the road. Sadly it seems that even making people unemployed doesn't stop them driving to Centrelink rather than hitchhiking, crawling or begging for the bus fare. Assuming there are buses to take them there.

 It's reassuring though that no-one has tried to pass the buck on the congestion problem by suggesting that the Government should take some responsibility for poor road planning. It's not like they could have guessed that if you design freeways that have wide bits and then skinny bits it's going to slow things down.

 

The only hope is if the Government makes a firm commitment to not spending money on road improvement. For start, they will be able to save a fortune on witches hats and those encouraging signs so appreciated by drivers crawling past in a ten km long tail back, as they issue a hearty electronic back slap of '6km/hour -well done!’ Furthermore, retaining our potholed and patched roads, (some of which could legitimately be granted 'heritage' status) will result in more careful driving, at least by those not in Government cars. Where road topography causes your major organs to undulate like a sackful of nervous jellyfish on a roller coaster, there is an incentive to slow down. While the Government may find that this has a negative impact on speed camera revenue,( d'oh, Dean Nalder) at least the Toorak Tractors will be able to get in a bit of 'off road' simulation without having to leave the Stirling Highway.

 So- it looks like the registration fees for my little car will be creeping up towards the $1,000 a year level and some economies will have to be made. Perhaps Mr Barnett would consider some sort of lease-back scheme on first borns? Now she's finished school, she certainly won't be able to afford to maintain a car and will sink under the weight of debt from a university education quicker than you can say ‘WA’s credit rating has been downgraded again'.

I've just heard though that the Government is planning on spending $280,000 on a urinal that rises from below ground in Northbridge at night to collect the waste of the wasted. So here's an idea to save some public money. Stop taking the piss.

Postcards From The (comet's) Edge

Hi to everyone back home - wish you were here! To be honest - I wish anyone was here. This place seems as popular on the tourist trail as a wet Tuesday on the Gaza Strip. There isn't even very much traffic, although what there is seems to rush by really fast and burn up in a fireball. It's a bit like a Saturday night in Rockingham.

I had suspected that booking a budget airline to get me here might be asking for trouble and I was right. They called it the mothership, but I reckon she should up on child-abuse charges. The inflight service was completely non-existent and the landing was really turbulent. They say that any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, so I suppose it must qualify, assuming you're cool about walking with your left kneecap embedded in your right ear. It'd take the smirk off that beardy berk Richard Branson, I can tell you.

 

I'm staying in a different neighborhood from the one I expected as well and there doesn't appear to be a sea view. Either that or the tide is out - by around 500 million kilometres. Still - I'm here for an archeological dig, not for a paddle, so I'm looking forward to that once I get the feeling back in all my legs again. Economy class travel is no laughing matter when you’re more supermarket trolley than biped.

The weather's not exactly what the brochure promised either - bloody dark and cold. If that was what I wanted for a holiday I could just have gone to Glasgow where I could at least get a beer and a deep fried Mars bar. They tell me the weather will be getting warmer, but they always say that, don't they? ''It's not usually like this at this time of the year'' or ''Don't worry, we're hurtling towards the sun at 18kms per second, so it'll stop drizzling soon.''.

 I read that this place hasn't changed in 4.5 billion years, which I suppose explains the discarded Chico Roll wrappers and uncanny similarity to Adelaide. Quite honestly, it's so depressing I think I'm just going to go to bed and set the alarm for August.

 Firstly though I've got to pop out and pick up some souvenir confectionery for everyone at the office. Honestly, they're obsessed - all they kept saying as I was leaving was ‘bring back some rock, bring back some rock.'

 

Can’t wait to show off the sun tan when I get back

Love

 Philae

Projectile Travelling

I've been forced to the conclusion that there are those of us who travel with ease and others who are physiologically unsuited to leaving the sofa.

Holidays with my daughter are a rare treat, but without exception they are always punctuated by physical manifestations of travel-induced distress that result in jackpots for local pharmacists and lingering odours on unfortunate upholstery.

There are no countries we've visited that haven't seen the local cuisine returned with

emphasis to its pavements. No hire cars delivered back to their point of origin without a distinctive piquancy to their atmosphere that even a forest of pine tree - shaped air fresheners had been able to impact.

Before reaching the age of 16, Siana was taken from one aircraft by wheelchair, having swooned on top of a passing flight attendant. She has barfed into bags in the airspace above most countries you can name, and below the river Thames in the Blackwall tunnel. The majestic beauty of the NZ countryside has echoed to sounds that would make Orcs retreat in fear and revulsion. There may be a call-up coming from Peter Jackson.

Ever the optimist, I've been certain that she would grow out of it and that the latest holiday would see a cease-fire between her semi-circular canals and her digestive system. How wrong is it possible to be?

Thirty-six hours before our latest trip the first signs of a cold appeared; not something that would usually cause much problem in and of itself - in most people. In Siana's case however, I'm certain that colds are a suitcase-borne virus as they are an inevitable part of travel preparations. They bode bad shit.

The morning of our flight dawned and Siana was roused from bed as the sun's first rays filtered through the windows. In the usual groggy fashion of a teenager for whom a good night's sleep would, in other species be considered hibernation, she headed to the kitchen, filled a bowl with cereal and stuck her face in it.

 Things went downhill quickly when I decided to medicate her in preparation for flight. The effect of trying to add cold and flu tablets to juice and sugar was a bit like adding baking soda to vinegar. Siana went pale and ventured outside to get fresh air. I hope that the petunias thrive on the second hand orange juice and crunchy nut cornflakes with which they were liberally crop-dusted.

With the reassurance that it was at least 'out of her system', we set off for the airport, having very kindly been offered a lift there by an elderly neighbour. While I was sat in the front making polite conversation with the gentleman, murmurings from the back seat informed me that all was not well. I subtly retrieved a small plastic bag from my handbag and emptied it of its contents, quickly passing it back. The bag was rapidly refilled accompanied by a full symphony of guttural sound effects as peristaltic waves slammed into reverse gear. However, it seems that our neighbour was deaf to Siana's Vomitorium in C minor, as our conversation continued on its chipper little path without deviation or interruption. This created a somewhat surreal state of affairs, as to me it

sounded like Alien vs Predator was being re-enacted in the back seat.

I was loathe to draw our elderly driver's attention to events unfolding behind us, as he had already nearly driven straight through a red light even when his full attention was on the road. I feared that his concern for the rear upholstery in his new car could quickly become terminal for all three of us.

The back seat chorus abated but relief was short-lived as I was quietly informed that the bag was leaking. Further paperwork in my hand luggage was quickly stripped of it's file protector sleeve to serve as a barf bag reinforcement and handed back, just as the airport hove into view. I thanked our kindly neighbour profusely, praying that the  small souvenir of the experience that remained on the back seat would also escape his attention, but we fled into the terminal too quickly to find out.

A couple of hours later we boarded the flight, Siana resplendent in a newly-purchased pair of shiny jeans. The old ones had been forcefully confined to the case lest they tried to make an unaccompanied break through Immigration.

By the time we boarded the plane Siana's condition had stabilised. At least until the engines were switched on. Barely had we achieved cruising altitude when the flight attendants experienced a sudden flurry of demand from people in the seats adjacent to ours to please be moved to the rows behind the screaming babies.

Apparently in space no-one can hear you scream, but at 30,000 feet they can definitely hear you chunder.

People Management on the Mothership

Mental health problems are, contrary to popular belief, contagious. It takes only a single pilot foaming at the mouth and running down the aisle of his plane, screaming "there's a bomb - we're all going to die." to induce extreme anxiety disorder in over 300 people. Not to mention a team of aeroplane cleaners.

It's getting harder to tell the normal from the nut-bag these days, especially in the workplace. Just think about it - how many of your own co-workers are rowing with only one oar, psychologically speaking? They may not be licking windows or coming in dressed as Napoleon, but gradually you pick up on things that make you wonder if their job intervew should have involved electrodes.

Taking a pro-active approach to HR issues must be especially hard to resist for employers. It’s unfortunate that well-intentioned but serruptitious medication of thir staff can lead to a few PR issues. People don’t trust water that comes out of the cooler slightly cloudy.

Competitive pressures, stress, and technology create a mental Molotov cocktail in the workplace. MicroSoft alone is doubtless responsible for the invention of several new syndromes, assuming seratonin levels crash in sync with operating systems. But I reckon that being a few cards short of the full deck is an evolutionary advantage. In my book, sweaty palms, anxiety and increased adrenaline are a perfectly valid response to an Excel spreadsheet budget, and AGMs are much better appreciated from the foetal position.

Every known personality disorder can be found in Australian workplaces, including a few that have yet to be defined and published. Body Dysmorphia by Proxy, for example, is a condition whereby sufferers hate their workmates’guts. We've all worked with someone who has Ambidextrous Proctological Disorientation Disorder, which renders its victims incapable of finding their backside with both hands. Today-Tonightis Nervosa produces questionable judgement in sufferers, with compulsions to splurge money on miracle body- shaping underwear instead of just eating less rubbish. T

echnology brings us a plethora of new ways to be dysfunctional. These include Sat Nav Schizophrenia, whose victims hear malicious voices in their heads insisting that they turn left in 300 metres over a sheer cliff, and Apple Amnesia, whereby people become so engrossed in their apps that they completely foget their own identity. If you throw hormones into this mix as well, then it's no great wonder that women working together often exhibit all the easy-going bonhomie of a flock of vultures on finding a dead donkey. Little quirks of the personality are crystallised out in the crucible of the workplace, so add a dash of PMT to power and sociopathic tendancies and suddenly you’re working alongside Pol Pot in a frock.

To look at it philosophically, we’re all fellow travellers on the highway of life – it’s just the baggage we bring with us that’s different. All we can do is hope that the nutter on the bus isn’t the driver. ©Wendy Wardell April 2012

Cardiovascular Crunch Time

The call to cardiovascular fitness for the nation has fallen on deaf ears with pillows pulled over them. On sofas all around Australia, left over pizza has formed a tomato-based superglue, fusing cheap upholstery to tracky daks and creating an irresistible gravitational force to the horizontal.

The problem lies partly in the lack of credible authorities to speak for the slim and buff. It’s simply un-Australian to trust a bloke who looks in a mirror more than once a month even when the state of his beard makes him look like he’s half way through eating a squirrel.

Take for example, Shane Warne, who was always much-admired for his sporting achievements. Later in his career, Warney in his whites was only a couple of rhinestones away from winning a ‘fat Elvis’ look-a-like competition. Yet it was his fallibility to booze, birds, burgers and fags that made the man in the street feel he was really one of them.

Even former role models like policemen have been up-sized in the happy meal of life. Fitness requirements have been scaled down accordingly and the major test now is whether they can walk past a pack of Tim Tams.

So in the absence of true heroes to emulate, the Government must take a low-cal leaf out of the environmentalists’ book and introduce new legislation to win the hearts, minds and fatty livers of Australia.

Any fast food purchased must now be kilojoule-neutral. This would mean that drive-throughs become illegal for anyone actually in a car. When ordering, customers will be required to perform star jumps for each item requested, while being barked at incomprehensibly through the speaker by a retired PE teacher. A family bucket of KFC? Would you like a half-marathon with that? The collection window would also be sited slightly farther away than at present. By up to a couple of suburbs.

Those opting to dine in will be seated at benches reclining at 45degrees with feet uppermost, tucked under a smiling plastic Ronald McDonald’s armpits. If you can’t do the crunches, or at least get your little pudgy arms past your stomach, the burger goes in the bin.

Punishments for transgression will be severe. Greenies that rationalise their four-wheel drive and jet-set lifestyles by paying some unseen person to plant trees for their environmental sins will now have workforces co-opted from junk food junkies digging the holes. A troop of dietary recidivists will also be called upon to peddle the Western Power bikes when Perth’s usual method of electricity generation fails as a result of a bird coughing particularly forcibly atop a power pole.

The bigger polluters can of course purchase carbon credits and similarly, if you have a special occasion coming up, it will be possible to buy lard-on credits. This will ensure that five-star restaurants can continue to literally make a killing.

Dr Nitschke will write another book, this time espousing the over-the-counter availability of large potions of Death by Chocolate for the terminally ill or chronically down-in-the-dumps.

Even politicians will be expected to fall into line, with a human weighbridge being installed at the entrance to Parliament House. Transgressors will be given a talking-to by Tony ‘Iron-Man’ Abbott, Australia’s slightly sheepish answer to Vladamir Putin. Be afraid, Joe Hockey, be very afraid.