I am not an astronomer

Well. Today’s been mad so far. My boss at the worst of times becomes this high-maintenance, histrionic monster, and trust me, this morning’s been one of the worst of times. That he manages this from Brisbane is as good an argument as any against the unnecessary extravagance of business travel. I mean, he obviously doesn’t even need to be in the same state as someone to harass them efficiently.

This is the stupidest thing he asked me yesterday: he went to look round our new office (we’re moving) and he called me up and asked me if we would get much sun through our window in the morning. I mean, how am I supposed to know? I’m not a mariner! I don’t observe these things – I’m normal. And he’s like, “Which way is it facing?” What the hell?! I don’t even know which way my house faces! I’ve never needed to know astronomy before. If I want to go somewhere, I just get on the bus and it takes me there. I don’t even own a compass, and I’ve never been a boy scout.

So, I had about two seconds to figure out how to answer his question without sounding exasperated or patronising. I mean, think about it, how would you? It’s genuinely difficult. In the end I borrowed the voice my mother uses when she’s talking to young children. THANK GOD he didn’t ask me to follow up. It’s about the only thought he had all day that he didn’t ask me to follow up on.

My boss has a fear of the unknown. He fears anything being unplanned when he could get me to run around checking it out for him. Actually, a lot of people must dislike spontaneity. Have you ever noticed how so many things demand long-term commitment from people? My company is sending us e-mails about salary packaging at the moment, and it’s like, ‘you can review this after one year’. I put off getting broadband for ages because they wanted a year’s commitment from you. The only reason I agreed in the end is because I’m so desperate to work from bed – sorry, home (see previous post). And the commitment to the phone line is two years. TWO YEARS. How do I know what I’ll want in a year or so from now? It’s a long time. I could move house, or go to live overseas. I could be unemployed, or have joined an isolationist cult and therefore not need a home phone line. Why is it, other people seem so happy to sign away huge chunks of their lives? (Though I hope two years doesn’t turn out to be a big chunk of my life – we’ll have to wait and see.) And people who have kids – don’t they mind that they WILL still be plugging away in the rat race, paying off their children’s bills, twenty years from now? I mean, my life will probably still be boring in twenty years’ time, but at least it’s not guaranteed.

My mother used to say - cue martyred voice - “Of course parents want to do things like that – but they make the sacrifice for their children!” I’m beginning to think that’s a pile of crap. I think many people are genuinely happy to have dull lives.

Did I mention...I am going to see the Paris Opera Ballet again tomorrow! This time in Jewels. I've been too busy at work to get excited, though.

Slacking off

I am so totally looking forward to the next couple of weeks at work. Boss #1 will be on vacation, and boss #2 is going to be away on business trips for much of that time, some of it in different time zones. (Though I wouldn’t put it past me to call me up first thing in the morning anyway. I’ll just have to make sure the mobile is off!) I have some lovely sleep-ins planned, plus long lunchtimes, a hair appointment and maybe even the chiropractor - aah, bliss! I have such a good job. Not for the ambitious, but, as you’ll have noticed if you’ve been following this blog, I’m not ambitious. My main career goal is to be allowed to work from home.

Speaking of which, I’ve just applied for broadband. The next step is to get remote access and maybe a printer. Then I have to suggest subtly to my bosses that I might do my job better if I can work from my front room, a convenient few metres away from both bed and the TV, and enabling me to bond more with the cat. How could he reject such a proposal?

Swan Lake

Last night I went to see Swan Lake, by the Paris Opera Ballet. Odette was danced by Agnes Letestu and Jose Martinez was Siegfried.

I was expecting not to like it because my ballet teacher saw it on Tuesday and was very unimpressed. But I guess I’m easily pleased! I haven’t seen much live ballet in my life and besides, I was sitting so far back they could probably have been doing hip hop for all I knew. It was ballet, and they were good dancers, and the music was wonderful, so how could I not have enjoyed the evening?

I can however understand my teacher’s dislike of Nureyev’s tampering with the story. I’d read about the subtle homoerotic theme in Nureyev’s version so I was unsurprised when some of Act 1 now included a long, blokey dance that wasn’t there before. It was ok, and they danced very well, but what about the bits they cut out? Could we have them back, please? I’m getting a bit disturbed by the whole gay agenda thing that is hijacking productions of Swan Lake these days. I support the right of male dancers/artistic directors to be gay in their private lives, but please, seriously, don’t fuck with Swan Lake. It's bigger than you are.

Swan Lake is and always has been all about the women. The men are just there to wander around in the background propping women up as required and occasionally pointing effetely into the distance. That’s the way it is – deal with it. I think part of Nureyev’s idea was to explain how the prince came to be screwed up about women and start chasing swans, but seriously, who gives a damn about the prince’s motives anyway? And forget trying to explain the story. It’s a silly fairy tale, and if you can’t handle that then don’t go to the ballet! There’s lots of talk in reviews about newer versions being more sophisticated, but I fail to see how that is achieved by a lot of leering and poncing around by the men, as if homoeroticism is automatically sophisticated and heterosexuality isn’t.

I also thought that the scenery could have been better. The show didn’t have an enchanted feeling about it. The palace scenery was pretty spartan. The colours could have been richer, I think. Also, I wish they’d done something to hide the palace scenery during the swan scenes. It looked like they were dancing in the palace! I suppose they were constricted in their scenery as they were on tour, but a bit more blue light might have helped. I’m a big fan of blue light and smoke machines in Swan Lake (probably a result of many hours squinting through the interference at terrible quality recordings of the ballet on video!) - corny, I know, but that’s how I like it!

The ballerina was nice enough, though she was no Markarova. I spent the day at work watching Markarova as Odette on You Tube, to get me in the mood, but maybe I shouldn’t have! Markarova had some amazing stage presence. Maybe Letestu did too but I was so far away it would have been wasted on me! At least I know now where my ideal seat would be. It was a bit hard choosing from the seating plan when I was ordering the tickets as I’d never been in the theatre before. The ticketing was done by Ticketek. They didn’t know, when I asked them if the seats would be good, and even if they had, I suspected they wouldn’t give a damn anyway.

So now you’re wondering if you read correctly that I enjoyed the evening. Well, I did. Those were just my criticisms. It was really nice and I’d go again if the opportunity came up. In fact, I am going again but to see Jewels, next week, and I’m looking forward to it.

The End of the World - Part 2

Last night I went to see ‘A Crude Awakening – The Oil Crash’. I’d seen a review of it on television and they said it was the most important film you could see this year, and it was life changing. Now, I wouldn’t go that far. It was far less affecting to me than ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. In fact, I’ve hardly thought about it since watching it. But then, I live with an eager prophet of the Apocalypse (see previous post) so I suppose it would take a lot to disturb my equilibrium.

Anyway, the Man and I were probably the only people in the audience who were actually pleased by the message. We can’t wait for oil supplies to dwindle! It will be nice to be able to breathe again on Oxford Street and in Arthur’s Pizza in Bondi Junction (if you don’t know what I mean, try eating pasta there after work while that white van is being reloaded). I think a lot of people in China will be pleased to get their oxygen back, too. And just think of the reduction of cheap plastic shit in the world! I’m sad when I think of how I’ll be priced out of air travel, but I’m already trying to reduce my journeys, for reasons of cost and environmental factors. Travel will become more difficult, but it will once again be exclusive and romantic and there won’t be those annoying backpackers all over the place any more. Finally, perhaps we in the West can stop following George Bush into wars all the time. Now, wouldn’t THAT be nice. It would probably drastically reduce the amount of Islamic terrorism in the world, or at least they wouldn’t be able to afford to come to my city to do it.

Let’s have – GASP – a shrinking economy instead of a growing one. Currently, a politician can justify anything by saying the economy needs it because it’s growing, like that’s a good thing. Low wages? It’s for the good of the economy. Longer working hours? The economy’s growing. High university fees? The good of the economy. I wonder how, if it means we work harder, longer hours, for less money, with fewer public benefits such as healthcare, greatly increased pollution…how anyone could possibly think that a growing economy is a good thing. (I read recently that the economy in Japan was slowing down, and that Japanese people might actually benefit from this.) Maybe someone could explain to me why economic growth such a holy grail, so important that I should be pleased to sacrifice my quality of life for it? I’m just asking. I’m not economist.

Everything I’ve heard about a growing economy is bad, so until I’m convinced otherwise, I suggest we refuse sabotage our leaders’ demands. Work shorter hours, spend less. Re-use. Save. Conserve. Refuse to reproduce. Demand better working conditions. And await the oil crash with eager anticipation! Maybe the world will become a nicer place. It couldn’t get much worse…or could it?

The End of the World

It looks like I have a readership now (Site Visitors = 1) so I suppose I ought to make my posts a bit nicer now. It shouldn’t be too difficult as I’ve set myself a low standard. In future I’ll take my rage out the guy who sits next to me, the lovely John.*

Today’s topic is the next global epidemic. Is the world on the threshold of a huge flu epidemic, which will kill millions, lay off a third of the workforce and kill the world economy?

The Man thinks so. He saw it on a documentary the other night, and the TV is his god, so it must be true. In fact, he got quite shirty when I laughed off the idea. He wants me to warn my boss and pass on some report from the Commonwealth Bank. My boss is too busy to listen to me telling him about things which are relevant to his job. He’d just get this blank look for a second, then stare at me as if I were an idiot, then carry on doing his e-mails.

The Man is a complete darling, but he’s a fusspot. Which is ok, everyone knows and loves him for it, but I object to him trying to turn me into a fusspot. He gets annoyed when I don’t join in and acts like I’m the Enemy. But for God’s sake. How many epidemic warnings have we had so far that turned out to be rubbish? Every year the flu is supposed to kill half the world. There was SARS. Then there was bird flu (have I got the right order there?) and look what a pathetic bloody flop that was. Obviously, it was tragic for a few people – but what percentage of the world’s population was killed? Something stupidly small, I’m sure. And these are only a couple of examples of supposed super bugs that I can remember off the top of my head. Clearly, pandemics need to get their acts together. I don’t even know why we bother having the word ‘pandemic’. I suppose it slips off the tongue more easily than the phrase ‘slightly contagious disease’.

Now, I don’t want to imply for a minute that I don’t believe a pandemic will eventually strike the human race again. We’ve had them in the past, and now, with overpopulation, aeroplanes, rising global temperatures, global trade, blah blah blah, it’s obvious to me that the next one will be nasty. I’m sure there’ll be one. I’m just not sure it will be within the next six months. It could be, but I don’t think it’s worth stocking up on spam and baked beans just yet. Just like, I don’t doubt global warming, but I don’t think we need to take the streets screaming “The end is here! It is here!” and loot the shops just because Sydney has a few rain showers. We should at least wait for the first few deaths. Or at least, for somebody to get a bit poorly. I mean, seriously.

The Man’s problem is, he loves drama and is living for the day when he gets to be the hero of the Apocalypse. You know the scenario – he’s the only one who saw it coming, and the only one who rises to the occasion while the rest of us fall apart like bewildered toddlers. (Well, it will be him and a few nuts from the lesser populated states of America.) When it finally comes, everything will be right with the Man’s world. Most people will die. Possibly his family, too, which he will suffer with stoic resignation. I will survive…at least I think that’s the plan….but there is still uncertainty as to whether or not deserve to.

Anyway, flu pandemic or not, the End had better not come before next Thursday, because I’m going to see the Paris Opera Ballet in Swan Lake! I’m so excited!

By the way, I just found this: http://www.smh.com.au/news/fashion/go-figure-men-mock-the-smock/2007/06/16/1181414612959.html So I’m not the only one who hates our fashions…


*Name changed to protect his identity.**
**Actually, to protect mine.

Rules of Style

Today this middle aged woman on the bus was wearing a black turtleneck top with a hot pink, velvet strappy top over it. I was just staring in disbelief. Despite the colour, the strappy top would have looked nice as summer evening wear on a shapely young woman. But on an autumn morning, on a middle aged woman, over a long-sleeved turtleneck top – I just don’t understand people sometimes.

So that got me to thinking about style and fashion. I mean, what guidelines should you follow to avoid looking like a complete dick?

My thinking on the subject is that less is definitely more – you’d think this would be obvious, but not to the people of Sydney – and that clothes should always have a practical as well as a fashion purpose. For example, climate and cultural standards of decency require that people cover the trunk of their body in public. To do this, you have to wear some kind of shirt/t-shirt and trousers or skirt. What you actually choose can depend on your taste, and if you want to wear an embroidered top in a nice fabric instead of something rough and scratchy, there’s no reason you shouldn’t. Similarly, if your trousers are in danger of falling down and you need to wear a belt, why not choose one that you think looks good? If we have to wear clothes, we may as well wear nice ones. But, for example, once you start wearing, say, two belts, that’s another matter. How can you possibly need two belts? You just look like an idiot. I have actually seen people wearing two belts at once. If you’re going to wear two belts you may as well complete the look with a t-shirt that says ‘I try way too hard’. At best, pointless fashion accessories look vain; if you get them wrong, they look stupid AND vain.

My fashion rulings are not arbitary; they are based on principles that anyone can follow. And I would suggest that they do. So many people seem to be lacking any fashion sense of their own – it’s like, as soon as a fashion is released onto the shop floor or pictured in a magazine, they think it’s ok to dress like that, because they have no common sense of their own to rely on. It’s like autistic people who can’t interpret other people’s facial expressions by instinct, so they have to learn how to do it from a guidebook. I would go so far as to say that the majority of women have absolutely no clue how to dress.

By the way, I’m not meaning to imply here that I always look stylish. I often look pretty bad, especially on the way to work, when I can be seen wearing trainers with my work skirt, and a jacket that really doesn’t go with what I’m wearing, with a hood pulled up over my hair. But at least this is for practical reasons – the shoes are for the sake of my health, and the hood is to protect my hair from the elements so that it doesn’t look like I’ve been electrocuted by the time I get to the office. I’d rather look daggy in an ‘I don’t really care’ or an ‘I put practicality above style’ way than an ‘I think puffball skirts and footless tights (formerly known as leggings) are so hot’ kind of way. I mean, wouldn’t you?

To Beg the Question

It came to my attention recently that there is a lot of misuse of the phrase ‘to beg the Question’. I heard an example of this the other day on the TV, always the place to go if you want to hear semi-academic language being abused embarrassingly by pompous thirty-somethings. I then repaired to my ‘Dictionary of Bullshit’, a work which has been invaluable to me in my studies of the native tongue of my new workplace.

The Dictionary has this to say: ‘Begging the question once applied to logical argument. You begged the question by assuming the truth of that which you wanted to prove…The expression, however, sounds as if it ought to mean something along the lines that here is a question urgently prompted by circumstance, once that is crying out to be answered. So many people use it this way that I think its meaning will inevitably change.’

Interestingly, the great thinkers of history were serial offenders when it came to begging the question, at least when it came to religion. It’s amazing to me that past cultures’ greatest minds could be so…stupid. Here is an example from Thomas Paine, whose ‘The Age of Reason’ I was reading on the bus today:

‘Of what use is it, unless it be to teach man something, that his eye is endowed with the power of beholding to an incomprehensible distance, an immensity of worlds revolving in the ocean of space? (He’s talking about the stars.) Or of what use is it that this immensity of worlds is visible to man?...A less power of vision would have been sufficient for man, if the immensity he now possesses were given only to waste itself, as it were, on an immense desert of space glittering with shows’.

So, what he’s saying is:

Man has a powerful vision --> if he did not use it to study astronomy, it would be wasted --> therefore God wants Man to study astronomy

Isn’t a step missing here? Paine is assuming that God doesn’t want us to waste our vision. He is also assuming that God cares.

I suppose that’s not so bad. And other than that, the work has been relatively incident free. Except for the traditional ‘I didn’t make myself, therefore God must have done, therefore he must exist’ that all the believing philosophers use. Socrates really loved that one too. It’s odd to me that such supposedly great thinkers could be so illogical that a lowly office worker (me) can catch them out and think how stupid they are. I can only conclude that it must be very hard, almost impossible, to snap out of the received thinking of your culture. Great thinkers today must make similar stupid errors of thought – and while we can debate some of their opinions, some pronouncements will go uncontested until a few generations later. Because we haven’t even noticed that they’re contestable.

Anyway, moving on. Thomas Paine has some pretty interesting things to say about Christianity. He describes how the Church founders got together at the beginning and decided which books to include in the Bible. They had a vote on what should be considered the word of God! But he doesn’t provide any evidence, or say where he got his information from. Maybe bibliographies hadn’t been invented in 1794. I’m sure he would approve of my thinking, well Tom, that’s a revelation for you, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s unproven.

Philosophers were a pretty arrogant bunch. They all seemed to believe that Man was the centre of the universe, and that the reason Man is so extraordinarily wonderful is that God wanted Mankind to admire Him. Think of Thomas Paine’s comments about the special powers of human sight – what about animals? Can they see the stars? Do we know? Isn’t he assuming that we are the only species that can see them? Because if other species can see them, doesn’t that suggest that they too were intended to study astrology? Not a one thinker seems to have considered that maybe God doesn’t give a damn what we think or do with our mental powers – I mean, maybe Man isn’t his chosen species at all. That reminds me of a cartoon I once saw – I think it was the Far Side – where aliens arrive on Earth and start communing with the cows.

I picked up a book of random essays by David Hume not so long ago, having fond memories of him from my university days, but I got so sick of his pompous, unsupported pronouncements that I gave up in disgust. I’m trying to remember some of what he said. No…it’s gone. I only remember thinking that if I wanted to hear opinions presented as facts I could just listen in on any conversation on the bus.

Bad Vibes

My boss is really pissing me off. Actually he’s pissing everyone off. He sits opposite to me and has been loudly grilling people over the phone and now in person for the last couple of hours. It’s so irksome. It’s ruining my sense of calm. I’m all upset now. He’s having these conversations where he’s only just being civil – you know, where both parties know they’re getting nasty but they haven’t actually descended to name-calling. Oh God, get a room – they’ve just notched up the volume again. It’s like listening to my parents, except that they’d never use the word ‘productize’.

I’m going to put my headphones on and listen to the CD I just borrowed from the library...let peace descend.

Me versus technology

I just tried to copy a CD before I take it back to the library. Everything was fine until I tried to burn it onto a blank CD, and the machine kept spitting it out. Damn work and its shoddy equipment! Very irritating. So now I will have to hold onto the CDs and try it at home. I might go the library anyway this lunchtime as I have nothing better to do. The only thing I don’t like about going to the library at work (apart from the long walk) is that when people at work see me on my way out with my backpack and trainers (I change into trainers at lunchtime), someone ALWAYS says “ooooh, are you going to the gym??” I know it sounds silly, but it really sets my teeth on edge. I mean, every time!! No, I’m not going to the gym, I just like to wear sensible shoes and carry a bag that my chiropractor would approve of. Is that so difficult to get? It also annoys me unbelievably much when people see me putting my sandwich into the fridge and they go, “ooooh, that looks healthy!” Like, why would it not be? Is it so outrageous as to be comment-worthy that I would be having a sandwich with – gasp – salad in it? Is that in some way not normal?

I’ve been having some busy weekends lately as I’ve joined an orchestra. I’ve been enjoying it so much, as it’s been years since I’ve played in an orchestra. We get together to perform only intermittently, so now that the concert’s over I’ve got my weekends back, for a while at least. I have a lot of sleep and housework to catch up on.

It’s 10:22 and I’ve hardly done any work yet today. I am pretty pleased about that.