Could someone explain why I woke up this morning with intense pain in two muscles at the back of my head - about level with the tops of my ears?
The best suggestion I’ve heard so far was from a colleague who said she used to get the same muscular pain after taking acid.
Of course I haven’t knowingly taken any in the last decade, which could only mean someone secretly dosed me with the stuff. That doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Although it might explain the dream I had last night in which my late grandmother was telling me about bacon sandwiches.
The staff at a TV station in Berlin did an office lip dub of Peregrine’s Everything’s Under Control.
An office lip dub is one of those things the young people do nowadays. It is, at least, preferable to some of the other things young people are into in that it doesn’t appear to involve promiscuity or scarification or amphetamine abuse in any overt way.
I was perhaps unfair to Assistant Health Minister Christopher Pyne when I called him “prissy”, “mincing” and making Alexander Downer look masculine.
Christopher Pyne is tough. Rambo tough.
Observe how he resolutely sticks to the government’s ridiculous tough-on-drugs ‘policy’ and war-on-drugs rhetoric despite masses of evidence - even from a conservative-stacked parliamentary committee - that it’s stupid and counterproductive.
While Kerry O’Brien and the regular crew are on holidays, I take it the 7.30 Report has been taken over by a crack squad of “fair and balanced” right-wing lunatic propagandists.
Technically the MHCA’s report is more of a literature review; it doesn’t contain any original research, just summarises and analyses what other people have already said and makes a series of recommendations. It is, to a fault, conservative and balanced in its findings, using cautious language such as:
Cannabis use precipitates schizophrenia in people who have a family history of that mental illness
There is a 2-3 times greater incidence of psychotic symptoms among those who used cannabis, however, the epidemiological data shows that cannabis cannot be considered a major causal factor
More frequent cannabis use is associated with higher relapse rates for people with psychosis and more severe symptoms were associated with increased risk of cannabis relapse
Cannabis can induce schizophrenia-like symptoms in otherwise healthy individuals
The 7.30 Report was not so careful. Where the MHCA report cautiously finds correlation, the 7.30 Report loudly trumpets causation. Will journalists ever learn the difference?!
Wandering home from the pub munching on some chocolate and a cab pulls up in front of me. The driver asks for directions to a street I didn’t know. I recognise the passenger as the lead singer in a band I’ve seen live a few times. She says her phone is dead and she can’t contact her friend and asks if I live nearby and have a Nokia charger. As it happens the answer is yes to both, she tells me to get in and I direct the cabbie to my place. The fare on the meter is already hefty; apparently they have been driving around for half an hour trying to find the place.
The cabbie waits outside and she follows me into my house, obviously a bit wobbly, plugs in the phone and waits for it to come to life. In the meantime, I tell her I’ve seen her band and she’s surprised but very pleased. She calls her friend, who gives me directions. She tells her friend I’m some totally random but lovely guy. On the way out, she keeps saying what a nice house I have.
I direct the cabbie to her friend’s place, which is convoluted . . . it’s Newtown after all. On the way she hands me a cabcharge slip. She tells me I must come to their next gig. We get there and the friend comes out and takes her inside. Then the cabbie takes me home and I sign for the now very large fare. That’ll take some explaining back at the office, I’m sure.
A couple of houses ago, I lived in the upstairs part of a converted two-storey terrace. The guys downstairs (the second lot of guys downstairs, the first lot merit their own chapter at some point) were two brothers from Bermuda or Barbados or somewhere else Carribean. Lovely chaps, usually good neighbours, except they'd come home stinking drunk, chunder in the gutter, crank up the tunes on their very large stereo and party with assorted friends/casual fucks/drunk people they met in the bar that night. At 3am. On a Tuesday.
One time this happened, I staggered downstairs and joined the fun. It was just the brothers and an incoherently drunk Irish barmaid from the pub around the corner. After a few drinks, they brought out a bottle of rum from Bermuda or Barbados or wherever it was they were from and poured me a shot. Wow. Dark, smooth, sweet and smoky. Makes Bundy taste like fermented cat piss (I suspect that's what it's made of anyway). Can't remember for the life of me what it was called though. And my interweb trawling has so far left me nonethewiser.
Of course, I could just go around and ask them, I think they still live there. Would be faster, too. Technology sometimes blinds us to the obvious solution, no?
When I moved to Sydney 10 years ago, tonight was pretty close to what I expected it to be like. Having bought myself a very stylish top from a very good local designer earlier today, met up with one of my regular crews and went to a rooftop party in a building up on top of the hill in North Bondi, with a spectacular view of the city, harbour bridge and North Sydney. Live band and DJs, party full of beautiful and interesting people. Most of them rather friendly.
(To this I attribute two factors:
1. It was a hat theme party, so everyone had to wear hats. My friends got me a very silly rajah/Aladdin-style hat which was a great coversation starter, and
2. Esctasy. Lots of it. In everyone else but me.)
Moving on from the party, saw a friend's band play in a beautiful high-ceilinged, art deco bar. Great looking venue, really good band. The crew went off clubbing but I was tired and went home.
I said the other day I didn’t want to get into the pro-life vs pro-choice terminology argument. I still don’t, but suffice to say I think both terms are hopelessly prejudicial. And support somtimes comes from the most unexpected quarters. For example, you’ll never guess who said this . . .
I would like the pro-life people to get another name because, frankly, that describes everybody in this place
I do not know anybody who is against life. Equally, some people refer to those who would take the decision from the minister and put it where it belongs - where it is made on every other medical intervention - as being pro-abortion. Let me tell you that I do not know anybody who is pro-abortion. Nobody thinks it is a good idea. Nobody wants anybody to be in that position.
I figured while I’m in Melbourne for a week I might as well read The Age instead of my usual local tabloid. Not that it’s helped; the problem isn’t so much the reporting as the subject matter.
The PM and the premiers have decided to make big pronouncements about passing stricter marijuana laws as part of a broader campaign to improve our mental health. Of course that’s the part that got all the headlines.
But WTF? I mean yes, there are links between excessive pot smoking and mental illness, especially schizophrenia. But does that mean Australians’ minds will be healthier if we go down the US path of jailing everyone who gets caught with a doobie? The experience of the US suggests not.
And wouldn’t it be better, if we wanted to improve the way we treated mental health, to for instance increase funding for mental health? Eh? But no, that would require spending money. Make enough noise about pot being the cause of all mental illness and nobody notices the goverment continues to do fuck all about the actual problems. This is the classic Howard tactic of saying “Look, it’s the Pope on a bicycle!” to distract us while fucking us in the arse.
Interesting debate from two senators on the RU486 vote. From one side - a Nationals senator - a well-reasoned argument why it should be up to the Therapeutic Goods Administration and not the Catholic, anti-abortion health minister to decide which drugs are safe to use. And from the other side - a Liberal senator - a bunch of emotive bullshit, attempts to confuse the issue and skewed statistics recycled directly from an anti-abortion lobby group. (DO NOT get me started on pro-bleeding-choice vs pro-bleeding-life terminology today.)
Here’s a good guide. When a politician says:
I have received a lot of correspondence on [insert topic here]. They are letters written with passion by ordinary Australians whose concerns have prompted them to put pen to paper.
. . . he or she is lying. (This is probably no big deal: doesn’t the old joke go that you know a politician is lying if his/her lips are moving?) It’s a bit of lame-arse rhetoric designed to convice you the politician isn’t pushing his or her own politicial/social/moral agenda but reflecting the will of his or her constituents.
