‘Spiritualism’ is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. (Which is not very, well,   spiritual , when you think about it). It seems that almost weekly a new band of devotees   follow a celebrity (who invariably claims to have ‘found the answer’) into whatever is the ‘faith of the moment’.   Spiritualism has not only become the new fashion, but somehow most of the so-called ‘new spiritualists’ have also failed to notice the irony in creating...

  I heard a guy on TV the other day say that the world was ‘basically divided into three types of people’.     (This made me wonder what world he lived in, because in my world there seems to have been, oh, at least forty-seven types so far, and counting).   He further went on to say that these three distinct types could be identified solely by the way they behaved in traffic jams.   (Oooooh gawd, really ?. Well shucks, what’s ...

    I have a clown phobia. They terrify me. I place the blame squarely on every awful 80’s ‘horror’ film I ever watched.   I spent my formative years viewing movies about clowns that would sit, smiling and apparently harmless, on a chair in a corner of your bedroom ... until the lights went out.   At which point they would suddenly grow very long arms and strangle you in your sleep.   Or produce an enormous meat-cleaver from the folds ...

  I'm not dead !. However, it's been so long between blogs that I now have blog 'stagefright'. (Or whatever the blogging equivalent of that is). I never intended to stay away so long !. It began as purely a 'circumstances' thing that morphed into a serious bout of laziness. Needless to say, I have much to catch up on, and will most eagerly be doing so over the next few weeks !. I can't wait !. It's good to be back ! Smooches to you all - you have been missed...

  I have briefly disengaged myself from the throng of houseguests to make the following announcement: Somebody ate all of my Cornflakes . I can handle the endless snoring from bloated corpse-like guests passed out all over my house. I can handle the giant electricity, phone and grocery bills we inevitably get lumbered with. I can handle the utter disregard for my privacy and desire for peace. I can even handle cooking for seven ravenous people in two sittings every n...

  The Australian system of government is an odd one at times. Our country is effectively under English rule, and our ‘at home’ leader is the ‘Prime Minister’, so named for his role as the Queens’ ‘prime’ representative in Australia.   One would assume that this means that the Queen has some say in the appointee to this role, yet, not only is this not so, the only recent interaction I can recall between an Australian Prime Minister and the Queen resulted in a (Brit...

  Before anybody sees it and freaks out, I wanted to advise that I have just seen the spammer hit one of my old articles, and I'm emailing the link to T-Man right now, as well as posting in the 'Forum Bug Reports', so don't worry. I'm sure the spammer will soon be thwarted again ! Mig XXX  

  In the Baxter Immingration Detention Centre in South Australia, detainees have been refusing food as a part of their action to gain asylum in Australia, and a prominent member of the Australian Democrats party has just joined them.   Australian Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett is staging a hunger strike to support asylum seekers at the centre. Reports say up to 27 ‘detainees’ are involved in the fortnight-long hunger strike, with claims that some have even st...

  I ‘slept funny’ last night, and I am now faced with a day full of awkward movements caused by the resultant stiff neck.   (In fact, I slept so funny that I want to go and have a nap right now ... and I only got up two hours ago !).   I watched a TV program recently where a male comedian described how, as a teenager, he would hear his (then aged mid-thirties) father complain every morning that he ‘slept funny’.   The father would enter the k...

  This week, it's the end of life as we know it, and the world is going to end tomorrow !. You have just been informed that planet earth has exactly 24 hours left, starting now ...       1/ What is your initial thought upon hearing the news ?     2/ Who is the first person you would contact ?     3/ How would you spend your last day on earth  ?     4/ ... And your last evening ?     ...

  I recently read an article that published excerpts from Robert F. Kennedy Jnr’s speech at the “Living a Fearless Life” conference held by the ‘Omega Institute’ in New York in April 2004. Entitled “Tearing Pages from The Bible”, the article focuses on Kennedy’s assertion that unregulated negative environmental impact eventually translates into economic catastrophe.   Kennedy demonstrates the ramifications of having little or no environmental policy by cit...

  It was my husband’s ‘work’ Christmas party last Saturday night and he made me go.   We have had the same petty argument every year since we married about his festive ‘business’ functions.     I hate them.   My idea of hell is meeting 25 people at once.   (My husband, on the other hand, considers socialising to be normal !. The nerve !).     Despite my reservations, the event itself was not go...

  I hate self-help books. I hate them so much that it’s almost pathological. I hate them so much that when I see people reading them, I want to yell at them for prostituting their literacy.   They are insipid things, creeping up on people, pretending to offer the answers to lifes’ problems, yet containing little more than some words arranged in a way that gives the illusion that the author may have some vague idea about how to ‘fix’ things.   The myriad of...

  Do you give much consideration to your underwear ?. (The reason I ask is that I have just been locked outside in mine , and this has given me pause for reflection). Yes, I saw my husband to the door when he was leaving for work this morning, and as he stepped outside, he pointed out a huge bloom on a plant I had been coaxing into flowering for months. As he called my attention to it, I stepped outside the door for just a moment to admire my flower, and it slammed shut. (The...

  ~ By MITCHELL DALE AT THE COFFS COAST ADVOCATE - 11.12.2004 ~     “COUP FOR AXEMEN”     RUSSELL Crowe is set to pull off another major coup for Orara Valley by luring former South Sydney hooker Jason Death out of retirement to strap on the boots for the Axemen next year.   After flying ex-Australia prop Mark Carroll to and from Orara Valley matches in 2003, Crowe is poised to do the same for Death, an 11-season NRL vete...