Earl Hood

I beg your pardon?

Yes Uncle I am stocking up the cellar as we blog! The last thing I need is an extra tax burden when I order my usual latest vintage 10 dozen Grange for the year! I mean don't they realise that such wine taxes will cost thousands of grape picking jobs, done by 457's and backpackers by the way.

Brian or Brain Taylor? I am not sure who Brain is! Certainly not the bloke on 7 surely.

As I said earlier Special, sheer luxury! The stories I could tell you about growing up, six of us kids, in a shoebox on the High Street, no parents, they died before I was even conceived! Don't go looking for sympathy from me. Abject poverty can be character building! Look what it has done for me, Special. Toughen up, embrace your abject poverty and turn it into a positive experience, you can aspire to a better life if you just work hard enough. Now you may not get paid award rates but don't let that deter you just keep working for the better life that is always just over the horizon.

Special has Batman Park become overgrown with trees since I walked past just a few weeks ago? Very odd! The trees must be blocking the view to the Yarra. Do you get WiFi in there?

Sheer luxury I say!!

Hummf. Being an Earl is not good enough eh Uncle, you now take advice from a Marquis. After all I have done for you, like bankrolling your last ill fated escapade in Asia and your total inability to market the remarkable health giving qualities of Guava Paste, if you remember?

Good pick up DC I haven't watched a WWII film or Dad's Army, Hogan's Heroes for years so I am rusty on the correct WWII nickname spelling for the dreaded Huns!

Dieter did you ever take a Gerry 'attrick?

Squirrel isn't an Egyptologist is he, Special? Professor William McElroy perhaps. Don't hit him on the head as he seems fairly harmless at the moment but he can change.

But I noticed their wine is cheap as over there anyway. Not so much here though. And they do reds, never knew that.

Biff I have just come back from the North Island does that count? And you are probably right.

Biff I would prefer we put Robert to a more constructive task cleaning the graffiti around Fitzroy! It should keep him busy for some time and he could sleep in Edinburgh Park at night with the possums, better than a bridge I would think.

I suspect the local indigenous tribe might have sent you on your way, that is very much their territory. They know they were dudded by J Batman, then Pascoe Fawkner so they would be very wary of another whitey intruding on their space, especially one who lives under a bridge!

Moons please I do not live in the burbs as that is how I regard Fitzroy North! I am Fitzroy central please and no I will not be lodging Special. As I have said elsewhere living under a bridge is luxurious compared to my former circumstances growing up in a shoebox. Hardship can be character building and I am a shining example of what it can produce, even if I say so myself. I do thank Special for living away out of sight, under a bridge, that is preferable to the ferals sleeping out at Flinders Street Station. Very untidy, and it upsets Robert Doyle so much. But don't bring your bedding to Fitzroy by the way. We have a zero tolerance rule here, Robert.

Dieter, please! Conchita is my number one assistant and confidant. She is extremely skilled, a great organiser and communicator. She is of Spanish origins and yes is somewhat hirsute, ok she has a beard but she sings like an angle. But these days we are all about diversity, yes? However I know this diversity may be a bridge too far for youse people?

Oh living under a bridge are we, sheer luxury, I say, Special. We grew up, whole family living in a shoe box on main road, up at dawn, off to mill, work all day, back for tea but there weren't none, just some coal to munch on, then a good flogging for our troubles. Aye sheer luxury these days!

Context?

Is this the longest stretch without a post in the history of this thread? I am in the land of the long white cloud so I have an excuse for my absence.

Hey Red you have reminded me, I first saw the Professor when I was a kid in Carry on Regardless. Sid James was running a business of handy men and women and this odd person would show up regularly speaking gobbledegook. Turns out he was the landlord telling them they were to be evicted. I remember the whole family being in stitches with this bloke who sounded so familiar but made no sense.

Not a lot, did you see BBO when you were in the Sin Bin?

Ditto!

Biff, have you found Colonel Kurtz yet?

Well Dieter I believe all US leaders believe in their right to attack their enemies off shore, wherever it may arise in the world. That gives them the right to ferment revolution or assination locally. And we have witnessed that throughout Central and South America and in Asia of course in the 20th century. Obama is just following a well worn national tradition.

Alas the answer is no DC. No polo for me I have been in Canberra for past few days visiting galleries and two exhibitions, the treasures of Versailles and the 2 million years of history in one room with 100 objects from the British Museum of History. In the latter I thought I would find an answer to the last 60 odd posts on this thread but no, while I saw the first evidence of human endeavour with cutting stones from Tanzania more than a million years ago through to tools and art from ancient Egypt, Babylon, Persia through to Alexander and Ptolemy, Augustus, Roman dominance, Tamarlane, aboriginal artifacts and on and on but oddly no mention of the Habsburgs, the Nazis or Steiner schools for that matter. Perhaps the aforementioned discussions are no more than a blip in history of mankind.