Quote: Sigmund Freud?

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

Although this is often attributed to Sigmund Freud, there is no record of him ever having said it or written it.

It appears that the quote may be an adaptation of the phrase “Sometimes a banana is just a banana” used in an early Saturday Night Live sketch, as follows:

Announcer: And now, Great Moments in Herstory, a celebration of women through the ages.

[Dissolve to a finely appointed sitting room, complete with globe, couch and easy chair. A narrator reads a superimposed text as it scrolls by.]

Movie Moments: Rat Race

If you have not yet seen the 2001 flick Rat Race, rush out to your movie outlet, buy or borrow it and spend a lazy Sunday afternoon watching it, close your eyes and drift away, as the Small Faces sang.

For those of you who don’t want your enjoyment of the movie diminished, stop reading now, there are spoilers ahead.

Rat Race is one of my favourite fillums and is one of a handful that can actually cause me to laugh out loud. I’ve seen it heaps of times but still like watching it again every now and then.

There are so many scenes and so many quotes worth mentioning that I feel I am doing an injustice by selecting only one, but that one is gold: the Hitler Car.

Quote: Stephen Hawking (1942-)

“I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.”

Quote: George Bernard Shaw (1814-1885)

“Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance.”

Quote: Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809)

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”

I don't usually provide biographies of the persons quoted but Paine is such a fascinating character that I will provide a brief one.

He was on the spot for so many important historical events that he reminds me of Forrest Gump.

From Wikipedia:

Thomas Paine (29 January 1737 – 8 June 1809) was an English pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, inventor and intellectual. He lived and worked in Britain until age 37, when he emigrated to the British American colonies, in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contribution was the powerful, widely-read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and of The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series.

Quote: Samuel Johnson (1709-1784),

'I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."'

Samuel Johnson, quoted in Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson

Laws & Principles: The Peter Principle / Laurence J Peter (1919-1990)

“In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”

- Laurence J Peter, the above being known as the Peter Principle.

The principle holds that in a hierarchy members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain.

Dr Peter's Corollaries:

“In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties."

"Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence".

Music: Subterranean Homesick Blues / Bob

In March 1965 Bob Dylan released an album, Bringing It All Back Home, which contained the song Subterranean Homesick Blues. That song was issued as a single the following month, reaching Number 39 in the American charts and Number 10 in the UK. One of Dylan’s first electric works, it was his first in the Top 40 in the US.

The song is a put down of a schoolgirl being unable to exist outside of an institutional umbrella and is particularly well known because of the film clip associated with it.

See and hear Dylan’s performance of it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srgi2DkDbPU

The lyrics can be read at:

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bob+dylan/subterranean+homesick+blues_20021303.html

The video shows Bob Dylan with a series of cue cards with selected lyrics from the song. The video has been spoofed/reenacted many times, some notable ones including INXS's "Mediate" and Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade's "Buzzards of Green Hill."

Australiana: The Eureka Oath

“(Peter Lalor) knelt down, the head uncovered, and with right hand pointing to the standard, exclaimed in a measured tone: ‘We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other to defend our rights and liberties. A universal well-rounded Amen was the determined reply.”

– Raffaello Carboni (1817-1875), the author of the main eyewitness account of the Eureka Stockade, writing about the oath taken by Peter Lalor, leader of the rebelling miners, on the 29.11.1854, the evening before the assault by Government troops.

Quote: Lance Armstrong (1971 - )

“What am I on? I'm on my bike, busting my ass 6 hours a day. That’s what I'm on. What are you on?”

- Lance Armstrong, 7 time winner of the Tour de France, responding to doping allegations.

Quote: Jack Handey (1949 - )

“To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kind of scary. I've wondered where this started and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus, and a clown killed my dad.”

Quote: Shirley Temple (1928 - )

“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.”

Quote: Nikita Kruschev (1894-1971)

"The main difference for the history of the world if I had been shot rather than Kennedy is that Onassis probably wouldn't have married Mrs Khrushchev."

Music: Fretkillr

Unless you’ve been living on Mars for the last 5 years you would know what YouTube is. For those who have been living on Mars, YouTube is a video sharing website where people can post, view and share video clips. Think of it as a giant video library with millions upon millions of video clips that can be accessed by typing in the name. You will find clips of people doing silly stunts, clips of 60’s TV stars, your kids singing… it’s a bit like that song Portobello Road in Bedknobs and Broomsticks or Alice’s Restaurant, a place where you can find and get anything you want.

Which brings me to today’s topic.

Anyone can post what they want (within reason) on YouTube.Some people have achieved fame from their video clips having gone world wide for viewing, such as the guy in Sydney who walked around with a sign saying “Free Hugs” and then gave hugs to people.

One guy who posts videos of himself singing and playing is a guy who goes by the name of Fretkillr (also known as Fretkiller).

Legal: Unique Sentencing Submissions

(First posted 05.12.2008)

How would you like to be this fellow's lawyer?...

Adam Patrick Owens, 35, of Cremorne recently pleaded guilty to murdering his mother in 2006. Apparently she was a green activist and was described as feisty. She was 69 at the time. Just before he was to go to trial, he changed his plea to guilty. The matter came before the NSW Supreme Court today for sentencing submissions where Mr Owens addressed the Court on his own behalf, no doubt leaving his barrister seated at the bar staring at the ceiling and rolling his eyes.

Mr Owens asked that mitigating matters be ignored and that he be given the maximum penalty, crticising the prosecutor who raised an issue of depression, saying "Please stop trying to mitigate the offence, it sends a terrible message to the public."

Quote: Albus Dumbledore

“It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

- Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Question: Pixie O'Harris

Whilst thinking about the Harris clan, does anyone know what happened to the numerous Pixie O'Harris murals in the former Children's Hospital in Camperdown when the hospital was converted to private residential apartments? They were delightful paintings of animals, much like the May Gibbs illustrations. I remember them from when my daughter was in the hospital a couple of times as a baby.

As a digression, Pixie O'Harris, the aunt of Rolf, was named Rhona Olive Harris but she hated the name. Dubbed the Welsh pixie on the boat to Australia, she adopted Pixie O. Harris as her name. Following a printer's error in the Sydney Morning Herald where her name was printed as Pixie O'Harris, she stayed with that thereafter. She was born in 1903 and died in 1991.

If anyone has any knowledge on those murals, I would be appreciative.

Quote: Rolf Harris, Part 2

(First posted 4 Dec 2008)
Readers may recall that Rolf Harris featured recently in these pages for his demonstration of diplomacy Rolf Harris style.

Rolf apologised for the "let my abos go loose, Lou, they're of no further use" lyric in the original version of Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, then proceeded to get stuck into them as being lazy, dirty and non-disciplined. It seemed a funny sort of apology.

Rolf has now apologised for the apology, reported in today's SMH at:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/people/rolf-harris-apologises-for-insulting-aborigines/2008/12/03/1228257139278.html

From that article:

He said yesterday that the remarks were made in response to a documentary he had seen about the state of indigenous accommodation around Uluru.

It's all a matter of feeling really rough and having somebody jump onto me for a quote about something or other. I quite honestly should have kept my mouth shut, and gritted my teeth and not said anything. I would just like to apologise for causing offence to anybody.

Quote: Alan Hull (1945 -),

“Neurotics build castles in the sky, psychotics live in them, psychiatrists collect the rent and psychopaths smash the windows.”

- Alan Hull, British rock musician

Great Cricket Sledges: Eddo Brandes

Aussie bowler Glenn McGrath to Zimbabwe batsman Eddo Brandes:
"Why are you so fat?"

Brandes in reply:
"Because every time I make love to your wife, she gives me a biscuit."

Quote: Queen Mother (1900-2002)

"It will never work with all those Huns, wops and dagos."

- The Queen Mother (1900-2002) in the early 1990’s, commenting on the European Union, a political and economic union of 27 member states, established in 1993. Quoted in a new book It’s a PC World by BBC presenter Edward Stourton, to whom she addressed the words in a conversation after learning that Stourton had just returned from Europe to cover the proposed EU. He comments that “I thought that what she had said was nasty and ugly. … The Queen Mother came from a certain generation when people did talk like that."

Source: The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/nov/10/queen-mother-royals-media-bbc

Quote: Chuang Tse (c 369-286 BC)

"I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man."

Movie: The Italian Job - The Ending

(First posted 30.11.2008)

Welcome, a treat in store with this item... an explanation for the ending of the movie The Italian Job.

For those pissants among the readership who are too young to remember this movie classic, let me offer some background…

The Movie:

The Italian Job (the original, not the 2003 remake) was made in 1969 and stars Michael Caine. Caine plays Charlie Croker, who has just been released from prison and who plans a big job: the theft of $4m in gold arriving in Italy from China. To achieve this feat Charlie enlists the aid of a computer geek to create a giant traffic jam and recruits a team of safe crackers and drivers, all the while working under the noses of the Mafia.

Australiana: Cook shoots a local

(A further item from last year's Australia Day).

On 29 April 1770 Captain James Cook first stepped ashore at what is now Kurnell in what is now Australia and immediately shot one of the indigenous population for throwing a stone, setting the tone for black-white relations for the next 238 years until Kevin Rudd said sorry.

From Cook’s journal:

Sunday, 29th.

In the P.M. wind Southerly and Clear weather, with which we stood into the bay and Anchored under the South shore about 2 miles within the Entrance in 5 fathoms, the South point bearing South-East and the North point East. Saw, as we came in, on both points of the bay, several of the Natives and a few hutts; Men, Women, and Children on the South Shore abreast of the Ship, to which place I went in the Boats in hopes of speaking with them, accompanied by Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander, and Tupia. As we approached the Shore they all made off, except 2 Men, who seem’d resolved to oppose our landing. As soon as I saw this I order’d the boats to lay upon their Oars, in order to speak to them; but this was to little purpose, for neither us nor Tupia could understand one word they said. We then threw them some nails, beads, etc., a shore, which they took up, and seem’d not ill pleased with, in so much that I thought that they beckon’d to us to come ashore; but in this we were mistaken, for as soon as we put the boat in they again came to oppose us,

Australiana: Under the Southern Cross I Stand

On a day celebrating all things Oz, and at a time when there is ongoing debate about our flag and anthem (and I place on record that I hate the inane lyric “Our home is girt by sea”), it is appropriate to repeat and amplify an item posted last Australia Day, the victory song of the Australian Cricket Team.  I came across it again as I was transferring old posts to this blog.

The words to the song are:

"Under the Southern Cross I stand
A sprig of wattle in my hand
A native of my native land
Australia, you f***ing beauty"

Music: Rolf Harris / Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport

(First sent  29.11.2008)

Never let it be said, dear readers, that this regular email does not strive, on occasions at least, to be topical and relevant. Certainly an item on what was thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge may not be of riveting interest in 2008, but today’s item is bursting with topicality…
Rolf Harris has been in the news in the last few days for a number of reasons:

Baz Luhrman did a last minute deal with Rolf to have Rolf’s wobble board in the sound track for Australia, Baz having realised how iconic for Oz that wobble board sound is;

Rolf has released a picture book of his paintings illustrating the lyrics to Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.

After doing the big atonement grovel for some of the lyrics, Rolf made a few comments that weren’t exactly PC (more of that later).

Extract: A Tale of Two Cities / Charles Dickens (1812-1870),

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Quote: Jack Handey (1949 - )

“Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn’t seem quite so funny.”

Quote: Augustus de Morgan (1806-1871)

"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on."

Poetry Extract: Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

"We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
- Ullysses