My favourite news story of the week

Yesterday the BBC was reporting that two elderly men in the state of Tobasco in Mexico, the last two speakers of their local indigenous language (one of 350 in Mexico) have had a falling out as a result of which they are no longer speaking to one another, thereby delivering the coup de grace to one more fine piece of of human creative output. It seemed funny in a rather tragic way, at the time.

The report included speculation that the origins of the argument were connected with the floods that recently devestated that part of Mexico.

Awkwardly today's BBC version is a refined version of the story, complete with input from an expert on Mexican indigenous languages, suggesting a more prosaic and less bathetic story. Turns out these two old codgers never were close and have little in common.

But congratulations to the BBC for (belatedly) injecting balance into the story.

Election fever

The good folk of voting age back home probably couldn't agree less but I'm coming rapidly round to the idea that elections should be held more often back home. Once a quarter perhaps? Six weeks for a campaign, six weeks of governance. On off, on off.

The antics that are standard issue electioneering are at least ensuring better some coverage of the great southern land.

For a start someone has decided that not enough people outside Australia are aware that they can watch footage via YouTube of the would-be Prime Minister (Kev) picking his ear and eating the scrapings. This is the sort of publicity money simply can't buy. Clearly the post-modern media mogul is taking Kev very seriously. So the whole story's been taken out and given another run around the block.

The fact that there's an 'Australian Notebook' column in today's paper is merely bandwagon jumping by Old Media from a right of centre stance. Stephen Pollard lays out a complicated case for not underestimating Little John when it would have been simpler to point out that since he hasn't been shot by a silver bullet or had a stake driven through his heart he obviously has a chance in next month's federal election.

Kev is famous

Kev. got a ref. a few months back after deploying his Big Party Number at an international conference held in Australia apparently for the sole purpose of showcasing Little Johnny - Statesman. This (the Big Party Number) was positioned as a sterling piece of upstagery by a greasy little oik on the make which shows remarkable and hitherto rarely hinted at perspicacity on the subject of Matters Antipodean amongst British journalists.

With the federal election well and truly underway, the first wave of bribery tax pledgery out in the open, it is time for the Times to cast its piercing gaze over the prospective next Prime Minister of Australia. Well, sort of.

There's a small piece in today's paper: a picture of Kev and a sentence beneath it explaining that Kev is being shown in the act of eating his own ear wax.

Eugh. Still it could be worse. I'd always understood Fat Gordy to be a nail-biter but apparently those nails are in inadvertent consequence of snot eating.

In the good old days

This is the latest in an occasional series of practice Bonkers Old Woman in Purple Dress Posts. Tonight I've been provoked by a young man on the British Broadcasting Corporation wireless broadcast service, clearly ignorant, attempting to pronounce the name of a Pacific island nation state and coming out with Thai-hiti. Thankfully he made no attempt at Tahiti's capital; we might still be attempting to divine the place to which he was making reference.

Oh dear, oh dear.

In the good old days The BBC employed an army of young men (and women before they married and retired to keep house and raise children) who developed, supplied and policed correct pronunciation in virtually every conceivable language.

Those were the days.

PS: I gave this wanker the benefit of the doubt, thinking he might realise the mistake and correct himself at the first opportunity. He's just repeated Thai-hiti so me, I name names. This tosser's name is Tim Lovegodjoy, for the record. To add to the general ignominy in which he seems to determined to cloak himself he's just responded "who?" to his colleague's "Vanuatu". However much this man's paid is too much of my tax and licence fee.

The case for bringing back News at 10

It is simple really. Somewhere in the house there's a piece of video tape, the piece on it runs for just a few minutes. It was made back in October 1994, at Blackpool, in the Winter Garden. ITV had a stand there, a mock up of their news studio and anyone willing to make a phool of him or herself could line up to be filmed reading three short stories including the famous 'And finally...' or whatever the catch phrase was.

And until the News at 10 comes back there's no point showing that tape of this particular phool to the Offspring.

Don't understand moment

Mick Hume has a piece in today's paper on the subject of middle-class drinking, which is a matter quite close to my heart and the subject of the government's current search for a punch-bag.

Or perhaps quite reasonably the government's decided it is tactically non-astute to continue bashing the feckless underclasses when it is the welfare dependent who are most likely to vote for them if they can be drawn away from the telly long enough to actually participate in the electoral process.

On the other hand every government needs an villain and what could be more appealing to Gordy's rabid socialist uber-control freakery than the BMW driving classes of prosperous and leafy south-england.

If we'd all sober up and down shift then the level playing field could be achieved without the feckless having to shift themselves to actually do anything of their own accord and on their own behalf.

So it was perfectly reasonable in my opinion for Hume to take a swipe at the demonising of the non-sober middle-classes.

What puzzled me was his reference to speeding on the M25 (admittedly the wrong way). Everyone knows the M25 the ring 'road' that runs around London's outskirts is a glorified parking lot. Perhaps Mick's hard up and needs to be called back to provide another paid piece by way of explaination.

Be careful what you wish for

They've replaced That Derbyshire woman with that Nolan bloke. Come back Victoria, all is foregiven.

The house is very quiet without the radio on.

Where angels fear to tread

That's usually where you'll find me blundering about like a baby elephant.

So rather late in the day I've decided to investigate those who went before me in adopting the acronym MAHL, and the word if it exists. Those I've unearthed, in Google-Order, include:

• mahl magazine, which I must confess I spent no time whatsoever looking into. On that basis my impression is that the people behind it are likely to very skinny girls in smock tops and boys with exotic-shaped bits of beard about the jaw line, plus a couple of older men in artistic spectacles;
  
• there are, of course, the mahl stick and the mahl bridge - available at all good suppliers of artists' requisites. ;
  
• there's also the Mid-Atlantic Hockey League, which if it sounds more interesting than this can be reached here;
  
• it is a surname*
  
• a language spoken by the half-dozen or so inhabitants of Minicoy Island, India. It is a variant of the official language of the Maldives (and it is actually spoken by about 15-20,ooo people). It is also sometimes refered to as Mahal.
  
• a place in Texas, USA**, Latitude 31.7336, Longitude -94.6761, Altitude (feet) 449
  
• it stands for Maastricht Aachen Hasselt Liège (major cities of the Meuse-Rhine)
  
• and Master of Arts in Hebrew Literature/Letters
  
• and Midland Amateur Hockey League (Midland, Michigan)
  
• it is also the stock code on the Stockholm (that's Sweden, ok?) bourse for a company called AB MÄHLER & SÖNER, producers of "snow clearance equipments for truck, wheel loader, and road grader." It was founded in 1895 and is based in Rosson, Sweden. (This is not investment advice, ok.)
  
• there is the MAHL method, which is something brain-achingly science-ish
  
• it is the ID for a weather station at Horseshoe Lake in Arizona, USA** at LATITUDE: 33.98, LONGITUDE: -111.71, ELEVATION: 2001 ft
  
• it is the name or partial name of sundry sole practices and partnerships (an inevitable consequence of it being a surname and some people of that name becoming doctors*
  
• Milton Adult Hockey league: "of Miltonians, by Miltonians, for Miltonians" or something very like that

Finally, the search produced the web pages for the Mercian Order of St.George about which I could unearth little besides the self-descriptory phrase "an Eclectic Unitarian Fraternity". You can read a little more here.

* Doctors are on the whole a pretty dedicated bunch of self-publicists who never knowingly under sell themselves and have taken to the internet as a marketing tool like a very large flock of particularly agressive ducks.

** Does this grate? Redundancy always does.

Now scanning that lot I have to concluded that I got off lightly. Even the Mercians might be god botherers but they're hardly offensive in their belief-set or approach. The rest are largely either hockey nuts or derived from a surname.

So I think that's that. It is safe to describe myself as a Militant Atheist Humanist Libertarian.

Death

Why, oh, why can Luciano Pavarotti die every day? Or at least Monday through Friday. So far today I've heard Nessum Dorma at least 6 times, and I'm now listening to La donna è mobile for the second time. Right through from beginning to end, with out any talking over what so ever. Have ignorant radio hacks ever displayed such courtesy and respect both for artist and audiance. Thought not.

Actually I'm glad the great man's at peace.

Community Service Awards

I imagine no-one gives a bugger but I'm going to do it anyway; I'm going to dish out a handful of well deserved community service awards. This was to have been a longer post, but I haven't time. Lucky aren't you?

Californication sounds like total tosh (and so will probably go on to win other awards). To its producers and to Network Ten which is screening it in Australia my heartiest thanks for your sterling work which has managed to upset the United God Botherers Brigade (Down Under Branch). This fruit loop fringe is otherwise known as the Australian Christian Lobby and they're upset about the sex. They're right about there being too much sex about, of course. If only their parent had never indulged, what a wonderful world this would be.

Crackpots also don't like the fact that there's violence in a program called City HOMICIDE (congratulations to Seven) and that a stand up comedian says Rude Things. Now if they were forced to watch, they might have something to complain about. But forcing us Not To Watch, by driving this stuff from the nation's screens. That's an entirely different matter.