A rising tide that will sink the Libs "This is fine." The shit that happened has floated back into frame. Tones is back! What was predicted has come to pass. Kiss O'Death, or Tone Deaf as he's known in some circles, has been elected unopposed as President of the Lying Nasty Party. Abbott is emblematic of the Libs - a 68 year old male, a political failure, a RWNJ soundly rejected by his electorate, a condescending sexist, a technophobe, a biblical literalist and a wrecker. Who better to repair the fortunes of his forsaken party? The greatest threat to the Libs and Nats is One Nation - the party of grievance and dissent, a repository for the anger of the rubes who were abandoned by the Nats in favour of billionaire mining interests and of the disaffected urban bogans who cheer on the ginger whinger who has consistently voted against their interests. Abbott believes validating the resentments of the populist right will bring them back into the L/NP fold. Instead, he is giving them permission to vote for One Nation. Abbott is adored in the RWNJ ecosphere as "the best opposition leader we've ever had". In opposition he prosecuted a 'just say no' campaign of blanket negativity and disparagement, disregarding merit and national interests in favour of constant conflict. And he carried it over into government. Defined by what he was against, his greatest achievements were tearing down the accomplishments of others. It's easy to oppose, harder to have ideas of your own. As a hard-core born-to-ruler Abbott believes in an immutable, God-ordained hierarchy where he and his patronising ilk form the upper echelon, ceding status only to royalty and the Vatican (the woke Leo XIV excepted I suspect), and there is no bastardry that is out of bounds for restoring and maintaining that arrangement. The beatings will continue until morale improves: “We need to break the something-for-nothing, entitlement mindset that is so corrosive of societies’ morale...” Tony Abbott, in a 2025 speech to the International Democracy Union. Abbott is on a ≈ $300k p.a. obligation-free, indexed pension for life + travel, office and support perks. Abbott's agenda is no secret. A focus on "preserving traditional values, national identity, strong borders" and promoting nuclear/fossil fuel/anti-climate mitigation. It's Peter Dutton’s agenda + the rescinding of industrial relations protections. Bernard Keane: "...the Liberal future Abbott thinks will be a winner is Dutton plus WorkChoices". When Tony Abbott was elected PM by his party the Libs had 44 metropolitan seats. They now have nine. Only one of their seats on the east coast has coastal views and none front Sydney Harbour. The bourgeoisie fled for the exits in previous Tory strongholds in Melbourne, zero seats are directly held by the Libs within the greater Brisbane area and they hold one each in metropolitan Adelaide and Perth. 57% of Australians reside in major metropolitan areas - yet now with bugger all representation in the Liberal party room. The Lib's response to their existential crisis: Talking heads - Rhodes To Nowhere The Liberal Party is 'under new management’ declared Abbott. Two old school tie, privileged products of their cloistered orbit within Gothic sandstone grandeur, ritual, robes and incense. There was some concession to diversity - Abbott is an alumnus of St Ignatius' College, Riverview while Taylor was educated at The King's School, Parramatta. A further lurch to the right and further alienation of 86% of voters who do not identify as Right¹ is their plan for electoral redemption? Abbott's attack dog style is to be unleashed, salted with warmed-over MAGA-ish jingoism - "That's what we are, the freedom party ... but above all else, we are the patriot party, which is why at our best, we should be absolutely unbeatable." Stir in some appeals to the antediluvians and dog-whistling to the racist fringe - "As Liberals, we cherish freedom, we respect tradition, but above all else we love our country." In a clear appeal to the cookers, sovereign citizens, neo-nazis and flag-shaggers who fled the Libs to back One Nation Abbott declared that the party’s job was to lead a “people’s revolt”, profess their monopoly on patriotism and refuse to stand in front of the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander flags. The mean and nasty is to be dialled up. The bogeyman of fanciful crises, hyperbolic accusations of imminent civilisation collapse at the hands of the demonic forces of Labor, unions, greenies and the woke will be invoked accompanied by the performative outrage of Murdoch's muckers. Those who also welcome Tones back are Labor and the independents. Oh, and Pauline. Bumping uglies ¹Left | Right | Out How voters perceive their own politics and the relative positions of political parties in a left/right ideological space. An Accent Research and RedBridge Group report. Figure 2. What exactly is Tony Abbott playing at? Christopher Warren, Crikey ($) 11 May, 2026 "Tony Abbott is the closest person the Liberals have to a Pauline Hanson figure. With his expanding influence, could we see a return to politics? Or did he never really leave?"

Should we have a new flag? And if we should, what designs should we consider? Aussie patriotism is not the boastful, jingoistic, ubiquitous flag-waving of Americans. Our most cringeworthy manifestation of national pride is the egregious "Aussie Aussie Aussie oi oi oi!" And like our flag that is not even original, being a corruption of the British rugby chant "Oggy Oggy Oggy oi oi oi". When we wave our flag it's for special occasions; and that brings me to a secondary reason for a change. Our flag has been hijacked by the loopy right - toothless, tattooed hordes of bellicose bogans and neo-nazis draped in our national emblem, the self-righteously religious, RWNJs and far-right fascists. It's a sad day when the sight of your own national flag evokes misgivings about the reasons for its display. The primary reason for a change though is that, dear Old Blighty, it's time. Your flag is wonderful - a great, inspiring design - so you can have it back. We're moving on. Should we have a new flag? I was undecided until Jerry Seinfeld tipped me over the edge with his quip - "Nice! England at night." But we should change only when we have an inspiring, thoughtful alternative - and there are some truly awful ideas out there. What are the options? "Ausflag is an apolitical, non-profit organisation seeking to secure the popular support of the Australian people for the adoption of a truly Australian flag. " Alternative flag designs are solicited by Ausflag and are shown on their web site. A very few of these designs are worth considering. The others range from hilarious through horrendous to hideous. So here are my rules for a new flag: No green. Green is a horrible colour for a flag, i don't care that our national colours are green and gold. The Brazilian flag is dreck - mostly due to the horrid green. The best designed flags never have green. Retain some link with the past - keep the blue background. 3 colours - max. No kangaroos, no emus, no boomerangs, no Uluru. It'll look like a souvenir tea towel. Stylised animals make for great logos, not great national flags. We are not Australia Inc. (provided we vote the Libs out before they complete their agenda). The KISS Principle. The simplest solution is always best. But a few horizontal or vertical stripes shows no imagination. Some offerings on the other hand look like the kindy kids have been let loose with an old Women's Weekly, bunny rabbit scissors and a bottle of Klag - a bit of this, some of that, throw that in.... No Aboriginal flag. It's theirs - let's not steal it from them; let them keep something FFS! No Eureka flag. It's a great design with historical context but it, like our current flag, has been hijacked by fringe loonies and red necks. Some submissions to Ausflag From the You've Got To Be Kidding folder An astronomical impossibility. Tall Aussie cricketer strides to the crease for a day-night match. Shelter shed wall at the paintball park. 126 bald men gathered around a camp fire. Wally did a burn-out in his ute down in the dusty creek bed last night. A dead kangaroo; killed in a meteor shower. A kangaroo farting pixie dust Someone blasted a hole in my Liechtenstein flag with a shot gun. A nocturnal Homer Simpson lurking behind the back fence. A smiley face x Pablo Picasso I have little doubt that whoever came up with this shocker has green hair and a unicorn tattoo on their arse. I was strolling along the beach when i got kidnapped by 5 alien spaceships. From the good, sensible design folder . Minimal change, maximum effect. The winner unless a better one comes along. A bit too close to the Finnish flag for comfort but a nice, neat design with cues from the Eureka flag. Reverse the colours? Vexicological trivia. Torres Straight Islands While the Aboriginal flag is an example of good design the same can't be said of the Torres Straight Islander flag which brings to mind a ​plumber with trademark bum crack, head under the sink, hitting his thumb with a hammer. Which US state has the Union Jack on its flag? Hawaii

Taxonomy is the practice of categorizing and naming of species. The official scientific name of an organism consists of its Genus and its Species Identifier, for example Corvus corax for crows, Homo sapiens for humans and Homo phobias for Lyle Shelton of the Australian Christian Lobby. Taxonomies are useful for understanding the relationships between species and their behaviours so I am somewhat surprised that there has been no scientific classification of the Tory family of organisms given the devastating affect they have had on the environment. In the absence of such I have drafted my own take on Tories which perhaps the boffins can finesse with further studies. The Tory family is believed to have branched off from hominids at about the time money was invented. Whether sea shells or bit coins, money provided a valuable evolutionary tool to those creatures who were prepared to use it to advantage themselves at the expense of others - Darwinism in action. Tories are great believers in the survival of the wealthiest. Note: Tories are not endemic to Australia. They are common also in the UK (Tory bloviatus) and the USA (Tory magamentalis). Two sub-families form the Australian grouping: Tory avariciousi and Tory yokelensis. Avariciousi is found in urban areas while yokelensis' natural habitat is the countryside. They have been known to interbreed, producing rather bizarre hybrids known as Darians and Clarissas, identifiable by their lack of a chin and their fondness for chinos. The best time for Tory spotting is when they gather together in the Australian Capital Territory each year to gorge on taxpayers' money and drink themselves to stupefaction - the gutters of Kingston and Manuka are ideal places for Tory watching. Trivia: We Tory watchers call ourselves twatchers. There are some commonalities across the genera and species that comprise the Tory family: an aversion to light, their calls of "labor labor labor & look over there", a staggering incompetence, an insatiable appetite for money (other people's) and a beligerent hostility when cornered. In a strange twist of devolution they are cold blooded. As with Darwin's finches from the Galapagos Islands they have evolved into various genera, a process that sped up noticeably upon the appearance in 1996 of Rattus fabricatus, commonly known as the lying rodent. The lying rodent is thought to have bred with Beehive ridiculousii - the lumpen Bronnysaurus Bishopii from Sydney's northern beaches whose Spakfilla features and red-lipsticked rictus made it look as if it was 3 days late for its own funeral. Rattus fabricatus Beehive ridiculousii Warringai wreckus The offspring from the coupling of fabricatus and ridiculousii is Warringai wreckus colloquially known as the feral friar who has an appearance similar to the early hominids. Covered in hair with an ape-like gait and a staccato cackle it resurrected rumours of the legendary yowie. It is now thought to be extinct. A creature that is on the brink of extinction - the agrarian bloodsucker (Barnabus rortii) is found in the northern tablelands of NSW rummaging through the wheelie bins of Tamworth public houses after dark. It has an easily recognisable call - "caaaarp, caaaaarp", a stumbling gait, gelatinous white thighs, fetid breath, bulging eyes, florid facial features resembling a baboon's backside and teeth like a leper's toes. It was displaced from its Canberra mating grounds by the bobble-headed booby (no-one can remember its proper name) from the Riverina region whose comatose demeanor is often mistaken for a constant state of hibernation. The booby has recently learned to walk on 2 legs. The most prominant example of Tory avariciousi is Happi-clappus mammonitis - the smirking tit. Mammonitis is a migratory specimen, flying to Pacific islands in the Australian summer & only returning when the heat reaches all the way to Hawaii. Mammonitis marks its territory with its own excrement and habitually displays both thumbs in a gesture that is taken to mean "how good are these? I just took 'em outta me own arse". One species known for its aversion to light is Dodgi asfukkus, or the black angus. The natural habitat for this species is large holes in the ground and dead native grasslands. The black angus also frequents the Cayman Islands where it stashes its reserves of money for leaner times. The black angus's call is a loud "ka-ching". The red gladys, also known as the purple flyer is an introduced species from Hong Kong. The red gladys was released into the wealthy suburbs of Melbourne after being bred in captivity by the Chinese Communist Party who hope it will spread its genes throughout the Tory avariciousi family while it distracts them with wads of cash. The screeching shrew is from the west coast and is characterised by a helmeted crest on its head, not dissimilar to that on a cassowary, and with a shrill call that peels paint - "oil noime noimes". The screeching shrew has other similarites to the cassowary - it's shy, hiding from the AFP & behind whiteboards, yet is vicious when cornered. Nobody has witnessed the mating habits of the screeching shrew and nobody wants to. We'll simply leave it as rumours that it prefers the 'reverse cow-girl'. Kipfler autocratus, the potato-headed boob, is known to become aroused in the presence of dark uniforms and semi-automatic weapons (evident from a slight upward movement of the left side of its mouth on its otherwise inert features). It's best to approach autocratus dressed in civvies. When out of sight it is believed that autocratus likes to adorn itself in a gimp mask and neck-to-ankles, crotchless black latex accessorised with a riding crop. This Taxonomy is a work in progress. There are many other species yet to be covered, including those of the related family Corporatus rapaciousii with which the Tories have formed a symbiotic relationship in order to steal water, poison the atmosphere, pollute the oceans, destroy habitats and share sun beds with on the French Riviera. It's difficult to get direct involvement from the species as they resist the science of evolution so this is an observational exercise and there's only one of me. * * * * * This post is also published by the Australian Independent Media Network.

What would Tony do? Setting the Tone for the demise of the Libs Tony Abbott once hyperbolically described his stint in the big, green PM chair as the "Abbott era", as if his mercifully brief two years formed a dynasty or a significant layer in the political strata. A more fitting description is '2IC in the Credlin-Abbott bozozoic interregnum'. But Abbott is still admired in the RWNJ ecosystem because he is steeped in RWNJ orthodoxy - wealth as virtue, climate denial, culture wars, sexism and racism. Abbott's fall at the 2019 election was put down to a failure on the part of the electorate to appreciate the virtues of a paternalistic troglodyte. Tories are not given to introspection hence their existential crisis caught them by surprise when Labor, the Greens and progressive independents routed the bastards in 2022. When once blue-ribbon Lib seats abandoned them and turned to more progressive independents these mugs argued it was because the Tories were insufficiently rabid. Such is the logic of the swivel-eyed loonies from the right. Now they want Tones back. The best thing to ever happen to Abbott was Scott Morrison - 'worst ever PM' became a contestable title that gives Abbott a bit of wriggle room. As a once reliable, now disillusioned Tory base fled for the exits this is the man the Liberal Party proposes as its federal president. The organizational wing, headed by the President, is responsible for pre-selecting candidates and promoting party philosophy. An Old Testament technophobe is to be their wise sage and venerable counsel. It's not certain that Abbott would lobby for a return to the teletype or the codpiece but it cannot be discounted. "[Angus] Taylor wants Abbott in the job...so that he can inject energy and ideas into the party." SMH 8 May 2026 Angus Taylor's Tony Abbott tribute band, Rhodes To Nowhere, seems destined to hasten the Liberal Party’s slide to minor-party status by embracing the feral friar's carping negativity and his drive to the fringe by squabbling with One Nation over ownership of the grievance/oi oi oi/bigot/cooker vote. “I’m confident that the leadership team of Angus Taylor and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has the conviction and courage to make a real contest of the next election.” Tony Abbott. 11 May, 2025 “In any capacity at all [I] will be striving to make Angus Taylor Australia’s 32nd prime minister.” Kiss O'Death Abbott The humiliating massacre of the Libs and Nats at the Farrer by-election has clearly demonstrated the efficacy of that strategy. Did that finally teach them a lesson? You be the judge: Deputy douche Jane Hume explained that the Liberals lost Farrer because the voters were “angry at Albo” despite the fact Labor did not contest the seat. She also refused to rule out a One Nation alliance. Matt Sooty Canavan’s “We are back!” with the Nationals’ fourth placing at <10% of the vote. Murdoch muck spreader and Tory stooge Andrew Bolt who claims the defenestration of the Tories was a humiliation for "the Left". The plummy-vowelled sago pudding in a suit that is Lord Alexander Downer argued the Liberal Party ought to learn lessons from One Nation’s stance on immigration and race. Speaking of Curly Downunder: “Was a more conceited piece of fairy floss ever put on a stick?” Paul Keating on Alexander Downer. This is the Tory meritocracy at work. "Very much opposed to quotas”...they are “contrary to the merit and what should be at the heart of our Liberal conservative philosophy”. Two failed, past their use by dates, old, white guys battling it out over ownership of the Liberal Party's demise (the average Australian is a 37yr old woman, the average Liberal is a 70yr old man). The Liberals have behaved like a protest party. They are becoming as relevant as a TV test pattern Cathy Wilcox. The SMH Golding. The SMH A decade of dog-whistles and a decade of lost voters. The Coalition’s natural voter just became Australia’s largest diaspora. It doesn’t vote for them. Kos Samaras, The New Daily. 7 May, 2026

George Washington's last great experiment may get voluntarily flushed down a gold-plated toilet A syphilitic gobshite, charlatan, rapist and traitor We Australians are all well accustomed to Americans, but they are not like you and me. They don't pronounce the 'h' in herb. They call it gas but it's a liquid. Tuna fish. WTF? Cow mammal? They live within walking distance of a school shooting. Guns and Jesus. Jesus was a white American BTW. The NRA. Wealth = virtue. More = better. Large, jumbo or godzilla-size? The last hold out of imperial measurements. MM/DD/YY. They don't know what communism is but they know they don't like it. 98 icecream flavours. Frothed chocolate chip cookie dough lattes. Marshmallow infused breakfast cereal. The flag. Everywhere. The World Series (sic). The widespread deployment of middle initials. Child beauty pageants. Ew! Visiting foreign countries wherein to search out Starbucks and McDonalds. The electoral college. "Thank you for your service." Joe Exotic. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Bobert. Wonton killings, gazpacho police, peach tree dishes, Jewish space lasers and hand jobs in movie theatres. Their left wing is right wing and their right wing is an amoral, swivel-eyed fever swamp of nasty idiocy (see previous point). The USA comprises diverse citizenries but generalisations can be generally true. How else other than shared nationalistic quirks to explain the wide embrace of the grotesqueries of Trump, the MAGAe and the sewage farm that is the GOP? "Because fuck you. We are 'merkins. USA! USA! USA!" Americans are so inculcated with American exceptionalism they think everyone else wants to be them. There's no need to immerse oneself in American culture to recognise that they're fervent subscribers to their own hand over heart jingoism. Ronald Reagan believed that to be born in America was to win life’s lottery, conveniently over-looking the vast disparities between the rich and the poor - the top 1% of households in the United States now hold 32.3% of the country's wealth while the bottom 50% hold 2.6%. John Steinbeck once observed that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. But for too many the shiny, red Mustang in the double garage that symbolises the American dream has now become a rust-riddled, clapped out '76 Ford-O-Matic Country Squire abandoned in a casino car park and is to blame. Innovation vs entrepreneurism is wherein they possess a robust belief that inventiveness is a distinctly American version of capitalism yet the industrial revolution was British, the first man in space was a Russian, it was German Nazis what got 'em to the moon, Alexander Graham Bell was a Scot as was John Logie Baird. Einstein and the automobile were incubated in Germany, the first known artificial form of refrigeration was demonstrated by William Cullen at the University of Glasgow, Michael Faraday was English, Nikola Tesla a Serb, Tim Berners-Lee an Englishman. You get the drift. What Americans excel at is claiming credit while making a buck in the process ala Thomas Edison. But they do cultivate a culture where creativity can thrive, imported or no, good or bad. "The US ranks No. 1 in the world on research", and highly for "literature, theatre, film, music and art". It is heavily represented in the rankings of the world's best universities yet "UNESCO reports adult literacy in the US at 86 per cent, while Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy and Japan are at 99 per cent.¹ ¹Barry Jones. The Saturday Paper The self-proclaimed beacon of democracy, occupying the moral high ground, was founded on the principle that privileged, rich men shouldn't pay taxes. The land of the free scores 83/100 on the U.S.-based non-governmental organization Freedom House's world freedom index . (Australia scores 95/100.) They confuse influence and power with character - might makes right, yet the more thoughtful are capable of introspection: The Newsroom - America is not the greatest country in the world anymore "The world's greatest democracy could collapse due to a reality TV game show host, after one political party lost its sanity following the election of a black President." Unknown The personification of the country's worst characteristics is a bloated, deluded, flatulent, big noting, grifting, lying, cheating, sexual predator and vulgarian. This despot-fawning lickspittle, a convicted felon, a treasonous spiv, an orange-stuccoed fraud at the pointy end of his feculent spawn's crime spree is a viable contender for the most influential role on the planet. To commemorate Independence Day 2024 this faithless Republican nominee for POTUS went on air to tout his $59.99 God Bless the USA Bible™ (free copy of the consitution included. He has read neither). “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a Bible.” Attributed to Sinclair Lewis Whether bloviating to a tawdry arriviste audience and their duck-lipped, silicon-titted trophy shags at his Kitsch-O-Rama sur la mer golf motel/stolen document repository or playing his invisible accordion to an effluvium of grinning thralls and occupants of the upper right corner of the fuckwit quadrant he's lauded by these fools to his last imbecilic gibberings. He says he “wants to be able” to override the Constitution to “pick” when elections are held, he calls for televised military tribunals for his political opponents and the red-capped, bovine espousers of America as the best kind of democracy wave their placards and shit on their flag. The tangerine man knows boosterism is a vote winner. MAGA is where the USA is the greatest at everything should the woke, radical left anti-fascist fascist Marxists be excluded as they indulge in unfettered arson of what once was a nation they could be proud of. Ooohkay. "The U.S will never be destroyed from the outside, if we lose our freedoms it's because we have destroyed ourselves from within." Abraham Lincoln Perhaps one double cheeseburger too many will have him drooling and shitting his pants in a sunny corner of the recreation room at the Rainbow's End Assisted Living facility for Enfeebled Fucktards rather than wiping the fried chicken grease from his tiny fingers onto the Oval Office curtains once more. I believe that a decent America will assign this crime magnate to the land fill bucket at history's liposuction clinic. However Trumpism may live on and that's a whole other story. WARNING: If you click the like icon or add a comment you will simply be encouraging my rantings.

Purple member embraced by the ginger minger. Will he last?* 'Come over to my place, Barny' Yeah, yeah - juvenile, but it's the priapic Barnaby so the smutty tone is appropriate What does it say about a political party when its popularity is improved by recruiting Barnaby Joyce? One Nation is the junk drawer of politics - it's an embarrassment of wretches. Dwarf tosser "Malcolm-Ieuan: Roberts., the living soul" (sic) is a climate science-denying homunculus and a rarity for One Nation - he's stuck around. Person of girth and conspiracy nutter Cray-Cray Kelly, once a Liberal thence the UAP's prime minister-in-waiting, later a wouldabeen independent and now Libertarian was campaign director of the One Nation bouncy castle for much of 2024. Mark "Biff" Latham, coprophiliac, national embarrassment and Labor Party rat washed up on One Nation shores like the detritus he'd become. Then there's Trump fan boy and Liberal turncoat Cory Bernardi who is now a ON upper house man in SA after failing at his own RWNJ foray, the Australian Conservatives movement: 10 years a Liberal Party senator and never promoted he walked out on the government just seven months after being elected near the top of the South Australian Liberal ticket at the 2016 election. Sinead Bernardi on her husband - they have the perfect marriage because they’re “both in love with the same man”. “Cory obviously has this huge belief in himself … If you didn’t love a guy who was so in love with himself you’d have a lot of trouble living with Cory. Life – I don’t think he’d mind me saying this – it’s all about Cory. I am all about Cory, and he is all about Cory, so it makes it easy.” One Nation candidate vetting was undertaken by a convicted rapist, in news that should surprise no one given the calibre of their aspirants: "A One Nation candidate at last year’s election in Western Australia had been convicted of 15 breaches of family violence restraining orders. A One Nation candidate in the South Australian elections had been charged with breaching family protection orders. Another candidate was dumped after it was revealed there was a warrant for his arrest in the UK after failing to attend court to face a sexual offences charge. A candidate in the 2022 federal election withdrew after his comments downplaying the prevalence of women being murdered and other misogynistic comments emerged." Bernard Keane, Crikey. 13 April 2026 Then, inevitability, Barnaby stepped in. Drunk even by naval standards, Barking Barmy Joyce was a lay down misère for Pauline when video of his mimicry of a chalk outline on a Braddon footpath came to her attention - 'there's my boy!' she proclaimed. Barnaby is her stand out - a VB survivor and champion of the bush who extends One Nation's appeal beyond the racists and cookers to take in designated drivers, DIY dentists, staff humpers, bumpkins, rugged self-reliant agrarian socialists and people who crowd the luggage carousel at airports. He's the icing on the One Nation cake, the crust on Pauline's pie. Unlike Pauline, Barnaby is not totally without self-awareness. He has no shortage of self-regard but he knows his name has the same appeal as genital warts in metropolitan Australia and with women generally. Ladies' change rooms aside (if 2014 WA Rural Woman of the Year Catherine Marriott is to be believed), his happy hunting grounds are where gormless rustics congregate to bitch and moan in accordance with the their standard schedule of grievances - "inner-city elites", the generic "woke", "lefties", "greenies" et al. He plays well to a limited audience. Joyce and Hanson are both media darlings. And media whores. Controversy invites attention, circuses draw crowds. A symbiotic relationship has grown between the media and Joyce/Hanson. The puerile blathering, the cartoonish temperaments - it captures eyeballs and gives the deranged ranga and mulga dill wide exposure. Which is a two-edged sword. Shining light on the One Nation toadstool shelter will burst their balloon not too far into the future. Even many ON supporters recognise that Hanson has a yawning credibility gap when it comes to more than tremulous whining. BJ supposedly lends authority via his stints as deputy PM, yet ol' Drunkerby thinks gravitas is what he pours over his lamb chops, and that his frothy testiculating passes for serious discourse. BJ's a poster boy for any campaign warning women not to leave their drinks unattended, he has fewer brains than Kurt Cobain, teeth like lepers toes and the sartorial style of a burst laundry bag chucked under a hedge. The melanophobic Hanson has a face that would drive rats from a barn and all the credibility of a rent boy's receipt and is so narrow minded her eyebrows meet at the back. You'd think television wouldn't do either of them any favours and you'd be right. More exposure will start to see a slide in their recent upswing in popularity. Installing solar power on her Queensland home yet bagging clean energy, she voted for targeting foreign interference in Australia while her consiglieres James Ashby and Steve Dickson solicited millions of dollars from America's National Rifle Association (NRA) in return for working to overturn Australia's gun laws. “Let me make it very clear to the Australian people,” Hanson said, “I have never sought donations, or political guidance, from the NRMA (sic).” “They want someone who is going to be upfront and honest with them and I have always been that.” To Andrew Bolt on Sky News, 2025 Jetting about on Big Vag's private Gulfstream, partying at Mar-a-Lago and staying in Rinehart’s Palm Beach mansion whilst masquerading as an outsider who supports ordinary Australians she loves "absolutely everything about Donald Trump” and thinks “all of his policies are fantastic”. The egregious Mein Trumpf is anathema to Australians. One Nation will unravel naturally. While the Libs and the Nats will delay that by jumping into the 'tough on immigration' auction and committing self-harm by preferencing One Nation ("Pumping up One Nation's tyres only gives them credibility & makes them a more compelling alternative to. . .the Libs¹ ") there is no way that a functional relationship is sustainable between two delusionists with vast, misplaced self-esteem who both think they're the big dog. The Australian says its latest Newspoll shows the primary vote for Pauline Hanson’s party has dropped from 27% to 24%. The News Corp paper reckons the dip has come amid “greater scrutiny” as well as “increased pressure from a more assertive Coalition”. Crikey, 20 April 2026 The Great Unravelling. That's when the Joyce/Hanson honeymoon hits the skids. There will be a Lathamesque falling out - it's only a matter of time. It will be fun. Image: Alex Ellinghausen *Betteridge’s Law of Headlines: any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered with “no.” ¹Peter FitzSimons on Xitter Pauline Hanson keeps forgetting to declare gifts from Gina Rinehart. Please explain. Sarah Martin, The Guardian. 24 March 2026 So much talk, so little change: Joyce revels in victimhood while women are denied justice. Bernard Keane, Crikey. 25 June 2021 Who is Pauline Hanson? For decades, Pauline Hanson has built her reputation as someone who stands with everyday Australians. If that's how she sees herself - what does her record show? Like a cockroach that can’t be killed, Mark Latham has crawled around public life for too long. He must go. SMH editorial. 17 July 2025

Angus sprinkles some ginger on his orange "...the best qualified idiot they've ever met." Malcolm Turnbull MAGA and One Nation - the current go-tos for Tory inspiration "Viktor, you're a very unattractive man." A record voter turn out of Hungarians has repudiated their Trumpian oligarch cum Putin lackey after his corruption became too orange to tolerate. Angus 'Squizzy' Taylor with his signature exquisite timing concurrently announced his Orbánesque One Nation-inspired 'me too' migrant bashing, one-upping the Ginger Minger by adding some Orangutanned plans to conduct social media vetting at the Australian border and empower a dedicated multi-agency taskforce to round up visa overstayers. The invocation of images of ICE kidnapping wrongly tinged people off the streets in the U.S. may give the slack jawed handrail lickers a boner but they are the same people who are in thrall of the red-haired moron anyway and they won't be changing loyalties. Under Orbán, Hungary was ranked the most corrupt nation in Europe and Budapest "acted as laboratory and HQ for the global far-right*". Kiss O'Death Tony Abbott is an enthusiastic Orbán fan boy - Hungary’s “greatest modern leader” making Budapest “something of a haven for conservative intellectuals”. Orbán's rigid anti-immigrant stance was a primary stimulant for Tones' arousal. (*Megan Clement. Crikey) 'Conservative intellectuals' is not necessarily an oxymoron. People like Tones put a lot of thought into their immigrant bashing arseholery: "Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it's not necessarily everyone's place to come to Australia." Abbott, ABC's Q&A. April, 2010 and his selective Christian values The thing to know about Kiss O'Death here is that he's also an enthusiastic Taylor booster as is Ol' Camphor Balls, the cryogenic John Winston Howard, who with his instinctive rat cunning exploited Tampa and 9/11 to dial up fear of brownish foreigners. During a Captain Queeg interregnum in the Libs the embaldened tinpotato Spuddly Too-right as Immigration Minister had dark-uniformed ABF goons patrol Melbourne streets to challenge the bona fides of passing swarthy-toned pedestrians (Operation Fortitude). As candidate for PM he targeted an immediate cut of 100,000 to migration numbers. Spud had an open door policy for French au-pairs and white South African farmers and enjoyed nothing so much as poking refugee kiddies through the wire mesh with a stick so this was an obvious dog whistle. Jane Hume, a woman of practiced sincerity, alienated Australia's Chinese diaspora by alleging that Labor was employing Chinese spies to work on polling booths. She later doubled down and then attacked Labor for mentioning it: Let’s be clear what the issue there was — there was a suspicion by the Australian electoral integrity taskforce of foreign interference in our electoral system. Hume, May 2025 Hume was co-author of the Liberal Party's own 2022 internal review which explicitly stated that party representatives needed to be more sensitive to the concerns of the Chinese community. Jacinta Name Ya Price, champion of Qantas Chairman's Lounge patrons everywhere, took on the Musk-inspired insult to immigrant communities by claiming the Labor government was prioritizing Indian migrants because they are "Labor leaning". She, of course, refused to apologise. The trend has become well and truly set. Now Angus has applied his intellect to the problem of disappearing Liberal voters and decided that gazumping One Nation's more overt racism to recapture the drifting bigot vote is the way to go. "Australians are fed up with politically correct preaching on immigration" claims Angus. "We're not talking about copying America in any way. That is not where we're going." Opposition immigration spokesperson Jonathon Duniam thereby confirming in a very Trumpian way that that is exactly what they're doing. Being seen as Trumpy doesn’t work well overseas. Just ask Viktor Orbán. Or Spud Dutton. They'll continue to lean into MAGA world for tips and techniques - the pumpkin headed loon is a natural ally but the gormless ranga is an immediate threat - hence the updated game plan from the idiot in residence. The divisive politics, resentment and hatred and petty vindictiveness of immigrant bashing will continue, supplemented by the Tories standard ideas-free, constant, narky negativity. Cathy Wilcox‬ @smh Hey Angus - "Shaddap You Face". Taylor has only ‘vibes and fumes’, no answers on migration. Amy Remeikis, The New Daily. 14 April 2026. Why Australia's conservatives are finding friends in Hungary. Michael Koziol, SMH. 6 October 6, 2019 Angus Taylor can’t free himself from Dutton’s ghost on immigration. Bernard Keane, Crikey. 14 April 2026 Australia’s immigration powers are already godlike. So why does Angus Taylor want them to be Trump-like too? Abul Rizvi, The Guardian. 14 April 2026

A nostalgic random selection of great popular music from the 60s and 70s mostly; an era that is a treasure trove of styles from pop, rock, blues, psychedelia, reggae, ska, folk, funk, metal, R&B, Motown, surf rock, punk, new wave and including jazz, country and big band elements. Musical tapas you could say from the most influential, diverse decades in musical history. Countdown of 100 favourites: Bonus. Billy Field - You Weren't In Love With Me Gravely-voiced Aussie funkiness from 2 hit wonder Billy Field. This is the better of his two hit songs, the other being Bad Habits. #100. Mason Williams - Classical Gas Love the acoustic guitar. The orchestration is a tad over-blown though. #99. Alive 'n' Kicking - Tighter, Tighter 70s soft rock written by Tommy James of The Shondells who covered Crystal Blue Persuasion but also came up with shite like Mony Mony and Crimson & Clover. A mixed bag was Tommy. #98. Tommy James & The Shondells - Crystal Blue Persuasion A quasi-religious tune inspired by the Book Of Revelation but mistakenly believed to be a drug reference. Tommy James & the Shondells were invited to perform at Woodstock but turned it down to sit around a pool and drink margaritas in Hawaii instead. I guess they had to do what the Lord inspired them to do. #97. Lovin' Spoonful - Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind A poppy, upbeat number that I wasn't sure should be included. But the song title won me over. #96. Men at Work - Who Can It Be Now Love the sax, love the lyrics, love Men At Work, love the fact that Colin Hay wrote this in a tree house at beautiful Bermagui. #95. Five Man Electrical Band - Signs Funky guitar intro and lyrics: And the sign said "Long-haired freaky people need not apply" So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why He said "You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do" So I took off my hat, I said "Imagine that. Huh! Me workin' for you!"A A perfect song for its time. #94. Percy Faith - Theme From A Summer Place This is the sort of music favoured for elevators and doctor's waiting rooms. If you're waiting on a prostate check then this is what you'd like to listen to. #93. Scott McKenzie - San Francisco I went to San Francisco once; but well after the Summer Of Love. Haight-Ashbury had become drug pusher central and the city had a beggar on every corner. Bubble burst. But this song still evokes hippydom, Janis Joplin, psychedelic rock and flowers in everybody's hair. #92. The Shadows - Apache If the Brits can borrow from blues and reggae then i guess they can have a shot at instrumental surf music as well. The Shadows did a good job with this. #91. Norman Greenbaum - Spirit In The Sky If Norman Greenbaum, as an observant Jew, can write this overtly happy clapper number then i guess, as an avowed atheist, i can enjoy it without subscribing to the sentiment. Same goes with George Harrison's My Sweet Lord and gospel music - I can listen without feeling any urge to shake a tambourine, speak in tongues or upgrade to a new BMW SUV ala the Jesus-shopping, god-wants-me-to-be-rich hypocrites. #90. Sir Douglas Quintet - Mendocino It was a coin toss whether this went into Funky But Forgotten or So Crap They Were Good . Heads won. #89. Split Enz - Message To My Girl Australia likes to nick things from New Zealand and claim them as our own but we couldn't get away with it with Split Enz. We had to wait, post-Enz, for when the outrageously talented Neil Finn formed Crowded House with a couple of Aussie members before we could do it. Dear New Zealand - you can have Russell Crowe back but we'd like to keep Neil. Regards, Australia. #88. Seals & Crofts - Summer Breeze You can feel the warm breeze and smell the jasmine. This song doesn't need to do any more than that to qualify as funky. #87. Leon Russell - Roll Away The Stone Can an inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame and the Songwriter's Hall of Fame be forgotten? I haven't heard any Leon Russell played for decades so perhaps so. #86. Manfred Mann - Pretty Flamingo There's a lot of Manfred Mann stuff i don't like that much - but this is pretty good. #85. George Benson - Breezin' The instrumental signature tune for Benson's Breezin' album that included other jazzy, bluesy soul such as On Broadway and The Masquerade. However you want to label them they are all funky. #84. Zager & Evans - In The Year 2525 This dystopian view of our future was released in the same year than man first set foot on the moon, Planet Of The Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey were released and David Bowie's Space Oddity hit #1. Given subsequent dark developments in ubiquitous technology, the alarming lurch to the right in politics and accelerated environmental destruction it's time this was re-released. #83. Midnight Oil - Wedding Cake Island Midnight Oil is front of mind when it comes to politically-edged Aussie rock but many forget, or never knew of their instrumental surf rock number Wedding Cake Island. This could be 1960s Altantics if you didn't know better (see #27). #82. Harry Nilsson - Everybody's Talkin'. It took this cover version of a Fred Neil song when featured in Midnight Cowboy to get Nilsson noticed. Not a fan of performing he was befriended by the Beatles who recognised his talent. Taking part in a performance of Monty Python's Lumberjack Song he fell off stage and disappeared, to be found 2 days later in hospital. #81. 10cc - Dreadlock Holiday A peppy tune about being mugged by rastas. The lyrics "don't you walk through my words" came from a bloke who was challenged when he walked through a group of black guys talking together. #80. Roxy Music - Avalon Avalon, More Than This, Jealous Guy, Don't Stop The Dance - magic. Roxy Music's Avalon album reached number 1 in Australia, NZ, Canada, UK, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands. It reached number 53 in the US. A country that elected Donald Trump as President. Case closed. #79. Otis Redding - Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay A posthumous #1 hit that Redding predicted but never got to see, dying in a plane crash only days after recording it. Co-written by Steve Cropper of Stax Records' house band Booker T & the MGs and a member of the Blues Brothers. #78. Freddy Fender - Wasted Days & Wasted Nights Freddy was a co-founder of the Texas Tornados, branded the "Tex-Mex equivalent of the Traveling Wilburys and Grateful Dead". Freddy had a bit of a tough gig - 3 years of porridge for possessing ganja, a drug and alcohol problem, with diabetes and hepatitis C he underwent kidney and liver transplants and a son died in a traffic accident. Funky song though Freddy. #77. Lou Christie - Lightnin' Strikes 1966 - the hippie and anti-Vietnam movements ramped up as Frank Sinatra and The Sound of Music were the big award winners at the Grammy and Academy Awards. Lightnin' Strikes was a suitable segue into a new era when four of the most iconic albums in rock 'n' roll made their debuts - The Beatles' Revolver, The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde and The Doors' self-titled LP. #76. Smashmouth - Walking On The Sun Can an American band with a song inspired by a particularly American event sound more British? Inspired by the 1992 police bashing of Rodney King i reckon this sounds more like The Clash than does Booker T's Time Is Tight (#75). The first line is "It ain't no joke I'd like to buy the world a toke", a reference to a famous 1971 Coca-Cola commercial with "I'd like to buy the world a Coke." When the song took off, Smash Mouth heard from Coke's lawyers, but nothing came of it. Songfacts #75. Booker T & the MGs - Time Is Tight Mid-60s soul instrumental from 4 session musos that was covered by The Clash as a warm up number. Most un-Clashlike i would've thought, but funky is funky. #74. Bob Seger - Roll Me Away Whenever Bob Seger gets airplay it's always Old Time Rock And Roll while his other hits were far better - Night Moves, Against The Wind, Still The Same and Roll Me Away. When i listen to Roll Me Away i can forgive Americans their jingoistic, parochial exceptionalism, their oxymoronic belief that freedom equates to an armed-to-the-teeth religiosity and their materialism. This belter of a song is pure old school Americana that i don't just enjoy, i freaking love it! #73. Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear The Reaper Funky cowbell and guitar riff - I want to play this really loud on my deathbed. But the management of the old folks' home probably won't be too happy about that. #72. Skyhooks - Toorak Cowboy A great complement to Australian Crawl's Beautiful People in pricking the pretensions of Melbourne's wankerati. Skyhooks' Toorak Cowboy, Balwyn Calling and Lygon St Limbo together with Paul Kelly's songs helped kill off the cultural cringe with unashamed Aussie references and not a single kangaroo in sight. #71. Boz Scaggs - Low Down All of Silk Degrees is funky - all of it. Only Bryan Ferry can compete with this for urbane cool. Trivia: Boz's backing band went on to form Toto. #70. Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing I will always remember when i first heard this - 1978 in a mate's car transiting Tom Ugly's Bridge in Sydney and exclaiming " Ferque! What was that? " So, not forgotten but well funky as the world moved on from disco - and it was guitar-riffed creativity like this that helped drive a stake through the cheesy heart of disco's dreadfulness. Trivia: The "Guitar George" and "Harry" in the lyrics are our very own George Young and Harry Vander of Easybeats and Flash & The Pan fame (see #43). #69. Carol Bayer Sager - You're Moving Out Today A simplistic tune with funky lyrics that will resonate with anyone who's ever had a deadbeat roomie. When i Googled this for some background the most prominent search results were for the meaning of the lyrics. If you need those lyrics explained to you then you are the type who is not likely to take hints; you will need to be forcibly evicted. Trivia: This song was co-written by Bette Midler. #68. Louis Armstrong - Wonderful World Cheer up - play this. Louis Armstrong's father left when he was young, his mother worked in a brothel and by his teens, young Louis was in trouble with the law after firing a pistol on New Year’s Eve 1912. He was arrested and sent to the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs. The Waif’s Home gave him music lessons and the rest is history. So, all you critics of discharging firearms in public places should think again. #67. Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild It's 1968; fuck the rules, give The Man the finger, jump aboard the big Harley and head off over the horizon for bad women, good weed and poor behaviour. I am listening to this with a warm blankie over my knees and a mug of hot cocoa at my elbow. Maybe i was born to be wild and just never realised my potential. #66. Roberta Flack - Killing Me Softly & The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face I couldn't decide between these two songs so I'll post them both, deserved Grammy winners in consecutive years 1973 - 74. As a curmudgeonly geezer i no longer need to cover up a lack of cool and can willingly confess that i love both of these schmaltzy songs. #65. UB40 - Kingston Town Cultural appropriation? None of these guys is Jamaican, they're all from Birmingham. Who cares? Brits have long co-opted African-American blues to the betterment of popular music and they did it again with reggae. UB40 captures the reggae vibe without any ludicrous cultural affectations ala freckled suburban gingers pathetically imitating the pretensions of hip-hop "gangstas". #64. Mental As Anything - The Nips Are Getting Bigger Satirical, good humoured and inventive the group's art school background saw them as pioneers of the music video. Their piss-take approach is reflected in Martin Plaza's and Reg Mombassa's stage names and another fun song - If You Leave Me Now Can I Come Too. Terrific Aussie/Kiwi pop-rock that will put a smile on ya dial. #63. Canned Heat - Going Up The Country Authentic hippydom, Canned Heat debuted this at Woodstock. It is an anthem for the festival, you can almost smell the weed but Canned Heat was edited out of the movie. The band's Alan Wilson who wrote this was an early member of the 27 Club, dying of a drug overdose in 1970. The song is complemented by the laid-back style of their On The Road Again, not to be confused with Willie Nelson's song of the same name. #62. Merrilee Rush - Angel Of The Morning A song about a one night stand, while considered risque by the 'uptight' of the time it still received plenty of airplay in the 1966 hippy era of free love and reached number 1 in Oz, NZ and Canada. If you think the tune sounds much like a slowed down version of the Trogg's hit Wild Thing that's because it does. Both were written by the same bloke - Chip Taylor, brother of Jon Voight and the uncle of Angelina Jolie. #61. Summer In The City - The Lovin' Spoonful You can feel the heat and imagine the traffic, grit and grime when listening to this. The inclusion of sound effects like the car horns and a jackhammer was innovative at the time (1966). This being the '60s many thought the band's name was a drug reference but according to the Spoonful's John Sebastian it's actually a reference to cunnilingus, creating some awkward moments when the question came up during live interviews. Did You Ever Have to Make up Your Mind? was another of their hits that deserves a re-listen. #60. Lemon Pipers - Green Tambourine The Lemon Pipers preference was psychedelic music, a style they never had the chance to develop as they were pressured by their record label to record material like Green Tambourine. This song has been described as bubblegum. Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep and Sugar Sugar are bubblegum. This is far better than that tripe. #59. Albert Hammond - It Never Rains In Southern California Albert Hammond wrote this song on a miserable, rainy day in Fulham, London. He'd never even been to the US. I wish I didn't know that because this song can otherwise conjure up iconic images of cruising Route 66 in a convertible Mustang through the Californian deserts and old ghost towns. It's just as evocative of that as America's Horse With No Name. Well done Albert! #58. The Pretenders - Back On The Chain Gang Chrissie Hynde formed The Pretenders at 27 - a better alternative than co-membership of the 27 Club of Jimmi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, and Jim Morrison. Before that she worked as a shopgirl for Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, almost married Sid Vicious, cleaned rooms with Johnny Rotten, played in an early version of The Clash and had a daughter with Ray Davies of The Kinks. "I was learning that people didn’t care if you were a total quack. If you were more famous than they were, they were impressed. But that didn’t feel OK to me. ” Inspiration for the band's name perhaps but there's no pretending with their music. All good stuff! #57. Doobie Brothers - Long Train Running Initially a throw-away song that was unrecorded for years. Tom Johnston wrote the words while astride the can but I reckon it's their best song followed closely by Listen To The Music and Black Water. The band's name alone sells it to me. They had a high turn over of personnel, one of whom, Michael McDonald, often provided the vocals for Steeley Dan - another enduring icon of cool. Trivia: Bananarama scored a #30 hit in the UK with their cover version but we won't mention that. #56. Jimmy Cliff - I Can See Clearly Now There’s been a lot of covers of this Johnny Nash number but Jimmy Cliff’s has to be the best. Upbeat, cheerful reggae mon. #55. Jimmy And The Boys - They Won't Let My Girlfriend Talk to Me Their first studio album was Not Like Everybody Else. A truer statement has never been made. Iggy Jones (Juan Ignacio Trapaga) and transvestite Joylene Thornbird Hairmouth (William O'Riordan) were friends from exclusive private Sydney schools. There’s hope for exclusive private school boys after all - I’d rather mix with a transvestite than with a merchant banker. #54. Iggy Pop – Candy The song is a duet with Kate Pierson of The B-52s. It’s pretty good, but FFS Iggy, put a fkn shirt on. #53. Dionne Warwick - I'll Never Fall In Love Again It’s 1968, my pubes have kicked in, my voice has dropped an octave and my interest in girls is awakening and then this gets released. Eeeew – germs! Burt Bacharach’s and Dionne Warwick’s warning on the dangers of STDs put my development back 12 months. It’s to my credit as a burgeoning sophisticate that it was only 12 months. What about you? #52. Manfred Man - Pretty Flamingo Fans of jazz and blues Manfred Man didn't like this song when it was brought to them. Thankfully they chnaged their minds - "I didn't like it much as it didn't have a black flavour, but I see now that it could have been done by The Drifters. Ben E King could have done a great job on it." #51. Las Bravos - Black Is Black The distinctive guitar riff is from Pinball Wizard, and the very first line has a mispronunciation. Listen carefully and you’ll clearly hear “goddess” being sung as “godness”. Their “Never Marry A Railroad Man”, which not too many people will have heard of, is not bad either. #50. Sam Brown – Horse To The Water Horse To The Water was George Harrison's last performance on a record; he was too weak from battling cancer to play guitar and he died just over eight weeks later. Sam Brown does George’s song total justice in the way she belts this number out at the Concert For George. Goose bumps all over. She has performed the famous vocals on Pink Floyd’s Great Gig in the Sky, although it was Clare Torry’s powerful voice on the recorded version on Dark Side Of The Moon. #49. Joe Jackson – Steppin’ Out The simplicity of this snappy number does not detract from its funkiness. Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out with Him”, as likeable as it is, is more humorous than funky so "Steppin’ Out" gets the nomination. #48. Gheorghe Zamfir & James Last - The Lonely Shepherd Pan flute music can be funky? Yes it can – here’s your proof. #47. Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons – Hit And Run Pre-Black Sorrows, Joe Camilleri R&B with a hint of reggae and loads of funk. Also loved “Shape I’m In” and what Camilleri did with Burt Bacharach’s “Walk On By”. Cool as! #46. Nicolette Larson – Lotta Love This has been described as “blue-eyed soul LA-style”. What? It’s just a great rendition of a Neil Young song. Such a shame she died at only 45. #45. GANGgajang - Sounds Of Then We need a new national anthem. This is it. #44. Concrete Blonde – Joey It’s only relatively recent - from the 90s, but I’d forgotten all about it. But when it came onto the radio the other day I remembered just how funky it is. #43. Flash And The Pan - And The Band Played On Harry Vanda and George Young; significant funky credentials being members of the Easybeats, originators of Friday On My Mind and George is the older brother of Accer Daccer’s Malcolm and Angus Young. They produced much of AC/DC V1’s albums. Brush with Fame: I had a brief chat with Harry and George (first name terms – nyah!) over a beer at a Sydney pub in the early 80s. #42. Russell Morris – Wings Of An Eagle Russell Morris rightfully claimed iconic status with The Real Thing – a psychedelic 60s classic written by Johnny Young and produced by Molly Meldrum, two other icons of Oz music. It’s a bit gimmicky but it’s been rightfully included in the National Film and Sound Archives. As much as I love The Real Thing - Wings Of An Eagle is a much better song and one that he wrote himself. Sweet, Sweet Love and Rachel are further funky examples of Morris’s talents. #41. The Troggs - With A Girl Like You I’ll bet you’re thinking “ I haven’t forgotten The Troggs ”. I’ll bet you’re remembering Wild Thing. Don’t forget With A Girl Like You. Or for that matter, Love Is All Around. #40. JJCale - They Call Me The Breeze Country-blues style and attitude, with a touch of folk and jazz thrown in. And a fair bit of funkiness. #38 and #39. The Stranglers – Always The Sun and Golden Brown A double dose of funkiness! You’d never guess from these two songs that these guys were some “of the instigators of the UK punk rock scene”. I love their original name – the Guildford Stranglers, while I also acknowledge the tragic loss of all those with dear ones who were strangled in Guildford. #37. Traci Chapman – Baby Can I Hold You A sublime song, a beautiful voice and thoughtful lyrics. I am a big, big fan of this. #36. John Fred & his Playboys-Judy In Disguise These guys were taking the michael out of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds when they produced this number with its obtuse lyrics. It’s bubblegum, but somehow it’s also funky. #35. 4 Non Blondes – What’s Up? 90's lesbian grunge. What I like about this, apart from the significant funkiness that is so scarce in post-70s music, is the Non Blondes’ attention to good punctuation. And this from within a generation whose adherence to such common sense practice is not typical. The Huffington Post rated this as "without question, the worst song of the 1990s". Fekk off...the Huffington Post needs to replay the 90's Achy Breaky Heart to reset their perspective. I like What's Up?....it's ballsy :O. #34. Zombies – She’s Not There The Zombies recorded this in one take after they won a talent contest at their college. They had a follow-up hit after they broke up – Time Of The Season, which didn’t have the funky factor like this has with its early use of the electric piano as the lead instrument. It was written by Ron Argent the organist after his girlfriend broke off their wedding just weeks before. She did us a favour there Ron. #33. Joan Armatrading – Call Me Names Joan Armatrading BA(Hons), MBE, singer, guitarist, keyboardist and writer of this funky song. Joan can call me any names she wants. #32. Sandpipers – Guantanamera This doesn’t pass the cool test but it is funky. Funky is different from cool. Hipsterism is based on this principle. Speaking of Hipsterism, how can almost an entire generation subsist as baristas? Although that does explain their second-hand, horn-rimmed, lens-free specs and their fixation with fixed-wheel bicycles - you can’t afford lenses or a properly geared bike if your income is derived from making deconstructed, sustainably-sourced latte macchiatos. Mondegreen: We heard this song as “One ton Monaro, I’ve got a one ton Monaaaaro”. #31. Burt Bacharach - This Guy's in Love with You OK, it’s not forgotten but it always stirs memories of otherwise long forgotten young lovelies. And as always with Burt Bacharach songs it’s funky. #30. Robert Palmer - Addicted To Love The song’s a bit forgettable, but not that video clip. One of the best ever. I feel like I wanna be naughty and chastised for it by a severe looking black-clad woman in heavy make-up. Phwoooaaar! #29. Masters Apprentices – Hot Gully Wind Hot Gully Wind was the Masters’ second single and it may have been the first record I ever bought (it was either that or Deep Purple’s Black Night). They had a string of funky numbers such as Buried And Dead, Turn Up Your Radio, Undecided and Living In A Child’s Dream. This Aussie outfit were as good as anyone else from anywhere else but went largely unnoticed outside of Oz. My oldies threw out my collection of singles and EPs when I left home and I’ve never been able to find Hot Gully Wind in “hard copy” since. My oldies did not have the funky factor. #28. Dave Edmunds - I Hear You Knocking Great sax and piano on Fats Domino’s version but it was Dave Edmunds who made the charts with it. What’s that? You’d love to hear a psychedelic version of the Sabre Dance? You’re in luck – look up Dave Edmunds’ band of 1969, Love Sculpture/Sabre Dance on YouTube. No-one has ever heard of it so it can’t be forgotten. But it's funky. #27. Atlantics – Bombora Despite the band name these guys were Aussies. This is early 60s pre-Beach Boys instrumental guitar riffed surf music from a time when surfers were well groomed; unlike our late 1960s to 70s era when credibility at a surf break required shabbiness – threadbare jeans, faded t-shirt (a couple of holes was a common accessory), tangled, salt-encrusted hair - the longer the better, scuffed desert boots. Pre-Grunge homelessness chic you could say. Good times. #26. Jeff St John – Teach Me How To Fly Jeff St John used a wheel chair due to spina bifida pulling wheel stands and skids during performances, and what a voice. What a song! #25. Boyce & Hart - I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight We blokes all know that the subtle meaning is “I wonder who she is doing tonight”. "All right, Bobby, let's go" - a particularly funky inclusion into this old funky favourite. #24. Sniff 'n' the Tears - Driver's Seat A one hit wonder, but it’s worthy nostalgia from 1978 when they were accused of ripping off Dire Straits - true or not i love this song! #23. Manhattan Transfer - Boy From New York City Finger clickin’ good. I have an urge to buy a white tuxedo, top hat and cane. Their rendition of Chanson D'Amour is outstanding. #22. The Equals – Baby Come Back The unkind amongst you could accuse this of being typical 60s bubblegum pop – contrived and aimed at the pre-teen/early teen crowd ala Sugar Sugar, Yummy Yummy Yummy, Chirpy Chirpy Cheap Cheap and similar mulch. That would be unfair; the Equals weren’t manufactured and I challenge you to play this without bopping along. I can't see why Baby wouldn't go back upon hearing this. #21. Kinks – Lola Not as challenging to a naïve young man’s binary view of gender as was Lou Reed’s darker, concurrent Take A Walk On The Wild Side. It was intriguing to find out that there were ambiguous people out there. Each to their own after all and they are both funky numbers. Trivia: If you hear “cherry cola” it’s the Brit version. If you hear “Coca Cola” it’s the American version. #20. Thunderclap Newman – Something In The Air Thunderclap Newman was a band cobbled together by a pre-Who Pete Townsend. One of the founding members, Andy “Thunderclap” Newman, was a telecoms techie who performed in a trilby, spectacles, braces and bow tie. Who knew that telecoms techies could be dapper or talented? Trivia: Guitarist Jimmy McCulloch later spent 3 years with Wings. We can forgive him that because of Something In The Air. #19. Fats Domino - Ain't That a Shame Significant funk from the 50s. Despite the melancholy lyrics this is an upbeat toe-tapper. Love it! Fats’ Blueberry Hill is also a pearler. #18. Box Tops – The Letter "No American group since the Righteous Brothers had looked whiter and sung blacker than the Box Tops on that sensational first single in 1967.” #17. Janice Joplin – Cry Baby Janice Joplin’s been gone since 1970 and while she is far from forgotten maybe Cry Baby is not as well remembered as it should be. Joplin’s style and voice at their best; better even than on Me And Bobby McGee. Full on funky; it gives me shivers. #16. Mr. Bojangles - The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Written about an old drunk and a dead dog - credible inspiration for funkiness. Covered by the likes of Sammy Davis Jnr, Elton John and Bob Dylan but never bettered. #15. Barry Ryan - Eloise A tad melodramatic and heavy on the orchestration, but funky nevertheless. Trivia: It was written by Paul Ryan and sung by his twin brother Barry, whose one-time father-in-law was a filthy-rich Malaysian sultan. #14. Dr John - Such A Night Don’t confuse this with the vacuous salvage-yard reject of the same name from Racey. Dr John’s song is racier than Racey’s. And far funkier #13. Verdelle Smith – Tar and Cement A one hit wonder – and even then, only in Australia. This rightfully reached #1 in Oz but only #38 in the US where it was made. What’s wrong with those Seppos? – this is a very good song. #12. Small Faces - Itchycoo Park Terrific 60s psychedelic pop. At the time I had not the slightest inkling about the drug references (“ What did you do there? I got high ”… “ I feel inclined to blow my mind ”). To me it was, and still is, a very funky number. Lazy Sunday Afternoon and Tin Soldier are also crackers but Itchycoo Park is far out. Man. #11. Cowsills – I Love The Flower Girl An inspiration for TV's Partridge Family, the Cowsills was 6 brothers, a sister and “mom”. Definitively cheesy and unhip – but they put out some cheerful, enjoyable hits such as Indian Lake and Hair. They looked like Mormons; you would've turned the hose on them if they'd turned up at your front door with their wholesome toothy American-ness. But hip or not, their stuff is likable. #10 Rodriguez - I Wonder If you have to put any effort into being cool then by definition you aint cool. Sixto Rodriguez is cool. #9. Hurricane Smith - Oh Babe What Would You Say Smith was an engineer on all the Beatles' sessions between 1962 and 1965; the last Beatles album he recorded was Rubber Soul. In the late '60s Smith produced Pink Floyd's early albums. Oh Babe was a demo of a song that he had written with the hope that John Lennon would record it. It's a doofus song but given Hurricane's work with the Beatles and Pink Floyd I'll class it as funky. I think I liked it better before I saw what a geezer he looked like. #8. Iron Butterfly - Inna Gadda Da Vida “Inna gadda da vida” arose from a pissed slurring of the intended lyric "in the garden of Eden," by the band’s Doug Ingle. 17 minutes of psychodelia/prototype heavy metal. It took dedication (or a spliff) to listen all the way through. #7. Whistling Jack Smith - I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman It just does not get any better than this. #6. The Vapors – Turning Japanese Rude, crude and lewd? The Vapors’ David Fenton has denied that Turning Japanese is a euphemism along the lines of working on upper body strength/playing hands solo/being home alone and so forth. Who cares if you want to play with a sword, samurai or pork, this peppy number will get people bopping along. #5. Jona Lewie – In The Kitchen At Parties Not as tragic as it seems from a casual first listen. Perhaps it’s a call for more open plan living. Trivia: Some say one of the backing singers in the video clip is Kirsty MacColl, known for one of the best ever Awful Song Titles: “There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis”. #4. Squeeze - Cool For Cats What’s not to love, from the Cockney-accented delivery to the witty lyrics to the TV show references to cowboys & indians and The Sweeney. It’s terrific fun and it’s cool. For cats. Trivia: The prolific Jools Holland was an original member so no shortage of talent with Squeeze. #3. Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys – Different Drum Blue Bayou, When Will I be Loved, You’re No Good – Linda Ronstadt had some popular funky folky, country-ish numbers but none better than this early hit with the Stone Poneys. It didn’t hurt that Ms Ronstadt was also a hornbag. Trivia: Different Drum was written by Mike Nesmith of Monkees fame, whose mother made a fortune by inventing liquid paper, while Linda Ronstadt’s father made a fortune by inventing the rubber ice cube tray. #2. Arlo Guthrie – Alice’s Restaurant Perhaps not so much a song as a satirical anti-war, anti-The Man, hippy-ish monologue put to music. At 18 minutes Alice’s Restaurant didn’t get much airplay in full but it was popular anyway. Maybe it was the place and time (recently post-Vietnam war) but I loved Alice’s Restaurant – if not the cheapo movie that was made as a follow-up. Trivia: Guthrie's dad Woody was a folk music hero of, and significant influence on Bob Dylan. #1. Melanie Safka - Lay Down Turn the volume up and let Lay Down belt out from your speakers; Melanie's voice is brilliant. It makes my testicles re-ascend; no small achievement given my vintage. Ruby Tuesday is another cracker rendition of hers. Favourite songs. Nifty Fifty Part 1 Nifty Fifty Part 2 Shit List. The worst songs ever Kitsch List. Songs so crap that they're good

FauxMo's cult of personalities Does the absence of a personality of itself define a personality? This is the FauxMo Conundrum, or Schrödinger's Twat as I like to call it. The paradox being that if FauxMo does have a personality it is characterised by the apparent absence of a definitive personality; a void that he fills by projecting one of his focus grouped, duly accessorised caricatures onto the audience du jour, all franchised under the ScoMo ® homebrand. Contrived personalities disguise his true character and temperament. His ever-present, self-satisfied, know-all smirk is as obvious as a cock&balls tatooed on his forehead; it's the nudge, nudge, wink, wink to his cohort of shonks and duds who think they're getting away with it all. This human embodiment of the gag reflex would not be successful at the great con if more people paid attention. FauxMo, the patron saint of hyprocrites and the incontinent, has finally outed himself. Swathed in all his exerable humbug St.'Unt di la Shire (canonisation formalities pending) is at once professing both humility and God's personal endorsement. Unaccessorised with baseball cap, hi-viz or virgin tool-belt he has now succumbed to the urge of the self-righteous to proclaim his specialness and his virtue, overcoming any reservations about revealing his true self if his recent rambling sermon to his fellow Australian Christian Churches ' rapturists is any guide. Bro Faux has put out the word that Hughie is on-side by explicitly proclaiming that the invisible hand of his fantastical, imaginary friend has personally intervened, his divine mission being " called to do Gods' work ". The Messiah from The Shire in " the great south land of the Holy Spirit " FFS! Quite the presumption for other than the Pope, The Donald or televangelical hucksters who are, ironically, all aware that such takes are marketing flimflam. Vapid, calculating, thin-skinned - the catalyst for FauxMo's smarmy, uncompromising hubris in the face of his habitual incompetence and his avoidance of any accountability can now be explained. He really believes he's been chosen via an evident miracle to steer secular Oz onto the path of his version of righteous cronyism while the hard yards of floods, droughts, fires and stranded Aussies are all in the hands of The Big Guy in the sky - “ ...I can’t fix the world, I can’t save the world We both believe in someone who can... ” Image: Facebook FauxMo's sermon, should you have the fortitude to listen to it, is a masterclass in hypocrisy and contradiction - useful tools for religious hustlers and political spivs. Faux is both but will deny he's either. The whole godliness persona could just be another manifestation of Faux's transactional marketing sophistry. Is this whole Christian schtick contrived? His brand of holiness may be just another of his many fake routines confected for specific consumption. A Christian of convenience amplifying Medieval dogma for the Old Testament Armgeddonist fan fringe but also dog-whistling to the more rational church goers - harvesting their sympathy by framing all Christians as victims of the ungodly woke progressives' sneering disdain? God-botherer or grifter? Prophets or profits? Jim Jones or Tony Blair? Saving souls or sandbagging marginal seats? Does he see Jesus's face in cheese toasties or does he see useful idiots to help sell his big neo-liberal con? This guy has a Stepford wife and a 24x7 personal photographer; he covers all bases - a touch-up artist by both meanings - The annointed one has apparently adopted the hands-on style with surreptitious feels of distraught souls - " I've been in evacuation centres where people thought I was just giving someone a hug. And I was praying. And putting my hands on people & various places, laying hands on them and praying, in various situations. " Is God's fondler groping disaster victims as furtive conversion therapy - saving the souls that his deity made homeless? Mysterious ways indeed! Losing your house to facilitate a coming-to-Jesus has a biblical precedent - and Bro FauxMo has a literal belief in such. 'Never mind, dear, I'll just touch you. Tithe 10% of your token disaster relief and smile for the camera over there ... now remember to vote for ScoMo.' The gist is that this beligerent bully, this speaker-in-tongues, fluent in marketing piffle and gibberish, his contempt, smarm, arrogance and pettiness shaped by the prosperity doctrine of hard right evangelical hypocrites is so convinced by mis-placed self-belief he no longer even pretends to govern for those who won't vote for him, pray with him or donate to him. He's ramping up the performances as the fuck ups cluster, subliminally morphing his kakocracy into a 7 Mountains Mandate theocracy that will ignore or persecute anyone not adhering to its end-times Old Testament values or participating in it's Randesque prosperity doctrine. As he and his cronies power full smirk ahead with a manifesto of blatant graft and favouritism that would embarrass Saudi royalty the traditional Tory practices of incompetence and bastardry continue in the background. Image : courtesy of my proctologist's waiting room Faux's comms team has to weave the Jesusing into the PMO media stratgey and PR war gaming - A symbiotic relationship with the Murdoch manure machine. FauxMo quotes “ We believe in the everlasting punishment of the wicked (in the sense of eternal torment) who wilfully reject and despise the love of God " “ Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith .” “ Freedom has never worked without deeply ingrained moral beliefs. ” Translation: If you're without his faith you're without morals and are bound for hell, so why should Bro Faux have any fucks to give about you? * * * * * " When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion, it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some. " Harry Blackmun, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1970 -1994. Jim Jone s bio Tony Blair's religious beliefs New PM Scott Morrison – A Genuine Christian & Won’t Backstab 7 Mountains Mandate - Crikey Tories are wrong to think that they will never face a day of reckoning for sleaze - The Guardian Scott Morrison tells Christian conference he was called to do God’s work as prime minister - The Guardian Scott Morrison wants Australians to know he’s a Pentecostal Christian, but questions about it make him uneasy. Katharine Murphy, The Guardian Progressives fail to grasp the political and PR power of the gospel according to Brother Scotty . Crikey Climb every mountain. Scott Morrison's speech to the ACC . Gladly The Cross-eyed Bear.

The ticking bomb that is the L/NP Now that we're safe from Labor's retiree and death tax grabs, their planned theft of our hard-earned franking credits, their promotion of gender-fluid lifestyles in our kindergartens, their confiscation of our utes and their freeing of hoards of Muzzy murderers and rapists to roam our streets we can relax and hit the complacency button. That was a close call. Now we'll have three more years of stability and better economic management with the adults still in charge ©. ©News Corpse "I don't like irony and sarcasm very much. But I do like it when you think someone is telling you a joke, and then you discover it's serious." Jens Lekman, Swedish musician, possibly picking up on the vibe from Menzies House. Karma. It could be a thing. Nature seeks balance in all things so for the sake of my blood pressure I'm going to suspend my innate scepticism of things metaphysical and trust that this abhorrent aberration trading as the L/NP government is going to cop their comeuppance in the near future. The idea of karmic retribution has its appeal as a sign that there is some natural, noble force that will intervene to restore decency, honesty and integrity. It's not too far removed from Newton's third law after all. The L/NP's inherent nastiness will bring them undone - according to the theory of karma what happens to people happens because they caused it with their own actions. The L/NP is a mob of bickering shonks and imbeciles who've spent the last six years setting fire to their own hair. The less loony among them saw the forced departure of their chief pyromaniac as a blessing - Tony Abbott, the self-immolating arsonist-in-residence, can now spend some time putting out fires in the bush instead of starting them on his head. But although Abbott is gone his destructive legacy lives on in the internal hatreds and vendettas. A forgetful and complacent electorate will be reminded of just how poisonous this cluster-fuck of Yorricks can be. All aboard the blunder bus The electorate, so damning of Labor's Rudd/Gillard/Rudd idiocy that they opted for a known imbecile as an alternative, was for some incomprehensible reason forgiving of the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison fratricide. Perhaps the voters thought sticking with the latest guy would put it all in the past. Cue one mendacious megalomaniac - the head-polishing appetite suppressant Peter Spud-Dutton, wanna-be PM. Potato blight A tuberous Bond villain of cadaverous countenance who has pushed the Peter Principle well beyond its design limits Spud has, ala Abbott, a delusional belief that it's his destiny to be PM. The shank he'd prepared for Turnbull is ready at hand, waiting for Morrison to turn his back. Spud-Dutton was contacted to confirm his timing but no response has been received to date. Spud-Dutton's program to entrench his tuber-topian surveillance state, so dear to his cold, dead heart, will continue to be spoon-fed to the credulous and timorous on the presumption that the rest of us are too busy with property portfolios and frankng credits to care. Being unburdened with IQ, subtlty or nuance our potato-headed punisher's over-reach baldly (eh! eh!) repudiates the Lib's own foundational ideology of individual freedom. We can expect increasing blow-back when his sadism, such as denying a birthday cake to a 2 year old held in immigration detention, starts to turn more stomachs. Creeping totalitarianism has had a long fuse but it's gonna blow. Tormenting toddlers is too much for all but the most psychotic of Spud's fans. Cartoon used with the permission of Alan Moir. Subscribe to Moir here . Black Angus If the Libs ever manage to devise a scheme for privatising the sun, wind and waves we'll see a Road to Damascus conversion to renewable energy in the Tory ranks. Until such time they'll continue to monetise the environment via their coal gods. Bloody-minded contrariness, bastardry, denialism, greed and chronic stupidity are the congregants' merit badges in the Lib's broad church of loons, mammon-worshippers, medieval dogmatists and "exit through the gift shop" Jesus-merchandisers. Nothing makes this plainer than Scooter Morison's appointment of Well Done Angus Taylor as Minisiter for Energy (the "Coal" in his title is silent). Well Done Angus has the required vandal cred - diverting our water resources into the Cayman's cash- registers of opaque foreign profiteers while the rivers run dry, fish die in their millions and country towns wither. The climate is a ticking time-bomb with the world watching the count down. Angus has gone full-Abbott and is priming the detonators. Barmy Juice The IED of Oz politics, a bloviating blatherskite and objet d'ridicule, an Alfred E Neuman look-alike in a boutique Akubra whose peurile gibberings have become a mainstay of six years of political farce, the Beetrooter can be relied upon to drop a log or two into the L/NP's handbag. Michaelia Carcrash A helmet-haired harridan with a voice like fingernails down a blackboard Carcrash should be an incentive for the Lib's to re-introduce the scold's bridle as part of their dress code. With all the charm of a rusted cheese grater and an aversion to accountability this duplicitous bog wallah's determination to undermine the rights of every-day workers will see her as a constant reminder of the feculence at the core of the Nasties. The reserve benches There are any number of other finger sniffers whose best work was left in cubicle 3. While not allowed the unsupervised use of scissors they have been given matches and they have petrol. Just two examples: Susssan Ley's biggest contribution to politics was to add an extra consonant to her name upon advice from a numerologist. A professed environmentalist who plans on slashing "green tape", denies rampant land clearing is contributing to extinctions and wants environmental flows in our distressed rivers to be diverted to agriculture, and Michelle Landry, a window licker from Capricornia who thinks coral bleaching is the lady who made the scones at her last fund raiser. Windows Landry will have some explaining to do when the promised jobs at the fully automated Adani mine don't materialise. * * * * * In addition to the personalities there are big issues fizzing away. Putting aside the tanking economy and a Treasurer on L plates, the hysteria to accompany the straw man of religious freedoms will be used to animate the bigots and homophobes. Demanding tolerance of their intolerance they seek revenge for their faiure to manipulate the marriage equality plebisite. Screeching from the front pages of newspapers, TV screens, pulpits and parliament that their freedom of speech has been taken away they will simply be megaphoning their spite and meanness to a mostly secular and fair-minded audience and they will re-ignite fires within their own party ranks. Government by thought bubble has been in operation for six years. With no ideas and no vision, no foresight and no aspiration the crises will build, blindsiding a rag-tag assembly of colandar-hatted science deniers and nose pickers whose only recourse will be to blame Labor while fellating the Senate to allow for the shovelling of more largesse to their chums. The demands from the Ginger Whinger and her feral homunculus Malcolm Roberts should provide some comedic relief. Anyone thinking we'll have three years of calm, considered and competent governance is in for a rude shock. What chance it will all blow up in their faces and we get an early opportunity to correct the mass madness of just last month? Footnotes UXB: Unexploded bomb IED: Improvised Explosive Device. Newton's third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction This post also appears in the Australian Independent Media Network Related posts It's a horror movie . LNP III - The Movie No time for wusses . In response to the electorate's recent vote to continue drinking from the toilet the Tories have smugly rolled out the clichés Feline Metathesiophobia . Congratulations Australia! You cowering clowder of fraidy cats have capitulated in the face of a blatant fear campaign .

Coolness is a subjective quality. Claiming to be an arbiter of what is cool is a fraught exercise, being open to accusations of complete wankerdom. Well, starting a blog is pretty self-indulgent, so "guilty your honour". BTW, if you get the cryptic meaning of the photo above then well done! Tip: you likely need to be Aussie to understand it. * * * * * Let me set out the parameters I have applied in selecting these musical numbers for cool status: They don't follow a trend . Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but it's no indicator of coolness. Popularity is no test of coolness . Smash world-wide hits or obscure gems - it doesn't matter. Also, there is one nomination per artist here because some were so prolific they'd dominate any list. Enhanced perceptions . If you need weed to get through it, it ain't cool. If it inspires indulgence in some weed then it is. My taste rules . The bias here is to music from my favourite era, the 60s and 70s. And there are some genres I just don't get (rap/hip-hop, country & western). Their merits are totally lost on me. Whiney, mono-tone slop is what I hear when I am accidentally exposed to contemporary popular music . Maybe I have missed some worthwhile candidates. I suspect not. I found this description of disco at popmatters.com: " At one time it seemed disco would live forever. It still does, of course, at wedding receptions for some people's third marriages ." LOL! Classical music can be pretty cool. But it's a whole separate subject. In no particular order, 10 of my 50 favourites - being a work-in-progress with updates on an irregular basis til i get to #50. Steely Dan - Do It Again It ain't rock and roll but I like it. The first track on Can't Buy A Thrill, their debut album, Do It Again lays the foundations for a stream of immaculate, sophisticated craftsmanship. From the first few bars this is a cracker of a number from which they went on to produce smooth fusions of soft rock, jazz-inspired pop experimentalism and Latin rhythms with obtuse lyrics that provided a ready excuse to re-listen. Walter Becker and Donald Fagan - two self-taught, taut perfectionists; they took two and a half years to make Aja for example but it was worth the wait. In memory of Walter Becker. INXS - Don't Change From the last album written by this Sydney band for an Australian audience Don't Change was INXS's first single to be released internationally and we lost a great pub band to an international audience, Bob Geldorf's ex-missus and other tragedies. In memory of Michael Hutchence. ZZ Top - La Grange Long beards, dark sunglasses, driving rock rhythms, good-humoured, innuendo-laden lyrics and a song about a Texan whore house. If that doesn't pass the cool test nothing will. The guy without the beard's name is Beard. That just makes me love 'em that little bit more. Skyhooks - Balwyn Calling From cheeky through to outright Smut , the 'Hooks irreverence was a key part of their appeal and also to the blacklisting of several of their songs by the more staid radio stations of the 70s. Melbourne-themed lyrics did no harm to their broader popularity with those many of us non-Victorians who wouldn't know Balwyn from Lygon Street; and they smashed the last of the cultural cringe with unabashed Aussie 'kulcha'. In memory of Shirley Strachan. AC/DC - It's A Long Way To The Top Accer Daccer - Aussie rock royalty made up of immigrants from Glasgow, small town Forfar in Scotland and Essex supplemented with one native born Australian. 'It's A Long Way To The Shop If You Want A Sausage Roll' is definitive, formative Oz rock albeit with Bon Scott's inspirational inclusion of bag pipes. We'll let the Scots claim credit for most of AC/DC's DNA, but we'll insist on credit for their realisation of their long way to the top. Thunderstruck is certainly one of the coolest rock video clips ever . In memory of Bon Scott. Angels - Am I Ever Going To See Your Face Again Audience participation is an indispensable part of this, having provided the default chorus in response to the title refrain " am I ever going to see your face again? " It edges out Take A Long Line in my list because of that. Sophisticated ? Nah. Crude? Yup. R-rated, mullet headed good fun. In memory of Doc Neeson. Midnight Oil - Blue Sky Mine Hard edged political messages set to a solid rock beat the Oils' music pissed off the grifters, bag-snatchers and flat-earthers of the right in parliaments around the country and their corporate masters. This alone qualifies them as cool. In line with my own rules I haven't listed Beds Are Burning or their other many arse-kickers - all worthy inclusions otherwise. Carlos Santana - Samba Pa Ti No justification required. Santana's signature guitar virtuosity at its funky best. Killing Heidi - Mascara Young Ms Hooper can belt out a song and she's awfully cute, ergo cool. The Hooper siblings Elle and Jesse from tiny Violet Town in country Victoria started out as a folky duet, something to which they have apparently returned. In the interim they produced this and 'Weir' as two rocky belters. Paul Kelly - To Her Door "' To Her Door' was a song that was lying around on a tape for seven years before I got words to it. I had forgotten about it and then I played an old tape and there it was. And I thought 'Oh, that's pretty good* '." Damn right. *from Double J, ABC David Fricke from Rolling Stone called Kelly " one of the finest songwriters I have ever heard, Australian or otherwise ." Kelly is a stand out Australian songwriter, chronicling the country's society and identity through songs with a social conscience such as the masterpieces From St Kilda to Kings Cross, From Little Things Big Things Grow, Before Too Long, Leaps and Bounds and How To Make Gravy. Nifty Fifty Part 2 Shit List. The worst songs ever Kitsch List. 21 songs so crap they were good Old Favourites. Funky but forgotten

a gutted L/NP steps on rakes and shouts at clouds " We’re not moderates, we’re Liberals . " Suss to SMH's Peter FitzSimons, 12/6/22.   We shouldn't kick a political party while it's down. Let them do it to themselves. The 48th Parliament has now commenced with just a smear of 34 Lib/LNP MPs. The smoking ruins of the "natural party of government". In numerology " 34 embodies self-knowledge and spiritual wisdom while staying grounded in practical matters ". That should give some comfort to consonant enthusiast (and scourge of spell-checkers everywhere) Sussan Ley and her co- remnants from the self-avowed meritocracy as they come to terms with just how little merit the voting public was prepared to credit them. The Coalition is at its lowest ebb in 40 years. Pretending they matter will help the surviving Tories to numb the pain of bruised egos and thwarted ambitions. It will be performative snark and nit-picking that fills the void of inconsequence - being out of office, they will not now be distracted by their habitual cultivation of a corrupted polity. Whiney grievance and resentment will be used to keep the moribund irrelevancies' names in the news. In this they will be assisted by the pamphleteers and S-benders from the Murdochracy and the obsequious limpdicks at the ABC who have happily gargled the rancid old scumbag's ball sack at every opportunity. Whatever packaging the Libs choose to disguise their fuckery with will be ineffective - they have already forgotten why the electorate deployed the air freshener so liberally (unintended ironic pun) - bullying, the "women problem", climate denial, fear mongering and The Grift ™ . Their party is defined by what they're against. You may recall the rabid Abbott who before becoming 2IC in the Credlin government was deified by Tories as the best ever Opposition leader due to his lust for power through relentless aggression. "People Skills" Abbott now haunts the fringes of domestic and even global paleoconservatism via retrogressive circle jerk "think tanks" touting anti-woke banalities and science denial; a constant reminder to the sentient voters of the northern beaches as to why they threw the prick out in the first place. But Tories never learn. The signature negativity of the embaldened and belligerent Nasty Brutale was as marketable as a Jimmy Saville child care franchise. This was acknowledged by Suss who promised not to be obstructionist whilst simultaneously opposing changes to tax lurks for wealthy $3 million+ superannuants because “ they’re doing it tough...they can’t pay their electricity bills ”. Culture wars complement their Randesque belief system being another divide & conquer tool with which to secure office from whence to realise their raison d'être - homogeneous clunges of privately schooled Barclay McGains nodding and winking to their friends-with-$benefits, being the shovelling of public monies into the voracious maw of their corporate cronies. An illustrative example of their weaponisation of bigotry for political gain is the embrace of a weird conviction that some of you chaps have been surrendering your Hairy Potter & the Bagmen to the surgeon's scalpel simply to gain an advantage in women's sports (thus forever forgoing the future satisfaction of the morning ball scratch). The obsessions of the genitalia police contributed to the abandonment of the Libs by the many voters for whom the reconfiguration of other peoples' pink bits is a non-issue. Having promised to abstain from the performative outrage, and claiming to have learned lessons, the carping continue s. By inferring dubious motives for Albo's meeting with Xi they have shown that the next time they're in government the recently restored relationship with China will once again be sabotaged. But Australian Chinese voters don’t appreciate Australian politicians gratuitously attacking their ancestral homeland, and it's the hypocrisy gene of Tory DNA that stands out. " William McMahon, after bagging Whitlam as having been played like a trout, later inquired whether he could accompany Richard Nixon to China. " Whitlam and China, SMH February 16, 2013 on Gough's 1971 visit to China. Figuratively flashing his frightener, Abbott, the abominable 'No' man, has lately been prominent with hairy-chested, narky effusions on Albo, Xi and malignant Chinese ambitions whereas during his own brief tenure he was far less bumptious. Some would say coquettish. “China is a very good friend of Australia and it’s a friendship which is getting stronger all the time”. Tony Abbott's gushing embrace of Xi and China, June 2015  Tony Abbott 2014 As PM he bigged up his delegation to China. " Australia is not in China to do a deal, but to be a friend. We don’t just visit because we need to, but because we want to. " Tony Abbott, February 2024 “ There is an immediate need to position more ships and planes into East Asia, urgently excise China from critical supply chains, swiftly rebuild our defence industrial infrastructure, be ready to mobilise armed forces that adversaries would shrink to take on.. ” The Libs' opportunistic attacks on China have been underscored by their Trump Appeasement Syndrome and oleaginous fawning in the general direction of a con man. A gelatinous excretion of narcissistic insecurity and shameless criminality the orange tainted one's accumulation of character failings leaves no room for any compensating virtues. Their stuccoed exemplar is a tacky vulgarian driven by grift and grievance. Trump shames the country that spawned him yet, regardless, the U.S. claims to lead the world in righteousness and democratic standards all while their SCOTUS and DoJ conspire on ways to protect a dissolute pervert who once said he'd like to "date" his own daughter. The Tories leaned orange in the lead up to the election and it blew up in their faces as Umber One threatened Canada, Greenland and Panama with annexation, NATO with withdrawal during Russia's murderous aggression and Australia with punitive tariffs despite our trade deficit. And yet the Libs maintain the “shared values” synecdoche as a rationale for bending the knee to Trump and surrendering to unquestioning servitude as a vassal state - where US interests will always, always eclipse our own. They sledge Albanese for not swearing fealty to the cult of a tangerine sexual predator as the US slides into fascism. Really? A failing nation that has surrendered its critical faculties. A country, after 4 years of open grift and sleaze topped by an attempted coup, that then decided "yes please, more of that" is not a source of shared values. Climate science denial and a Cro-Magnon  take on the place of women were prominent causes of disillusion with the party that's purpose seems to be to provide solace to cookers, Christo-fascists, upskirters, pet abandoners, man-spreaders, roadside dumpers, dullards, onanists, pimps, boondogglers, wowsers, shout absconders, leg humpers and people who crowd airport luggage carousels. At first they denied climate change, then they said the obvious reality of more frequent and more severe weather events wasn't due to human activities, they then dodged to claiming mitigation is too expensive, they weaved to the trite "the sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow", they ducked to nuclear, they discovered a 'til now dormant concern for the well-being of whales. The only ecosystem that would thrive on planet RWFW is this infestation of fossil-fuelled morons who believe climate change is merely a manifestation of woke leftism like almond milk lattes and batik wall hangings . Rhubarbic leg-over enthusiast and asphalt inspector Barking Barmy Joyce is championing the cause of killing off net zero and a habitable planet because...er...um... looks like he's moved on from saving the whales - his latest incoherent rant links net zero somehow to AI. Not sure of any reasoning here - half-way through I did a Barnaby face-first into my keyboard with blood coming out my ears. Barking is supported in his crusade by such worthies as Micky Mac McCormack, a man who can be hypnotised by chooks, look-at-me Matt King Coal Canavan and crank-at-large Alex Antic. "For Antic, Trump is more than a political idol. He’s a blueprint for how to dominate a party from the inside, humiliate opponents and control the narrative...“He’s the most cold-hearted, vindictive person I’ve encountered in politics,” says one South Australian Liberal." ' A very dangerous man’: How Alex Antic is shaping the Liberals. The Saturday Paper, 21-27 June 2025. Women? The Tories treated them as an afterthought or, at best, an accoutrement. They insulted 51% of the voting public through condescension and neglect. Who can forget the badly shaved yowie and self-appointed Minister For Women whose most notable contribution to feminism was pontificating on reducing electricity costs to help housewives * with the ironing? Or God's own emissary Smirko McFuckface who expected accolades on the basis that March 4 Justice protesters were not shot and who was perpetually puzzled by the notion that women were equal. * An archaic term deployed in the pre-enlightenment years of John Howard There are more women on Labor’s front bench than the entire Liberal party . Just six Liberal women are in the lower house. Ley as the first female leader of the boys' tree house club is in a holding pattern. Has she the shelf-life of a Liz Truss lettuce or several Scaramuccis? She's got longer than that but the boyz are already circling. In opposition it seems that they'll spend much of their time opposing themselves. The meritocracy has thrown up/regurgitated a gaggle of male (surprise!) ̶a̶d̶v̶e̶r̶s̶a̶r̶i̶e̶s̶ options before Suss could even adjust the chair height in the LOTO's office. Fidel D'Figueres Man Of The Year 2019 and purveyor of dehydrated water Fingers Taylor has numeracy skills at idiot savant level - provided you leave out the savant bit. He believes he has the numbers. IPA plant (the hairy palm) James Patterson is the half-sucked gobstopper on the barbershop floor. No-one takes him seriously. Andrew Hastie has God on his side ala Brother Scotty and is awaiting the word. Autofellatist Tim Wilson is his own biggest admirer as is Dan Tehan, founding member of the exclusive Dan Tehan Fan Club. Both think they are leaders of men (sic). Tim Wilson, FIGJAM Suss's deputy, Morrison Minor Ted O'Brien, has amongst other things, an unfortunate resemblance to that unlamented smirking jetsam from The Shire which, apart from his own bespoke lack of appeal, is a disqualifier. Despite such jostling Suss started out well enough...appearing in front of the pack at the National Press Club: "In a move later described as brave, she began her address with an acknowledgment to country. She expressed her faith in the work of public servants. None of these things should be remarkable, but in Liberal land 2025 they are." thepolitics.com.au . Will she survive? I give her until next June. Tony Abbott and News Corp wanted to hand our sovereignty to China — so spare us the warmongering . Bernard Keane, Crikey ($). " Tony Abbott, News Corp and the Coalition attack Anthony Albanese for visiting China. But they happily surrendered Australian sovereignty to Beijing a decade ago. "