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Hanson? Wings? U2? Bay City Rollers? The Osmonds? Air Supply? Milli Vanilli? Little River Band? Nope. There is one group that stands alone when it comes to shrill, tin-eared discordance that is miles from the hyped promises put about by the usual industry grifters and shonks. PR spin from media hacks has been unable to disguise either their total lack of any discernible talent or their constant in-fighting and bickering. Continual airplay of their tired old tunes is back-firing with even rusted-on fans of the genre abandoning the band. A farewell tour is in the offing. Terry Wrist and the Hand Shandies The Hand Shandies was formed from the remnants of Rotten Johnny & The Pistol Whippers after little Johnny's faeces flinging antics pushed audiences' grudging sufferance too far. Being out of dung range the die-hards in the dress circle loved it, but the average punters fled for the exits. The middle-of-the-road Kevin07 took over in the charts in 2007 but fell apart with internal squabbles and a clash of egos, reforming with a more progressive sound as Julia and The Factions. Despite a promising start, after a few years many of their followers drifted away, fed up with their lost direction. This was an opportunity for an unlikely successor. A talentless gob-shite of Bono-esque self-regard the flappy-eared, onion-breathed Terry Wrist had been waiting. Swaggering around the stage, bandy-legged from a nasty dose of sack rash, leering and winking at the women in the crowd this fan of heavy metals came across as a comical try-hard rising again from several failed careers; a ridiculous, hairy Nosferatu in a red monokini. His chief image consultant, a 6'2" Cruella DeVil, resplendent in tiger-stripe outfits (endangered Bengal tiger cub no doubt) was not the optimal choice for promoting the band's supposed family values. Wrist was backed up by surviving Pistol Whippers such as Sloppy Joe on diddley bow, the cadaverous, charisma-challenged Spud (Warren Terra) on metronome, Shouty on tambourine, Otto Abetz pounding away on his one-handed organ and the screechy McFailure Crash on finger nails & blackboard. The Hand Shandies was born. Rotten Johnny's influence was readily discernible - tired old tunes reminiscing about the 50s were re-jigged in the Shandies limited set: Axe the Tax Stop the boats Stop the waste While initially these were big hits when repeated ad nauseum they clearly showed that the Hand Shandies were totally lacking in creativity and imagination. They became as popular as a fart in a phone box but maintained the support from the hard core twaterati with constant air-play. Rotten Johnny was trotted out by the Shandies for regular guest appearances to fire up the rusted-on fans known as The Base. But the beetle-browed, gnomic goblin simply re-hashed the lyrics he'd drafted in the '50s inviting the inevitable disbelief and derision. The Base was nowhere near as broad as they'd deluded themselves into believing; most had moved on to more progressive styles. In a desperate attempt to regain mainstream listeners The Shandies ditched Wrist for an urbane Brian Ferry wanna-be. Mal Larkey took to the mic to schmooze the public with promises of a harmonic new style - a short-lived and futile exercise as Wristy and his acolytes at the back took to their instruments with re-newed vigour - introducing chainsaw, flame-thrower and jackhammer and drowning out Mal whose subsequent simpering subservience to the rat pack destroyed whatever credibility he'd had - which foretold his inevitable sacking. The discontent overflowed to The Shandies' backing band - Barmy and The Gnats featuring Matt King-Coal, a hack C&W outfit whose simplistic jingles appeal to the kind of rustic oiks for whom Achy Breaky Heart and The Chicken Dance are favourites on the back bar juke boxes of country pubs. The puce-headed Barmy, whose stage act included imitating a stop light and chasing female bar staff into the women's lavs was finally sacked when the sharing of his oboe with one of the roadies came to the public's attention. He has been replaced by a ventriloquist's dummy. Under yet another new front man, Shouty, the Shandies applied gospel to their short repertoire and took to the road on their Kill Bill tour. Shouty's gimmick is to take a gun and shoot himself in the foot, his subsequent running around in decreasing circles and yelling gets horrified laughs but has done nothing to increase sales. And he's running out of feet. The Hand Shandies have scheduled their final appearance for May 2019. This will overlap with Bill Live At The National Tally Room which looks like a sell out. Pork barrels and setting fire to the planet as promised by The Shandies are desperate attempts to keep selling tickets. We've stopped listening. They're goners; and good riddance. FauxMo hits the road: The Twat In A Hat The malignant monsignor from Manly: Abbottageddon The Undead - haunting the House under the hill Egregious arseholes - The Top Ten

Book review. The Land Before Avocado - Journeys in lost Australia by Richard Glover. “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there” is the opening phrase from The Go-Between by Professor L. P. Hartley published in 1953. "You don’t like the past? Then fiddle the books … How easy it is, as long as it’s just paper and fallible memory." George Orwell, 1941 "There is no halcyon past for us to return to - our rose-tinted glasses provide 20-20 vision, but on balance i thank my lucky stars i was born a boomer...This is no maudlin sentimentality...it was better (then) than the way it now is." 9 Signs You're a Grumpy Geezer, 2018 Upon reaching the milestone of formal old age, 65, I was gifted, separately but appropriately, two copies of Richard Glover's The Land Before Avocado, an amusing but at the same time irritating revisit to 60s and 70s Australia. The book is a hybrid of humour and hectoring - it's a hedged history. Sure, there are chuckles to be had as Glover pokes fun at the fashions, foods and fads of a transformational time in our recent past. But the transformation is the point Glover glosses over in two short paragraphs at the very end of the book. From his perspective several decades on he is castigating us with - "The world of 1970s Australia is almost unimaginable in its level of legal prejudice and casual brutality; its sexism, racism and homophobia. To appreciate how bad things were, and yet how quickly things changed can embolden us". What a load of angst-ridden hyperbole. The moralising avoidance of relativism in condemning a time of generational change had me grinding what's left of my teeth. Here you'll find the underlying tone of the self-righteous - Glover is, apparently, an observer of the times but not of the time nor subscriber nor beneficiary. He lets himself off scot-free - there's no individual self-flagellation but a tad too much self-indulgence. At the time the agents of change were individuals of the stature of Gough Whitlam and organisations such as the Builders Laborers Federation with their green bans protecting swathes of historic Sydney and the early gay and lesbian protesters who are each acknowledged in the book; but not as a part of the underlying mood for challenging the status quo. They are called out as exceptions to a contemptible (but imaginary) apathy of the rest of us. Glover revels in his damnations and produces a cheap imitation of Donald Horne's national castigation that is The Lucky Country. The book is redeemed to some extent by the amusing look at the quirks and peccadilloes of those times. But even then Glover can't help himself. A staunch advocate of the self-defeating cult of helicopter parenting he sees our childhood freedoms as parental neglect. The wonderfully popular monkey bars and swings of the then ubiquitous playgrounds were death traps he implies. FFS! It wasn't cottonball wrapped, nanny-state sulkers from earlier generations who landed on the moon in 1969, who explored ocean depths and scaled Everest. Perhaps Glover is seeing his childhood years through the eyes of a namby-pamby - a kid who's mother abandoned him by running off with his English teacher. Does he denounce these decades because they are coloured by such a dismal experience? Some of the book's anecdotes are amusing and bring a smile of wry nostalgia while others border on cliché - such as our traditional diet that typically included vegetables boiled into pulpy submission and the kitsch fashions of the time. The content is his endorsement of the 'now' by sledging the 'then'. Soggy peas vs quinoa and kale? Body-shirts or pre-ripped jeans? Each time has its idiosyncrasies, its positives and its negatives. But each needs to be recognised as a product of evolving standards and conventions. The 50s, 60s and 70s were not perfect by any means but: The oceans were not awash with tens of thousands of square miles of plastic gyres. The extinction of species and environmental degradation were happening. But today we have learned nothing and these experiences are only accelerating. Rampant consumerism had not taken hold. We had what we needed but we didn't get all that we wanted. The green surrounds of our cities were yet to be surrendered to hideous eaves-to-eaves McMansions. Kids climbed trees and went fishing in a tinny without lifejackets and took risks, and learned from them. We were not in thrall to a screen. No junk food chains. Pie shops and the local chippy were hardly models for healthy diets but they were an occasional treat not a habit. Childhood obesity was not an epidemic. Kids playing outdoors was the norm. These days rates of anxiety disorders and depression are rising rapidly among teenagers. You fucked up, you were at fault, not somebody else. Where were all those swollen kiddies given the ubiquity of peanut butter sandwiches? Where was ADD? Kids paid attention. If not, parents were held responsible not the kid's genetics nor their teachers. Social media meant crowding the neighbour's loungeroom to watch Superman on one of the few TVs in the street. We had backyards and communities, we knew our neighbours. There was no whiny doctrine of victimhood - the default position of taking, even seeking out offense. Much to the horror of the nanny-staters, like Richard Glover, we had the sheer joy of "cracker night" which we managed to stretch out to about a week and which we survived. Intact. Skateboarding and scooters were the domains of the young - we grew out of our toys. Big brother was not manifest in western democracies. Our movements and written words (soon to be enhanced to include our spoken words and our faces) could not be tracked and recorded for sale to commercial greed and surrender to autocratic governments. The music was far better. The one and only advantage conceded in the entire whinge list in Glover's book. In 1972 the Whitlam Government was elected and over two decades of Tory torpor came to an end. This was the starting point for all of those progressive virtues that Richard Glover reserves for contemporary Australia - one now beset by one of the worst, most reactionary governments this country has ever had to suffer. A government is supposedly reflective of the society that elected it. Well Richard - Gough Whitlam or Tony Abbott and his claque of corporate leg-humpers, grifters and science-denying flat-earthers and religious freaks? Australia in those earlier times was ready to embrace change and Glover's preferred contemporary Australia was shaped by those changes. He has the dynamics from those days to thank for it being "so spectacularly clear that life is much better now than it was". The 60s and 70s, the "edifice of unfairness", was a lot more egalitarian, a lot less selfish and far less condescending than he claims. The "wogs", "dagoes" and "reffos" got a go without the interference of the then unknown phenomenon of the self-appointed Social Justice Warriors - those guardians of the interests of others who they patronisingly believe need them to step in and intervene on their behalf. Hypocrisy, condescension and racism all in one! Those immigrants and those gays and lesbians protesting in 1978 didn't need SJWs, they did it themselves - they took the risks and they made the efforts. Back then, in the olden days, there were no Certificates Of Participation for coming last, not everyone got a prize, there was no incentive to blame others for our own mistakes, we didn't expect bean bags and espresso machines at work, we didn't think that employers should value us for just being precious us. No-one was special unless they proved it to be so, self-effacement was a positive trait, having a personal brand is a concept that would've generated justifiable derision (bullying in today's terms) and tattoos were for sailors and bikies not narcissistic wankers. Thank the various gods. As annoying as The Land Before Avocado can be in parts it's still a worthwhile read - for the humour and for the aggravation; we geezers revel in aggravation. However there are books with a similar theme that are miles ahead for sheer enjoyment and are highly recommended: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson One of my favourite authors, Bill Bryson is often laugh-out-loud funny, typically informative and always entertaining. No stranger to Australia (Down Under/In a Sunburned Country) this American's memoir of growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, during the 1950s and early 1960s is surprisingly relatable to Aussies of the same generation. And for me, and surely for many others, it's far more representative of those times than was Richard Glover's book even though it's set in a whole other country. Bryson is quoted in The Land Before Avocado as recommending Richard Glover's earlier Flesh Wounds as "a funny, moving, very entertaining memoir". Unreliable Memoirs, Clive James Clive James admits that Unreliable Memoirs is just that - unreliable. Anecdotes from James' 40s and 50s childhood in Kogarah are enhanced with fictional elements but this does not detract from the hilarity. This is a book that should not be read in the quiet carriages of public transport. WTF - buy all three.

"Dear god, make it stop!" Be warned - if you browse this list you may not get this feculent flatulence out of your head for days. We all know one. That guy. The one in the brown, turtle-necked skivvy and hush-puppies, who thinks Porphery Pearl qualifies as champagne, who wears socks with crocs and for who diced cheddar with cabanossi on crackers do hors d'oeuvres make. A love machine in his own mind, with a saccharine music playlist that can clear a room after the first few notes. Well, here is that playlist. You're Having My Baby - Paul Anka. Get out the tissues ;) because this bloke must've spent so much time "indulging himself" I'm surprised he had anything left over with which to fertilise an ova. Escape (The Piña Colada Song) - Rupert Holmes. A pre-Tinder 'Man Seeks Woman' personal ad with words that could've been drafted by a real estate agent then set to a schmaltzy tune as a jingle for a dodgy divorce lawyer. The two twats who are the subject of this tripe deserved each other. What About Me - Moving Pictures. What about you? You needy, whiney, self-pitying pain in the arse. Get the fuck outta my shop! Disco Duck - Rick Dees. Disco + duck = dreadful dross. Achy Breaky Heart - Billy Ray Cyrus. Red-neck boot-scootin'. Leave your guns and your good taste at the door. The Girl Is Mine - Paul MCartney, Michael Jackson. Oh dear. Macca, this (and Wings) just confirms that John was indeed the real talent in The Beatles. Jacko we can forgive cos he was nuts. Sussudio - Phil Collins. Just when we thought Phil Collins could not possibly get any more trite and boring he comes out with this throbbing, over-wrought shite. Lady In Red - Chris de Burgh. A dirge that would make funeral mourners want to join any deceased in her red velvet-lined coffin. Rasputin - Boney M. I once spent a week in Vanuatu where the hotel house band's entire set was made up of Boney M numbers. A Vanuatuan past-time is land-diving - jumping headfirst into the ground from tall wooden towers. Now I know why. Wake Me Up (Before You Go Go) - Wham. Big hair topping white t-shirts and even whiter teeth. Teeny-bopper triteness that makes the Bay City Rollers look edgy. Luka - Suzanne Vega. A folkie song about child abuse. Top that Country and Western! Seasons In The Sun - Terry Jacks. Terry Jacks hit number one around the world with this and then retired from music. Thanks Terry. I Write the Songs - Barry Manilow. How does Bazza manage to write his songs with his head so far up his own arse? Sometimes When We Touch - Dan Hill. Dan Hill wrote this for a girl he fancied. He played it to her over the phone after which she left town with a football player and moved to North Carolina. She may be there still; leading a happy life albeit without access to any song royalties. Reunited - Peaches & Herb. Jeebers - if they ever re-unite I'm leaving town. Billy, Don't Be a Hero- Paper Lace. The American Civil War has been the inspiration for great literature, and music such as The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. And yet we have this. Long Haired Lover From Liverpool - Little Jimmy Osmond. One of those rare examples of child abuse where the abuse is committed by the child. Lock him up! Save Your Kisses for Me - Brotherhood of Man. Yet another reason to close down Eurovision. Anything by Bucks Fizz. Eurovision has a lot to answer for. A celebration of outrageous kitsch and justification for removing Europe from the grid. Don't Give Up On Us - David Soul. Proof positive that it is possible to laugh and projectile vomit simultaneously. I've Never Been To Me - Charlene. "I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring...". Subtle whoring? Hmmmm....perhaps some explanatory detail could've saved this execrable self-indulgence from its tedious introspection. Boogie Oogie Oogie - A Taste of Honey. Boogie oogie oogie doesn't taste like honey. So I'm told. Honey - Bobby Goldsboro. Have the insulin on stand-by. Tell Laura I Love Her - Ray Peterson. Tell her yourself. Twat! These dreadful ditties have their use. Ever hosted a party where the guests won't take a hint and leave? This is your solution. What doesn't make the list and why Any list of the worst songs ever is as contentious as any list of the best songs ever. There are any number of contenders - what can't be argued though is that those that are incriminated here have earned their place. What i have excluded are: So crap that they're good. Some bad songs have listening value because they're catchy, purposely taking the mickey or just because they're an icon of tackiness. Yoko Ono. No one anywhere listens to Yoko hence she's excluded. The occasional dodgy lyric: Hotel California (wine is not a spirit, guys, it's fermented not distilled), "Tonight there's going to be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town" - Thin Lizzy. Hint - head to the jail, "I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping Still my guitar gently weeps" Not a lot of effort there, George, "There were plants and birds and rocks and things" OK, it's the desert, there's not much out there. Including rhymes. Tongue-in-cheek dreadfulness - I'm Too Sexy, U Can't Touch This etc. The occasional shocker from otherwise great artists e.g. Yellow Submarine. Obscure rubbish. The "worst ever" tag requires song recognition. You can't cringe if you've never heard it. What contenders for coprophagia have I missed? Some entries that have been submitted by email in response to this post. Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) - Looking Glass. The sailors say: "Brandy, you're a fine girl". I don't know about you but I would never take an endorsement from sailors as satisfying the requirements for fine girl status. Muskrat Love - Captain & Tennille. Voyeuristic, anthropomorphic and ever so slightly pornographic. America did a cover of this bollocks, further cementing their reputation as a cheesy rip-off of The Eagles. (Although I do like Sister Golden Hair and Horse With No Name). Una palomo blanca - George Baker Selection. This'll get you bopping to the beat as you back out of the room and flag down a cab. I'd Really Love To See You Tonight - England Dan and John Ford Coley. Sorry fellas, no can do. I have to get my teeth filed. Watchin' Scottie Grow - Bobby Goldsboro. Look, in the bushes near the kiddy swings - is that Bobby Goldsboro? Rose Garden – Lynn Anderson. "I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden, along with the sunshine there's gotta be a little rain some time". I don't want a rose garden, nor do I want this fekking aural drizzle. Band of Gold – Freda Payne. This abominable ear-worm should never be played if there are sharp objects about. In fact, it should never be played. Ever. Patches – Clarence Carter. This is what happens when a black guy tries to one-up Country & Western's mawkish lyrics. Stick to the Blues, Clarence. Precious & Few – Climax. Precious? Not so much. Few? Thanks be. Jeans On – David Dundas. This tragic number appealed to those also-rans who had creases ironed into their jeans by their mum. Torn between Two Lovers - Mary MacGregor. Ever heard of threesomes you gormless dullard? Thank you AMK, thank you John, thank you Mike. Best Songs. Nifty Fifty Part 1 Nifty Fifty Part 2 Old Favourites. Funky but forgotten Kitsch List. 21 songs so crap they were good

Position Vacant Groom Of The Stool Take your brown-nosing to a new level. Are you an obsequious apple-polisher, a bag-carrying sycophant, a forelock-tugging toady, a lick-spittle? Do your pantaloons have shiny knees, do you lack all self-respect? Then the Royal House of Windsor has an opportunity for you. Formalise your kow-towing skills - apply now, but be quick, this role is in huge demand. Applications from the colonies will be well regarded. There is hope for Australia. The derision that greeted Tony Abbott, our then Idiot In Chief, with his bizarre knighting of Liz Winsdor's consort was strident and almost universal. The Blunder Bus of Abbott's obsequious kakocracy was run off the road and Republicanism was revived. Then Harry and his new missus turned up on our shores. The boot-licking, hysterical reception was vomitously cringeworthy. The fawning adoration has humiliated our country. A country where Jack is supposedly as good as his master, where we sit in the front of taxis next to the driver. Oz, the egalitarian home of the tall poppy syndrome. Then this, FFS! The monarchy may be entirely symbolic for practical purposes but it's symbolic of a country where no Australian can be head of state, where we are all subservient to the inherited privilege of an outrageous class system; consigned to the lowly ranks of colonial hoi polloi, obsequious receivers of baubles and trinkets at best where should our own Prime Minister dare to even touch our head of state it is met with out-raged howls of indignation by scornful, snooty Poms doing what they have always done - looking down their noses at us. Meritocracy before monarchy! The Royals have now left our fair shores behind, let's now leave the Royals behind. Pun intended. Get fair dinkum Australia. Get off your knees and regain some self-respect. Join the fight - join the ARM

Turnbull's tumbril and the wobbly-wheeled right wing bandwagon Watching the current crop of federal Liberal Party MPs setting fire to their own hair is an entertaining spectacle. This is the closing act of a circus that rolled into town in 2013 with a Snidely Whiplash in red sluggos as ringmaster and with a doctrine that butchered Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time and we reckon we can fool most people most of the time." They didn't think we'd notice their sleights of hand or care about their pea and thimble politicking. But they were fooling themselves more than they were fooling the audience; the boos got louder, the rotten tomatoes more frequent. This wasn't mediocrity, it was a lip-sticked pig that no longer duped even the gormless dullards, the complacent or the credulous. In panic and desperation the Libs jettisoned the public's objet d'ridicule - their idiot-in-chief and the tarnished hero of the RWNJs, the ridiculous, flag-festooned feral friar Tony Abbott. His usurper, packaged for public consumption as an erudite, can-do sophisticate paid the deposit on his accession to the throne - one pair of testicles. Kept securely in a gladstone bag by the colander-hatted crazies, Malcolm Trembles' balls were shown to him as a reminder whenever it was thought he was straying from the far-right agenda. Regardless of the delusions of the Lib's right wing nutters and despite the denial of the regressive-left fringes of the citizenry (with their strident censure of all things Western or, god forbid, white and male) Australia is a progressive country with an inherent social conscience. We overwhelmingly endorsed marriage equality, the majority acknowledges the reality of anthropomorphic climate change and the need for clean energy. We support the enfranchisement of indigenous Australians and accept multiculturalism. We are suspicious of autocrats. We defend government participation in education and health care. We are overwhelmingly secular and centrist with a tilt toward the progressive end of the political spectrum. As a consequence this current wretched regime became as welcome as a Polly Waffle in a swimming pool. What is this coagulation that misrepresents itself as our government to do? What is its response to its laggard status through years of poor performance in opinion polls? Self immolation was the solution of these geniuses; a move even further to the right was their ambition. Riven by animosities the coprolites plotted the destruction of Trembles and his 2IC Jewels Bishop, the two most palatable of their limited options. This was no longer about restoring half-decent governance nor winning the next election; this was naked revenge, ego and self interest. Lobbied by corporate hucksters, grifters and bag snatchers, infiltrated by the dark forces of a far-right think tank, beholden to mining and media magnates and rife with monarchists and religious zealots the Liberal Party and their agrarian partners in grime, the Nationals, live in a bubble. The rabid right wing cannot hear our heckling over the megaphones of the shock jocks and Murdoch leg humpers. They are tin eared delusionals who believe that anyone not subscribing to their Randesque ideology is a Lefty adversary to be defeated at all costs. This cabal plotted to install a mullet-eyed autocrat as PM, a psychopath who takes pleasure in tormenting refugees, who built for himself an Oberkommando of dark uniformed goons and door breakers and whose public popularity was in the low single digits. Peter Dutton, aka Il Douche, was played for the dill that he is by the Jesus-shopping ballot stuffer ScoMo who, cloaked in prosperity-doctrine entitlement engineered the whole charade to win the prize. A masterful display of Machiavellian deceit - three competitors brought down in one fell swoop: Trembles, Il Douche and Jewels. The rabid Right was stunned. Their bullying and backstabbing had not paid off, but they will not give up. The Libs/Nats' move to the Opposition benches is imminent, and cue the Benny Hill theme music, a schism is inevitable. This circus is worth the price of admission. Fairy floss anyone?

Book review by DNF Clive James, Germaine Greer, Barry Humphries and Warren (Wazza) Jack - urbane, sophisticated Aussie authors and raconteurs who left our fair shores several decades ago for Old Blighty seeking fame, fortune and culture. Well, almost. Wazza Jack's take on culture at the time was to avoid its transmission by wearing thongs (flip-flops) into the communal showers of European camp grounds, a fortune was the extra spending money from smuggling booze, while fame still proves elusive. Wazza's claims to urbanity remain somewhat controversial though there can be no doubt that 1980s Europe was an eye-opener for our hitherto guileless hero as he drove bus loads of mostly antipodean adultolescents from London to Istanbul, Scandanavia and most places in between. Don't Ask Me I'm Only The Driver is a collection of stories from a pre-selfie era when travellers' interactions were not focused on the screen of a smartphone and at a time when an Osama Bin Laden look-a-like could travel relatively freely throughout a less paranoid Europe (the non-communist part was less paranoid). I am sure that if Wazza turned up in Europe today looking as he did in the early 80s he'd get a free prostate check from border officials. The following are some extracts from his book. Innocents abroad - Amsterdam Once in Holland we ... decided we’d best have a look at Amsterdam before heading for England. That was certainly an eye opening experience for me, a simple lad from the western suburbs of Sydney. When we walked down the street in the Red Light district all the girls were sitting in windows on display. All tastes and fetishes were being catered for, there were tall girls, short girls, white, black and Asian dressed in leather, lace, rubber, nurse’s uniforms and lingerie. When we slowed or stopped to look they would pout, stand up and pose seductively before beckoning with a finger to the doorway. When they got a customer they simply closed the curtains and went to work. We saw one customer come back out rather hurriedly as if pushed, and the curtains opened again while the girl was still tucking parts of her ample anatomy back in. It was a real production line. One girl we stopped to look at gave Phil a big smile and motioned to her door. Phil signalled her to stand up which she did, leaning forward and thrusting out her ample chest. Phil then signalled her to turn around and in doing so she paused to thrust out and wiggle her bum as she smiled seductively over her shoulder and motioned to the door again. Phil shook his head in decline and laughing, gave her a thumbs down. He turned to walk away and she went ballistic. We heard a door slam open and looked over to see a huge bloke, as black as midnight and most likely her pimp, rushing towards us yelling in Dutch, so we took off. Amsterdam is built on a swamp and full of canals. We had the buildings on one side and the canal on the other of the narrow one way street. The street ahead was blocked by an approaching taxi. I went between the taxi and the buildings, Snowy between the taxi and the canal side railings and Phil went bonnet, roof, and boot, over the taxi itself. We then had two angry Dutchmen chasing us. I don’t know how far we ran before we stopped but it seemed like an Olympic marathon before our pursuers finally gave up. Clothes optional - Dubrovnik I always used that campsite, as did many other tours, and it really was a very good one and we never told the punters anything, we just waited for the reaction when we arrived. It was always a good giggle, and the questions from the punters were invariably the same: “Why are we stopping here?” “Because it’s a great campsite” “Are you serious? Are we really stopping here?” “We sure are.’ “Is this really a nudist camp or are you having us on?” “Look around and see for yourself.” “Do we have to go nude?” “If you don’t they’ll probably think you’re some kind of voyeur or other undesirable type.” “Can we stay in our tents?” “Of course you can, but you’ll have to put them up first.” “How come you’ve still got your clothes on?” “Because I’m going to the bar across the road, which does fantastic calamari, to sit on the veranda, watch the sunset and pig out. Want to come with me?” The tents always went up in record time, but our site was usually very quiet and seemingly empty. The only sign of life would be the occasional camera lens briefly poking between a pair of closed tent flaps, then quickly disappearing. By this stage of a 10-weeker we had already spent six days on a yacht cruising the Greek Islands where most of the girls would swim and sunbake topless so some would wander down to the beach just in a bikini bottom, others would wait until they got in the water first. Sometimes one might then walk back to camp nude after the sun had gone down but they didn’t stroll along leisurely. I got what I suppose were my just deserts there one morning, maybe it was karma getting me back for putting the punters out of their comfort zone. A group of us were sitting in a circle in front of the cook tent eating breakfast, me with my back to the bumpy stony campsite road that ran past. All of a sudden one of the others laughed and unwittingly spat their breakfast all over me, gibbering something unintelligible whilst pointing over my shoulder. I cleared the Weet Bix from my face and turned to see a middle aged man riding past on a pushbike with a massive stiffy pointing the way and bouncing all over the place. The other unusual thing about that camp was the unisex amenities block, the doors on the showers were all mounted the wrong way around. The doors were all of the wooden louvre type that let you see a limited amount from one side but nothing from the other and were hung so that you could see in but not out of the shower. I never worked out why. Warren Jack is a regular contributor to Australasian Dirt Bike Magazine. Don't Ask Me I'm Only The Driver is 346 pages of easy reading value that will raise smiles for the vicarious traveler. It can be purchased via:

Have we hit peak narcissism? A few years back a group of the lads in my motorcycle riding social set decided that a 2 day, mid-winter ride through the western slopes of NSW with an overnight stop at a country pub would be a good way to test our mettle, our camaraderie and our weather-proofs. Freezing temperatures and drenching downpours materialised as if to order. Thanks to the wonders of modern motorcycle apparel, snotcicles aside we arrived at our first country fuel stop via wickedly chilly winds and driving rain relatively warmish and dryish. Then, mid-refuel, the unmistakable unmuffled cacophony of approaching Harley Davidsons could be heard from within the drifting fog and drizzle. Emerging from that icy, damp, wintry shroud was what was no doubt intended to be an intimidating sight of bad boy bikers. Sorely under-dressed in sodden leather vests, t-shirts, soggy jeans and wrap-around sunnies these clowns were all about image - hypothermia be damned. These rugged "individualists" were conforming to a group archetype whatever the personal discomfort. The effect though was not quite what they intended - derision was not the desired reaction. Compliance to a contrived persona has costs. Discomfort being one, self respect being another. Social media, the smart phone and celebrity culture has enabled and encouraged the narcissist - the poseurs, those who profess to have 762 Facetube friends, who see fame as an end in itself and not as a consequence of any sort of achievement, the selfie-addicts and the LinkedIn aggrandisers. However, while these types can be readily ignored the cult of "Me" and the personal brand has spread to the workplace where it's not just tolerated it is being encouraged and exploited in the business world. It tipped me over the edge. When a crusty old Boomer was tasked with "building your personal brand as part of your KPIs" then it was time to up-stumps. When Kool-Aid imbibing bag carriers' self-descriptions such as "charismatic people leader" earned more kudos than actually doing anything productive, when fake trumped facility then i had outlived my usefulness. It was time to move on from such self-indulgence and start a blog. Image from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/143676629@N04/33209877280/in/dateposted/

Cars are for transport, motorbikes are for your soul. One day soon, with a tap on an icon on your smartphone, an autonomous vehicle will drive itself to your location, ready to deliver you to your destination by a route determined by an algorithm that tracks and interprets your thoughts via a database of your every interaction over the internet. It will also factor in the movements of every other connected road user out there, so you will be able to bury your face in a screen during the entire journey to avoid an attack of the dreaded FOMO. Cars are already equipped with automated parking, cameras, sensors, lane deviation alerts, proximity alarms, autonomous braking, automated windscreen wipers and headlights - marketed with an alphabet soup of initialisations: ABS, ASCD, ASTC, DSC, DAC....you get the picture. The world seems ready to embrace autonomous vehicles. And the Prince Of Darkness (aka Mark Zuckerberg) is rubbing his hands in delight. Some innovations such as automated collision detection are well worthwhile; others are just a wank (what - you can't turn your own headlights on? FFS!) that take responsibilities and skills away from the driver. Roll on the fully autonomous vehicle, then there will be no drivers and no need to drive. No doubt there will still be some folks like me appreciating a journey for its own sake and loving the mastery of a machine, who revel in the thrill of a fast sweep through the arc of an open road and who are not in constant thrall to a fucking screen. We have the motorcycle. Also Two-wheeled tribalism If i had a big, big shed and lots of money my dream collection would be: Bultaco Sherpa T My old man was a particular pain in the arse as my instructor when i was learning to drive some four and a half decades ago. He was such a pain that i thought "fuck this" and went out and bought a motorbike. Up until then i'd had no particular interest in two wheels...in hindsight the old man's impatience was a blessing and i quickly became addicted. Dirt bikes had a greater attraction back then through their versatility, simplicity, robustness and lower price tag. With a dirt bike you could go anywhere, and the master of go-anywhere is the trials bike. Those things can climb trees. I used to greatly admire the slow-motion artistry of the trials riders and their laid-back demeanor - i recall one geezer (the old fart must've been in his 40s), flatcap on head, rubber wellies on his feet who rode up for a chat,then with his feet still on the pegs, stationary, he rolled a cigarette. He was on a Bultaco Sherpa T. I was won over. Ducati 750SS During my dirt bike phase my road-bike riding brother owned a Kawasaki 750 H2 two-stroke triple of evil temperament and appalling manners. It had a light switch in lieu of a throttle and a frame of al dente spaghetti. Inevitably its owner ended up with multiple fractures and a lengthy stay in traction. At the same time one of his mates had a Honda CB750 K2, a better mannered machine certainly, and one that was received with great acclaim but to me it was a heavy, slow-manouvering lump - me being used to far lighter, agile 2-stroke singles. I jumped off those monsters straight onto a loaned Ducati 750SS. That sound, that gorgeous V twin engine, that sexy Italian style, the handling, the brakes. I wanted one. Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade Your eyes follow those shiny, black curves, linger on the nooks and crannies and make you want to throw a leg over, start up the throaty 1000cc engine, snick it into gear and roar off down the road. Outta the way woman, I'm off for a ride. The Fireblade is the great, great grandson of my brother's mate's Honda CB750 - and a far, far superior machine in every way. MV Agusta 750S Those Italians! Nobody does art on wheels like Italians consistently do. And Giacomo Agostini contributed a bit to the cachet of MV Agusta by winning 14 Grand Prixs and 10 Isle of Man TTs on MVs. Jeeze! That a helicopter manufacturer can produce such desirable bikes as a sideline says a lot about Italian style. In objective terms there were faster, better made and vastly more durable motorcycles on sale than the 750S. There are cheaper to maintain, more durable Italians than Sophia Loren too, no doubt. Britten V1000 A total of 10 Britten V1000s were produced by the Britten Motorcycle Company and now reside in collections and museums around the world. A big, 4 stroke V-twin full of Kiwi engineering inspiration. Got a spare $250,000? Manx Norton 500 Occam's razor (the law of parsimony) is the problem-solving principle that, when presented with competing hypothetical answers to a problem, one should select the answer that makes the fewest assumptions. Or more simplistically - the KISS principle. The Manx Norton is that principle in gorgeous metallic form. Old grungy Harley Davidson WTF? Some of us like to tinker with things mechanical and the internal combustion engine is the ultimate Meccano set for those who have not outgrown their boyhood toys entirely. So why a Harley? There are any number of reasons why an old Harley is at the top of my tinker list: Room for error. Old Harleys never ran particularly well when they were new so you can bugger things up yet not necessarily make them run worse. There are no fancy electronics (there's NO electronics) to frustrate those of us who think that managing the behaviour of electrons should be left to geeks in a lab. Rugged (if not entirely reliable) simplicity. I don't want to have to invest in a set of special tools that cost more than the bike. Old school motorcycling distilled to its essence - they cover all the senses. The smell of leaked oil, the touch of real metal - no poncy plastic here, the unique, thumping bass sound, the vibration and the looks - those huge V-Twin engines may be crude but by god they are kinetic art with purpose. That purpose (mobility) may often be frustrated by old Harleys' reluctance to function properly on a regular basis but that is the two-wheeled tinkerer's ideal. Presence. The most appealing motorcycles have an aura and character that is unique to their brand. The week-end roads these days are replete with merchant bankers and celebrity chefs astride their shiny new Harleys - the wanna-be bad boys captured by the cachet of the 1%er outlaw but too captive to their establishment lifestyles to have more than a temporary and superficial acquaintance with motorcycling and its various tribes. Effectively they form their own sub-tribe - wankers on wheels. But that is just a symptom of Harley Davidson's success - an iconic brand that is evocative of tattoos and big beards, scantily clad 'old ladies'* on the pillion seat, biker bars and bad behaviour, the Americana of Easy Rider and the Hells Angels. Sydney's Middle-Eastern crime gangs have even succumbed to that allure - another sub-tribe of style-over-substance tossers. *Old lady means young nubile nympho in biker-ese. The joy of taking an old, grungy Harley for a ride is not in dressing up in look-at-me cliched biker regalia of Johnny Reb boots, matt black open-face helmet and bandanna - it is in the simple satisfaction of getting the fucking thing to function. Ducati Panigale V4 S Superbike performance meets artistic flair - this would be what Ferrari would produce if they wanted to make something sexier than their cars. Bultaco Matador Precursor to the fabulous Fronteras, two of which i have owned and loved. Bultaco's 2 stroke, single cylinder, piston port engines were used to power road racers, flat trackers, road bikes, trials bikes, motocrossers and enduros. The Matador is a fine example of Bultaco's rugged simplicity. Go anywhere with a set of Belstaff's waxed cotton all-weather gear and an open-face helmet to show that big grin. MV Brutale Aggressive mechanical artistry that is not hidden behind a fairing. The antithesis of the simple beauty of a Manx Norton yet still a masterful sculpture in metal. Even its name is inspired. Big arsed stripped back Guzzi It's a big Italian V-Twin. That qualifies it. Munch Mammoth In 1966 the Germans beat the Japanese to the punch with this large capacity, across the frame four cylinder 4 stroke. Apart from that it's got just a touch of the weird to make it desirable.

The multiple manifestations of motorcycle culture Homosapiens is a herd animal. Drive into any sparsely populated car park, settle on a remote space to then go about your business and upon your return your car will be surrounded by later-arriving vehicles within the otherwise vast emptiness. Put up your tent in a corner of a tranquil camping ground and the next to arrive will decide that the attraction of wide open spaces is best enjoyed from close proximity to you. OK, it's evolution; the herding instinct is in our species' DNA as a protective mechanism. Same as with sheep. Well, some of us suffer from defective genes - we have the get-the-fuck-away-from-me genetic mutation. Call us Homofuckoffis. Hofo for short. Many Hofo were attracted to motorcycling for obvious reasons - it was an escape mechanism. Now while we Hofo liked to think of ourselves as individualistic and not of the general amorphous mass of humanity we were still largely human. So, we formed into tribes - sub-cultures within the sub-culture of motorcycling. But, motorbiking has now become somewhat mainstream and acceptable over the last couple or three decades, much as the once counter-culture of surfing has become family-values acceptable. The iconic Captain Goodvibes, legendarily libidinous, reefer-toking, Aussie surfing pig of steel with lipstick on his dipstick has morphed into Captain Wholesome with 'appropriate behaviour' caveats in his sponsorship contract. Sigh! ............... Where was I? ..... Oh - motorcycling sub-cultures. The descriptions here applied in the latter part of last century as multi-functional and cross-over bikes have since blurred the demarcations between once different tribes - the differences then being apparent to motorbikers if not to outsiders; when the aesthetics of motorcycledom were opaque to the uninitiated. These days if you own a motorcycle you're likely to also have multiple other interests - mountain biking, skiing, boating, pilates, blogging. The motorbike is just another hobby whereas it was once more of a commitment; to a two-wheeled lifestyle and to the immediate tribe and hence there were attributes applicable to each of those tribes. Old motorbikers will remember them. Beemer riders. A beard and a suit of saggy-crotched, waxed cotton weather-proofs was a characteristic they shared with their dirt-bike brethren from the enduro tribe. You could tell the difference, sans bike, by the bugs on the BMW rider's teeth and the stripe of cow shit up the back of the enduro rider. These long distance haulers were commonly riding solo given their Teutonic personalities did not encourage intimacy. The Hofo was strong in the BMW riders. Stoners. Not pot-smoking layabouts, but an Oz-specific group inspired by the 1974 movie Stone featuring bikini-faired Kawasaki Z900s. The short-lived phenomenon was somewhat reminiscent of the 50s British cafe racers of Mods and Rockers infamy. Cafe racers. An enduring tribe that has evolved over time from British bikes, black studded leather adorned with chains to super-bike riding boy-racers in full, multicoloured GP-style leathers. The Brits back then also called themselves the ton-up boys - the ton being 100 mph, a challenging ambition 65 years ago. Now you can wander into a bike shop for an off-the-shelf product that is capable of almost twice that; public roads aside. The nanny-staters are not happy. I will confess to being a recent member of this tribe, meeting up on a Saturday morning for a brisk run over a favourite route for a manly de-caf skinny latte. I didn't renew my membership after the coffee became more important to the group than the ride did. Road racers. "Road" meaning an asphalt race track. This description applies to the aspirational, amateur week-end club racers who were subject to a strictly defined social hierarchy that came with official rankings - A, B &C status. While their social standing was determined primarily by talent it was also subject to access to a reasonably high disposable income - "how fast can you afford to go?" At the time i didn't fully understand the road racers - the formality, the officialdom, the expense. Since the advent of the track day I now fully appreciate what went on in their heads and why they had a lump in the crotch of their leathers. Harley riders. Image rules. Whether bikers or bankers they mostly were, and mostly remain - wankers. Ducatisti. Ducatis were for the cognoscenti, the aesthetes and the discerning who appreciated style with substance. Ducati produced some crap, but their good bikes were fucking fabulous. If you wanted to be mobbed by nubile wenches desirous of a rogering from a man of taste and refinement then you got yourself a Ducati. Moto Guzziliers. Wannabe Ducatisti. Honda riders. Hondas were, in the 60s and 70s, the Toyota Camrys of the motorcycle world; white goods on wheels. 'Nuff said. Yamaha riders. Yamahas were like Hondas with a bit more pizazz but less reliability. Yamaha riders could often be found at the spare parts counter. Triumph riders. see Pedestrians. 1%ers. Bikie gang members who reveled in their dangerous reputations and, while purporting to be rugged individuals nevertheless applied strict rules of rank and a uniform dress code of filthy jeans, Johnny Reb boots, open-face matt black helmets, black leather and a permanent scowl. While probably not involved in highly developed criminal enterprises at that time they did indulge in anti-social public gun fights and the torching of other peoples' cars at the annual Bathurst motorcycle races. In the days when passing motorcyclists acknowledged each other with a raised hand or a nod these reverse snobs would never, ever do so. Scooter riders. I'm sorry - that thing is not a motorbike. The dirt bike tribes The enduro clans. Sleet, snow, torrential rain, mud, debilitating heat, dust, logs and bogs, steep hills, steeper hills, cliffs. Enduro is a contraction of endurance - a test of man and machine. Masochism was an asset. Only an enduro rider could doss down on the bare concrete floor of a corrugated iron footy shed in a small country town in the middle of a freezing winter with 100 farting strangers and call it fun. The observed trials fraternity. The ballet dancers of motorised sport, and the flat-capped, Welly-wearing epitome of cool. The only sport apart from darts where you could compete with a fag hanging out of the corner of your mouth. The Motocrosser. A surfer mentality on a dirt bike. The speedway clique. Close formation, side-ways, full throttle and no brakes. A small sub-tribe with big cojones and under-developed self-preservation skills. The open-exhausts, rooster tails of dirt flung into the roaring crowd at a test match against the Poms at the 1960s-70s Sydney Show Ground - an atmosphere of noise, grit and ethanol that cannot be replicated. The short circuit/dirt track faction. Like motocrossers without the attention span or tolerance of bumps; like speedway riders but without the commitment - their bikes were equipped with brakes. These tribes are not what they once were; I'm now likely to get parked in even at the bike shop. On Any Sunday, an emblematic movie from 1971 that captures the quintessential spirit of motor biking of the time. The lesser known classic Little Fauss and Big Halsy does the same. Steve McQueen starred in On Any Sunday, Robert Redford starred in Little Fauss and Big Halsy.

In defense of a demographic. There are characteristics of stereotypical geezerdom that I cheerfully accept as I slide into old age. Unsolicited maudlin reminiscing, wearing a hat while driving, a shambling monopolisation of pedestrian space and unkemptness (the dot of shame*, the coffee-crusted moustache, the unzipped fly) are just some of the behaviours to be embraced - because who gives a fuck! *That small wet patch on the crotch that shows that the drops were not all thoroughly shaken off Hipsters (now there's a demographic ripe for ridicule) are now misappropriating geezerdom as statements of cool. Beards, flat caps, cardigans, vinyl records, retro pushbikes. This is cultural appropriation - an egregious crime in the regressive lefties' Manual of Confected Outrage. Except? Except that they're stealing our stuff, and we are old and white and male. Old, white males - the cause of all that is evil in the world, the baddest of the bad. This is not to claim victimhood for old white males - it's a complaint about a term that is now being sprayed about as a pejorative. We are not victims, we as a collective are achievers, doers, inventors, explorers, chance-takers. We do not seek pity - that is the domain of the culture warriors, the hand-wringing self-flagellating censors, finger pointers and the look-at-me's ; a group comprised significantly of affluent white people who haunt the pages of left-leaning publications as journos and opinionista. This does not in any way discount the non-white, non-male achievers, doers, inventors, explorers and chance-takers - Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi, Greer and so many others. This is not a competition. This is a defense of the much-maligned, old, white male demographic. Labeling a group and all of its members in accordance with the behaviours of individuals is not acceptable. Except for us old, white males. Claiming membership of any group that precludes whiteness and maleness is now worn as a badge of honour, of worthiness by circumstance - 'I am not of the patriarchy I am one of the oppressed, I have received no privilege, I am by default a noteworthy individual'. Tony Abbott, Peter Dutton, John Howard, Donald Trump et al are not typical, they are exceptions. They have done no favours for us geezers, being held up as subliminal justification for labeling the rest of us; an 'us'* that includes many millions of progressives, lefties, greenies, human rights advocates, gay men, freedoms advocates and champions of justice. Denigrating old white males, by inference, denigrates Michelangelo, Charles Darwin, Neil Armstrong, Isaac Newton, Beethoven, Charles Dickens and a roll call of achievers far too long for any comprehensive list. If you want to piss off a significant number of those who align on the leftish fundamentals then keep up the denigration you fatuous pricks. *'anus' - a purely accidental pun of course but worthy of note Nothing will change of course until we, as a group, are displaced from our assumed position of privilege and advantage and cede control to some other demographic who can then be demonised in turn. Good luck with that. I think white males will continue to do what we've always done - good and bad. I can hold a door open to a woman and still cheer on the sisterhood, and I won't be all smug and virtuous purely because I am on first name terms with the waiter at the local Thai restaurant. But perhaps I should check my fly before leaving the house.