Is it just me, or does the Federal Government have absolutely no imagination?

PM John Howard is trying his darndest to back Australia out of binding targets for greenhouse gas reduction, which quite frankly is pretty embarrassing to a lot of Australians, myself included. I mean, I can certainly commit myself to reducing my own greenhouse gas emissions before 2010, but it probably won’t help very much if the rest of the country doesn’t, and it certainly doesn’t send a strong message to all those other countries who are quavering about reducing their own emissions.

If we’re a special case so we should keep our greenhouse gas emissions up, why shouldn’t every other country claim they’re a special case too? In which case, we’ll get nowhere, except perhaps underwater.

All Howard seems worried about is jobs. He obviously hasn’t considered, or doesn’t believe the risks associated with global warming. (Maybe he wants to sell more Australian boats to low lying Pacific islands?) And he certainly hasn’t considered the new clean industries which might thrive in place of the old, dirty industries which might die should we actually reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Has he failed to notice the improving efficiencies of solar energy? Does he think the supply of coal and gas is infinite? Did he miss the announcement of a new electric car to be marketed by Toyota? Has he considered the benefits of anything other than the status quo?

Apparently not. And it’s not just the environment… the government seems to be happy to indulge in absolute inactivity over issues that are going to be very important in coming years, such as data privacy protection. And let’s not even mention race relations.

It’s a startling contrast to our state leader down here in Kennett County, SuperJeff. Now, I wouldn’t for a moment begin to pretend that I agree with everything Jeff does. I think he’s done some really stupid things. But he’s also done some good things. The point is though, that he’s looking to the future. He’s being ambitious, and trying to move forward.

It’s hard to believe that they’re both from the same political party. But they are. It’s just that one’s living in the 1990s and the other appears to be stuck in some kind of time warp.

I have a confession to make - particularly to those of you reading who know me personally. This is not something that it’s easy to admit. I’m afraid my friends might not understand how I could change like this. They might desert me, but I have to face up to what I have done, right or wrong.

I’ve taken up regular exercise.

There. I’ve said it.

Running. I’ve taken up running. Just a few times a week, for a few minutes. A quick run around the block. Well, okay, not an actual quick run as such. More of a slow dawdling jog.

After seeing others trying running recently, I decided I’d try it out. Normally I have an aversion to any form of physical exercise, but I discovered that running isn’t too bad. It’s enough to get the heart started in the morning, to build up the muscles a bit, and to get my t-shirt covered in sweat, all before the morning shower.

And to my surprise, I have actually felt motivated to get up and out of the house at some ungodly hour of the morning to go running. It’s a bit like when I started working fulltime - I never really believed that something that sounds so miserable before you do it could actually be quite… is fun the word? Maybe not. Perhaps satisfying is a better word.

So serious am I that on Saturday morning we zipped down to a local shoe store and bought some proper runners. Although alarmingly expensive, they should do a better job of keeping my feet intact than the crappy old runners I’ve been using. Though actually, given how much cash you hand over for them, they should just about do the running for you.

For ages now I’ve been saying that I should take the effort and learn to drive. Here I am, 27 years of age and I’ve never learnt. Hey, I never got round to it, okay?

Well, I’ve finally decided that even if I don’t intend to go out and buy a car straight away, I should learn to drive, before I go senile and my brain shuts off from old age and I can’t. So I’ve been reading the Traffic Handbook for a while, and today at lunchtime I went up and did the test. Multiple choice, 32 questions, just sit at terminal number 2 and press on the screen, Mr Bowen.

It was easy. I’m almost surprised at how easy it was. But I guess that’s because the bulk of the road laws are pretty simple. If you’ve lived here for more than a couple of years and have been paying attention, you probably know most of them without even glancing at the book.

The questions that were about other stuff were pretty easy too, because all you needed to do was use a little common sense. And if that wasn’t enough, choose the cautious, safer, or more scary answer.

Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t read the book, of course. In any case, using a combination of reading the book a few times, using common sense and careful choice got me a score of 100%, which is way more than I ever got for any test or exam in school.

A little waiting, an eye test (they looked a bit confused with what to do about my blind right eye, but eventually worked out I just needed to have two mirrors attached), get the photo taken and Bob’s your uncle.

What I found was interesting was the number of people who came in while I was waiting, and made things harder for themselves by claiming to have an appointment, but not having the appointment number they’d been given… or not having adequate ID, when it was all clearly explained on the phone. ‘Cos for a government department, everything went pretty smoothly, as long as you did what you were asked to do.

But then, maybe following those instructions was part of the test?

Anyway, that’s just a permit to learn to drive… I guess the hard bit is yet to come.

From time I write a little piece updating some of the things I’ve mentioned previously. And right now seems like as good a time as any to do so.

• Our local "Variety" store, having proclaimed in July that they were having a "Closing Down Sale", closed its doors for the last time over the weekend. This was a complete surprise to me - I was expecting another marathon series of "Only X days to go", like we experienced with the Pot Spot last year. In fact I think the Pot Spot was probably closing down for longer than it was open.

• Our neighbours downstairs, They Who Play The TV Too Loud In The Middle Of The Night Because One Of Them Needs It To Sleep, seem to have developed a strategy, whereby one of them turns the TV down or off at about 10:30, rather than leaving it to run all night.

  Except when they don’t, like last night. I usually go down and wake up The One Who Doesn’t Need It To Sleep, and get her to turn it down. Last night I didn’t, for reasons that I haven’t yet established. Maybe I just couldn’t be bothered. I won’t make that mistake again though, now that I know how long it takes me to get to sleep with that racket going.

  Quite apart from finding out what on earth my statutory rights are in this matter, I have also made a mental note to try and find out what brand of TV it is. Because The One Who Needs It To Sleep leaves his window open (and boy, if it’s loud in our bedroom above, you should hear it from outside his window), I figure if the TV is a Panasonic or a Mitsubishi, I can use one of my remote controls to turn the volume down from outside the window.

  Oh, but let’s get one thing straight… maybe The One Who Needs It has a sleeping condition, and really does need the TV turned way up to get to sleep. Big bummer for him. But I really don’t give a shit - there’s no way I’m going to lose sleep over it.

• The dead possum, or what’s left of it, is still hanging in there.

• Work is still pretty quiet. Okay, so in the last two weeks, I’ve had a few days’ work to do, but it’s still not quite enough to convince me, the occasionally super-motivated conscientious contractor, to renew my contract in November.

  So I’m looking for work again. In fact, one job already found me, but I had to turn it down because they needed somebody straight away, and once again I was unable to convince my current boss of the lack of my need to be here.

  Meanwhile, during my spare time (of which there is plenty), I am once again trying out new technologies that I haven’t used before. As well as writing diary entries like this.

• The video camera is still broken. Or at least, I haven’t got it back yet. Maybe someone at the shop has taken it on holiday.

While doing a little Egosurfing last week (Egosurf means to look on the Web for references to your own pages) I found this web page:

http://www.ncs.gov/n5_hp/n5_ia_hp/html/eitr/apendx_a.htm

Anybody who knows absolutely anything about HTML can spot straight off that it’s an extremely badly constructed page - in fact if you go to the page, it will look better if you view the source code in your Web browser, because all they’ve done is to take a normal text file and put a few HTML tags around it.

Anyway, this page is part of a report called the Electronic Intrusion Threat Report, a report about possible security intrusions into various computer networks. It was prepared by the US Government’s National Communications System in 1994.

The page is Appendix A of the report, a list of "known computer intrusion-related electronic newsletters". And to my surprise, in a section labelled "inactive publications" it describes the very publication you are reading thus:

"Toxic Custard Workshop … Hacker/Phreaker/Anarchy Newsletter"

So, the big question is… why? I have no idea. I’m not an anarchist. I don’t have the right clothes! I’ve never phreaked a phone - though I did refuse once to pay my phone bill because it was on a disconnected service and because it was for three cents.

As for hacking…! Erm.. well, okay, maybe I did guess my friends’ passwords a few times at uni, but I sure as hell never wrote about it here!

Searching through the archives of what I’ve written, hacking only gets one mention by name, in a spoof of television computer shows. Phones get a few mentions, but never in that kind of context. Anarchy gets a handful of joking mentions, once from the mouth of Mrs Irene Busybody (remember her?)

So, I will be writing to the National Communications System to ask them why they think Toxic Custard is about hacking, phreaking and anarchy. In the mean time, if you have any suggestions, e-mail me!

In recent years I’ve become fiercely proud of my country, and the city I live in, Melbourne. Not the kind of swollen chest, flag-waving, shouting "we’re bloody great!" pride, more the kind of subtle, lump in my throat when I hear a Paul Kelly song pride. This is especially the case since I married an American, and over the years have shown a lot of her relatives around town. Melbourne is great. Australia is great.

I’m proud of our sportsmen and women - the people who can be bothered to exercise more than I do - and all the things they win. I’m proud of the fact that I live in a mature society, a society where (with the appropriate warnings for those easily offended) you can say "fuck" on network television without a fuss. A society where they’ve worked out that prostitution is going to happen whether it’s legal or not, so they’ve legalised brothels. A society that attempts, generally successfully, to look after its people when they need looking after. A society where you can have your leg sewn back on without getting a massive bill for it later. A society fiercely proud of its culture, yet embracing of other people’s.

But then on Monday night came the news that the Andres Serrano exhibition at the National Gallery here in Melbourne had closed because of threatened and actual violence. Well, terrific. The artistic world could be forgiven that we’re a bunch of philistines still living in the 1950s. Obviously a few of us are.

Okay, so the photograph "Piss Christ", of a crucifix immersed in urine (not that you could tell unless you knew the title) was always going to cause a fuss. It’s not like it’s just a picture of flowers in a meadow, is it. It’s not the kind of thing that you buy a postcard of to send to a great-grandmother who fanatically worships the Pope.

So some people felt offended by it, and demonstrated outside the gallery. That is their right, to let other people know how they feel about it. But now three people have physically attacked the picture. Which planet, and what century did they come from?

Just because you’re offended by something doesn’t mean you have the right to stop other, grown, mature adults making the choice to see it. If you know you’re going to be offended by the word "fuck" on network television, then you don’t watch. You don’t go and bomb the television station. If you decide you are deeply offended by my use of the word "fuck" on my web site, then you leave my web site and don’t come back. You don’t hack into it and destroy the files (I keep backups anyway). And you turn on the PICS filter on your browser next time, if it has one.

As for the National Gallery, deciding to shut down the Serrano exhibition has got to be one of the most spineless displays of cowardice I’ve seen in a long time. C’mon, it can’t be that hard to guard a picture! I’m sure there are people in the security industry who can manage to get the picture on public display, but protect it from maniacs with hammers.

So do I like the picture? Well, I haven’t seen it in person, but the fury caused by it has ensured that I’ve seen it plenty of times on television and in the newspapers. If people hadn’t objected, probably almost nobody would have seen it.

I kinda do like it. Maybe it’s saying something about human side of Christ or something like that, I don’t know. I certainly don’t think the artist is saying that Christ should be pissed on. And I’ve got to say, I think the light shining through the bubbles onto the cross is quite beautiful.

Now, where did I put that tape of "The Life Of Brian"?

WARNING: The following diary entry contains material that may reveal to your kids some facts about Daisy The Dairy Cow that they’d prefer not to know.

Have you ever gone through the day with that really annoying moronic top ten dance single that you heard on the radio just before you left the house, going around and around in your brain? Well, it happens even more with children’s music - though thankfully children’s music is generally more intelligent than most top ten dance singles.

In fact for parents, a song going around and around in your brain is probably evidence of how good the song is. Because it’s likely to only reach this status if your kid is so enraptured by it that it gets played over and over at home. Not that that helps much.

The song going around and around in my brain is "Daisy The Dairy Cow", which it appears is also my son Isaac’s favourite song. Co-incidence? Hardly. What is remarkable is that it has achieved this exhaulted status in only the week since we got the Jump 2 It tape that it’s on. We went to the second of their concerts yesterday, and Isaac was rapt - especially when he got a hug from Daisy herself.

It appears from the concert today that the guy who plays Daisy The Dairy Cow is onto a winner. The other two members of the band do all the work, then Stewart jumps in the cow suit for the last two numbers, wins over the kids by being a cute animal, wins over the adults by playing a guitar solo, and takes all the glory. Mind you, he says he does sweat a lot in the suit. Perhaps some kind of thermostat device needs to be fitted.

The publicity material mentions that the band is "the brain child" of Stewart. He wrote the songs, devised the whole thing, and so on. I love that phrase, "brain child". Is it just me, or does it conjure up an image like this:

Ah, so it is just me. Okay.

Every week we enter Tattslotto. (Gawd, I’m getting old, aren’t I.) Actually, to be entirely accurate, every Saturday afternoon we remember that we were going to enter Tattslotto, and we umm and ahh about taking the card down and entering.

"Should I take it down. Aww, but it’s raining, I can’t be bothered. Oh, but if our numbers came up, we’d be kicking ourselves…"

But last week I had a brainwave: I filled in the bit of the card that says you want to pay in advance for five weeks. So no more umming and ahhing. At least, for the next five weeks.

Our numbers are of course chosen in a highly scientific and logical way. A mix of people’s birthdays and ages and whatever other numbers we could think of. With a few random ones thrown in for good measure.

And I’m happy to say that last night, our lucky numbers came up! Yeeeehaaa! Okay, so it’s only Division 5 - the lowest of the low. So we’re not instant millionaires. No retiring to the Bahamas for us just yet. It’s probably just enough to cover all the times we’ve entered so far; judging from the previous results on their Web site, it’s usually about $20. Wowee.

"So Mr Bowen, has this huge $20 payout changed your life?"

"Not really little man, no. Now get off my property or I’ll have you removed by force."