Very Old Fecal Matter

Friday 23 May 2008


Official Statistics:
Papa Gino's - 21:44
Official Start - 22:17
Official Finish - 23:45
Café Notturno - ~00:15

Ice Creams:
HM - Coffee - 8/10
SS - Soya Chocolate - 6.3/10

Boundaries:
Victoria Street, Chetwynd Street, King Street.

"Kitchen" Conversations:
* Two get promoted and everyone else relinquishes any sense of personal responsibility.
* Bleeding hearts try their best, but is it really in anyone's interests to talk to the clients and care for their pets?
* The ravages of gambling addiction strike again and it ends up with someone sleeping rough and doing almost anything to get coin for the pokies: going bare back... performing fellatio.... Addiction can lead people to the greatest depravity.
* The Kitchen is reaching more official milestones that confirm its faecal status. 163 now on the count. A form of musical chairs is now required for any of the most basic tasks.
* The relationship with the formal offices has gone to pot, with the "CoCs" subservient to the whims of the bleeding hearts.
* There is always a silver lining to the bleakest of clouds, and subtle changes to whiteboard notices produce much mirth and hilarity, at times resulting in "black rubs".

Work:
* In this day and age, to describe someone as disadvantaged is perceived as pathologizing individuals. I've got lots to learn.
* The new glass door raised eyebrows and is proving to be quite a hazard.

The Bearing-of-gifts:
* The busyness of everything meant the only things I could offer in the obligatory, but not mandatory, bearing-of-gifts were two half-eaten biscuits.
* I got the better end of the deal, with a copy of what everyone in Melbourne seems to be watching. As a coincidence, the first scenes of the DVD depict events that I was, according to the official record, involved with. I have vague memories, but, like the thousands of things that I worked on, things just blur over time.

The Night:
The boundaries for tonight's adventure took us out to what is getting close to suburbia in West Melbourne: Victoria Street, Chetwynd Street and King Street. A few restaurants, a few businesses, but primarily residential, and when we say residential we do not mean row upon row of body corporate-run flats and apartments; we mean houses. This is, in part, because of the choice of Victoria Street as our northern boundary and its orientation to the Hoddle Grid. The night was interesting, but unremarkable. We thought living at 444 King Street wouldn't be bad. Here are some pics:

First up, there is a small park area where Victoria Street meets King Street. Here we found an old underground toilet block that had been filled with concrete. For some reason, they left the signs there.




Around the same area was a memorial to those who fell in the Great War. At a later point, they added in information about those who fell in Malaya and Sarawak. Here is some stuff about why Australians were in that part of the world.




Here is an example of some of the older houses in the precinct. Note the obtuse angle of the house. It is not, apparently, related to changing policies about street orientations evident in 375 Queen St, but interesting nonetheless.




In navigating the old lanes at the backs of houses, we thought about the days of nightsoil men. These days, the hazards are more likely to be from rickety gas supplies:




This was just the kind of narrow laneway where we might have stumbled across dumped human remains. All I found was this torch:




We took our chances, and walked in and around these gates:




We came across some houses that could do with a lick of paint and some basic maintenance:




We also came across this old school, now an emergency crisis accommodation centre. They don't build 'em like they used to:




We also found this happy street sign:




Other Conversation:
* New graffiti legislation is challenging Melbourne's status as the street art capital of cities beginning with the letter M. Penalties of up to 2 years imprisonment and a $25,000 fine are now in force. More on the legislation here. Here is what the artists think about it.
* We walked past two drunken girls on the corner of Victoria and Bouverie Streets. One seemed to be having a lot of trouble with her underpants, with the other one lending a hand. Perhaps an errant pubic hair, or something like that. One of the oddest things I've had the misfortune of seeing.
* Music was discussed at length. The Stone Roses self-titled album (what a classic), the re-release of much of The Reels catalogue by Dave Mason, and Slade were all up for discussion. Slade have a particularly memorable line in one of their songs: "I don't want to drink my whiskey like you do", very aptly included in the soundtrack for (what has become an instant classic) Life on Mars (the original UK version).
* Movies: we highly recommend
- Pan's Labyrinth.
- Night Watch.
* The Olympics: exhibition events of a mostly ridiculous nature were discussed. Some ideas I dare not put into print for fear of reprisals from the International Olympic Committee, or of penalties resulting from copyright infringement.
* Given that the sisters are living it up in Lake Como, ShinyShiny is force-feeding his mother several times a day. Lots of Russian TV the result. Ask him a question; I'm sure he'll now know the answer. For example, what can you do with a large novelty pen?
* "No man could keep a toll gate for any time, without having the milk of human kindness in him turned to gall". I think there is something in that for all of us.

Blog Title:
In case you were wondering about the title of today's blog, here is the explanation:
On Victoria Street there is a most unusual establishment with the most unusual of pictures plastered all over their shop front. Comfort Colon Hydrotherapy has articles like that depicted in the following photo, pictures of huge poo-filled colons, and stories of terrible deaths that have resulted from unclean and unwashed colons. I think that I might check it out one of these days.




On that note, I'll call it a night. Til next time,

Shalom.