The Goood Life?
A guest blog by REDACTED
It’s that part of the semester again. All the mature age students are pumped up and us lazy regulars are slowly accepting the fact that we might have to do some work now. As an education student, our practicum placements represent only a small part of our third year at uni. This semester, we are supposed to do 6 days with 5 lessons across those days. For each lesson you have to make lesson plans, sequences of learning and lesson evaluations. All in all, a pain in my lazy ass. Such a predicament is added to by the fact that I have been placed this semester to teach Year 6 at one of the richest, most exclusive Sydney all boys Primary Schools.

The most major thing I realized during prac was the difference seen between this particular school and any other Primary school I’ve spent time at. I realize it first when I’m driving up the road on the first morning. I slowly roll my ’84 Civic past a line of parents dropping their little brats off, looking as each car I drive past has another 10 grand attached to the price tag. Beamers, Jag’s, MG’s and four Lexus’ 4WD’s that were identical but for the colour. There were even a couple of freakin Bentleys. The Staff carpark is similarly arranged except for a vintage Volvo and the Art teachers Vespa. I carefully park my Civic around the corner and walk the rest of the way. While my suit might present me as a straight up and down kinda guy, seeing my bomb isn’t going to instill any feelings of professionalism in either the students or the staff.


The new Bentley, for when being a massive prick just isn't good enough.

Dropping in the Staff Room before school starts the gap between reality and this school grows even more. I glance at one of the kid’s canteen menus. What other Primary school has sushi and smoked salmon sandwiches on its menu? The staff fridge does have half a case of Coopers green though. The bell goes and I head for the classroom.

My master teacher is an old man who started at the school 37 years ago. He lives onsite, has no car and basically never leaves the grounds. I figure this kind of imprisonment cannot be healthy. The kids seem to like him though so I’ll give him the benefit. He takes me on tours or the grounds while the students are at Art, Music, Italian, PE, Drama, Computer, Science or Library lessons. I discover that he only teaches Math’s and English and so has the students only half of everyday.

When touring the school, I can see great similarities between him and Johnny Depps ‘Willy Wonka’. He gets on heaps well with the children but avoids most of the other staff and it seems he doesn’t like adults company, rarely going into the staff room. He also tries to present almost prepared facts about the school in casual conversation and then forgets he’s said them and re-tells me on the way back. “We had Eddie Jones here last month for a bit of extra rugby training” “This is our new library mural, each student in the school placed a piece in the mosaic” “A couple of weeks ago we had Eddie Jones here. He did some extra training with the boys.” He seems a bit stupid but apparently he spent 5 years tutoring the PM, the GG and the vice PM’s sons back in the 70’s.


An artist's impression of Eddie Jones

We’re back in the class and I’m doing some marking. Use ‘among’ in a sentence. “I am among poor people.” I feel so sorry for you buddy. Having to spend time with all these other kids whose Daddy doesn’t earn as many millions as yours does. The kids name was Robin and he was as poncy as his name suggests.

Flicking through the newsletter at lunch waiting for my turn to go on playground duty, I discover that the exclusivity of such a school brings opportunities we don’t even get at uni. A reminder to all students that Athletics, Rifle Shooting and Fencing Photos are on next week. Archery practice this afternoon has been postponed till Thursday. Thanks to Dom and Chaz from The Chaser for running our Trivia night last week.

Ahhhhhh. It drives me mental. These little bastards will never, never, never land in reality. The privilege gained cause their old man runs a sweatshop in Ghana means they don’t have to worry about normal things. Kids in the playground only get teased if they go to an inferior sports coaching place or their personal tutor has less references. This is insane. These are kids. Where else to do you see a 5 year old with a tie, a boater and garters to hold his socks at his knees? Where else is a point made of calling a woman Headmaster instead of Headmistress? This school is crazy.

Although,

It is nice getting called Sir.

The End

As some of you didn't seem to get the poignant subtlety of the last post, I'm done with the blog thing. Thanks craploads for reading and commenting and e-mailing and stalking. I'm pretty proud of the two+ years of content I posted, and it wouldn't have been nearly as fun without you, my double digit readers. I look back fondly at the times we shared, like the 100+ comment flame wars about terrorism and religion, and that time we both went for the same muffin and our hands touched and it was like nobody else existed except for us

Let me also apologise for the crappiness of the early audio blogs. Not the Latham ones though. They were awesome.), a

Props also to all the guest bloggers over the years, particularly Matt and REDACTED. A special mention to guest blogger Richie for his I Love Cats blog, which is still probably the greatest thing on the internet.

As for why I stopped, well for one thing - bitching about John Howard was about 50% of my gimmick. Having a full-time job also put a spanner in the works, as I don't think I could stop myself from bitching about that fat chick at work and then I'd just get fired. And yeah, two years of three posts a week (rounded up) was stretching it. I literally ran out of things I had an opinion on.

So thanks again, and.... well.. I promised myself I wouldn't cry :(


Love


Tommy


xoxoxoxo

The Fall Of Howard.

Mission accomplished.

Election 2007 - D-Day - The 'D' stands for 'Dork'

I don't really care who you vote for today, as long as it's not this guy:




His name is Pastor Paul Green, he is the Senate candidate for the Christian Democratic Party, and from the looks of that photo he enjoys bow-ties, weird stubble and pedo smiles. He's also known for calling for a 'War' on Islam, and is passionate about important issues facing the nation, such as the cancellation of Carols by Candlelight services.

At the risk of posting two blatantly defamatory blogs in a row, I won't say he also likes luring children to the bow-tie cave located inside his giant forehead. I absolutely will not say that.


As for tonight, well... Go Mark Kevin.

Matthew Reilly: 100% Straight

Regular readers should know my position on best-selling Australian author Matthew Reilly - lying on his back in a small ditch slowly filling with dirt and shredded copies of Ice Station.

And they should also know that I don't like him. And neither does the Sydney Morning Herald's photo editor or caption writer, judging by this:

Matthew is smirking because he is thinking in itallics

(At this point, Tommy resisted from drawing a cartoon penis on Matthew's face, because the last blog was too literal)

And come on, Reilly. Did your mum buy that shirt for you? 'Super Hero'? The little black and grey patches? Red after Labor Day? What were you thinking?

And who holds their jeans when they pose for photos? And the brick wall? Is this a publicity shot or an album cover?

And the quotes in the article. Good lord.

"In Seven Ancient Wonders, Jack West and his team break someone out of Guantanamo Bay. I'm not going to preach to people and say, 'Guantanamo Bay, bad', but I will have my hero go and break somebody out of it and maybe people will think about it that way."

Wow Matt, that's so deep. Who needs an in-depth critique of the execution of the war on terror, or even a complex moral argument about the justification of torture in order to prevent civilian deaths when we've got your crayon written shit.

'Well, I wanted to let the audience make up their own mind about abortion, but I will have my hero prevent the spread of a biological virus by terminating fetuses with a clothes hanger and a length of rope,' Reilly added, curling his poofy fringe.

Now, I don't want to risk getting sued by his publicist, but let's just say Ratthew Meilly sounds an awful lot like the name of the prominent Australian author who is a giant wanker. Thank you.

Election 2007 - Rejected Attack Ads

I used to be in demand from all the major political parties, thanks in part to my biting insults and wicked photoshop skills. Well, Family First never showed much of an interest, but that's because I haven't sent enough naked pictures of myself around the internet. Apparently 5 isn't trying hard enough. Hard enough.

There was a time when I was cranking out a dozen or so attack ads every election season. Remember 'L-Plate Latham'? That was me. Calling John Howard a rodent? Me. The short-lived 'Costello is a Pedo' rhyming jingle? Me. All me.

But this election... well... I don't really seem to be getting much work. Sure, there's my royalty payments for the Gillard beaver shots, but the cupboard is a little bare. (So was hers, if you don't mind me saying). And I don't understand why, because I think my ideas this year are just as good as elections past. Check out some of these babies...


This first one was made for a Liberal 'dog whistle' campaign, but it didn't seem to go down well in the test electorate. In my defense, putting it up in Cabramatta was ill-advised.





They say the best ads don't promote something new, they just reinforce previously established beliefs. So, I went in that direction for this Labor Party ad.




The environment is a hot button issue, and it's always good to use newspaper headlines to back up your point:




And this last one... Well........ Probably a little too high brow.




And in retrospect, the T-Shirts were probably a bad idea too.


Oh well, I can always get a job with the Democrats.

Election 2007: Poll Dancing

Now the Election is drawing nearer, we seem to be getting more polls than Lara Bingle at the Allan Border Medals. You've got Newspoll, Morgan, Nielsen, Galaxy, national polls and electorate polls, face-to-face and telephone polls. There's so many polls here, Germany keeps trying to invade us.

And right there is the third poll joke in three sentences, if you included the topic which is not only a delightful pun but also a callback to Kevin Rudd liking strippers.

(My writers are on strike)





But the thing you need to know about polls is that they're really, really expensive. And the newspapers that pay for them are going to milk these polls for all their worth eww are going to make sure they get their money's worth.

So, no matter what the poll actually says, they're going to BS their way to a front-page story with a nice narrative. When Labor's lead increases from 55-45 to 56-44, a one point shift well inside the margin of error (about 3%), we get 'HOWARD'S TITANIC HEADS FOR ICEBERG OF KEVIN'.

When it happens in reverse, and the Libs close the gap from 54-46 Labor to 53-46, we get 'HOWARD'S MAN OF STEEL COMEBACK: SHOULD KEVIN RESIGN?'.

Just wait for this week. Labor's at 53 in the latest Newspoll, and if they go back to their normal level of 54 or 55 next week, it will be 'RATE RISE BACKLASH - HOWARD IS FUCKED AND OLD'.

In other words, don't trust the newspapers.

Trust me.




Vote Kevin.