Reflections on the Andrews Technocracy – Watch This Space

President Reagan once joked that Soviet leaders seemed to die whilst he was travelling, so he needed to travel more.

This week, whilst in Italy, we have seen the resignation of one figure I despise and the apparent disgrace of another.

As I cannot blog on my app in any detail, please watch this space for my thoughts on the legacy of Daniel Andrews and his technocracy soon after I return to Australia.

Aside from that matter, I think I will extend presumption of innocence to that other character until due process is concluded. That’s something you can look forward to greatly.

Hopefully my being in Italy also jinxes Collingwood this weekend!

Italians still do graffiti with meaning and wit to it

I’m in Livorno at the moment and fear I may die of boredom.

But at least the graffiti artists here have more wit than most of those back home:

Bruciore means Burning, in case you are too lazy to use your google translate.

Still, it’s clever and more loaded with meaning and conscience than any of the spoilt brat street culture nonsense I see in Melbourne.

When Qatar Airlines Calls Something Surprising And Unfair…

www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/we-were-there-for-australia-qatar-airways-boss-says-flight-decision-unfair-20230917-p5e5a8.html

That Qatar Airlines calls the decision not to grant more access to Australia surprising and unfair is quite ironic.

Tell it to the women who were strip searched at Doha airport. Now THAT was surprising and definitely unfair.

Premium Economy Does Help But Long Haul Flights Still Suck!

I’m mostly over my jet lag now, having hit the pillow in my hotel room in Rome at 4pm last night after a duty bound walk to the Collosseum followed by a late lunch at a cheap and cheerful restaurant just off the Via Cavour.

I must say that breaking up the trip with a stay in Singapore did not really help. True, one night of decent sleep was good, but as the second flight out was at 3am the following night, could not exactly cause me to board the flight with a few extra hours of sleep.

What sort of helped a little was the extra room and reclinement in Premium Economy. I am not one of those lucky people who can sleep sitting upright, so long haul flights hurt. But at least I was able to doze fitfully during the 12 hour flight from Singapore to Rome.

That does not mean that long haul does not suck, and I am not in premium economy on the way home so I’m dreading that long haul.

Lessons In Chemistry: Best Novel I Have Read In A Long Time

You remember the Gideon Society? They are the people who hand out copies of the Gospel in the street and who used to make sure that motel rooms each had a Bible in a drawer.

Hunter S Thompson was very grateful to them for those Bibles as when he was sitting in his motel room drunk or stoned and needing inspiration for his writing, he was grab the Gideon edition and read the Book of Revelation.

What I appreciate about the Gideons is that they are so moved by the Bible that they want to give copies away to people.

I used to feel that way, to some limited degree, about Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart Of Darkness and Mikail Bulgakov’s black comedy The Master And Margarita.

I now have another book I feel that way about: Lessons In Chemistry. I started reading it at Tullamarine airport yesterday whilst waiting for baggage drop off to open. A passing woman paused to tell me it’s one of her favourite books. I kept reading it in the departure terminal and then for the first part of my flight to Singapore.

I’m typing this on my phone so I will leave you to google the plot. Suffice that this book is sad, funny, moving and ultimately triumphant.

I will be buying lots of copies and giving them to my friends.

Collingwood Vs Carlton? The Stuff Of Nightmares

Several years ago, I was in the lift on the way back from lunch at AFL finals time and happened to make some Collingwood jokes.

By the time I had reached my desk, my phone was ringing. It was one of the HR Managers.

He said: “Ernest, what were you saying in the lift?”

I said: “Some Collingwood jokes.”

“Some effing idiot has just complained about you to HR.”

Happily, making jokes about a football team and its supporters is still the sort of thing which you can get away with at work, although I would not dare to try such a stunt in any pub north of Victoria Parade and east of Smith Street.

Which is a good way to segue into the fact that it is now footy finals time. Collingwood are through to the preliminary finals and Carlton are into a semi. If both teams win through over the next fortnight, they will face off in the Grand Final for the first time since 1981.

I find this the stuff of nightmares.

One of the major joys of the modern AFL era of football has been to witness the regular suffering of Collingwood and Carlton supporters. Given that my team, the Western Bulldogs, has enjoyed very little success (2016 has given me a warm inner glow which will last the rest of my life), the suffering of the supporters of the very successful AFL teams like Carlton, Collingwood, and Essendon, brings joy and malicious glee to my heart.

That this year looks like being a Collingwood premiership makes me a little sad.

Mind you, I would be very petty and churlish if I were not to be happy for Collingwood captain Darcy Moore. He is the son of former captain and Brownlow medalist Peter Moore. He seems to be a very sensible and likeable chap, and I do think that if he were to be a premiership captain, going one better than his dad, I would be happy for him.

Of course, with my team out of the running, I am more interested in the Brownlow medal, and hoping that Bulldogs captain Marcus Bontempelli wins. That would be, along with his 2016 premiership, a crowning achievement on his great career and cement him as one of the Footscray Football Club’s all time greats.

No One Likes Alan: Reflections On Qantas

I did lunch last week at the Great Northern Hotel in North Carlton with a friend who is a very senior barrister. Given that I am about to hop on a plane to Italy in a few days’ time, we talked a fair bit about travel, and particularly about the scandals which are currently plaguing Qantas.

Probably because my friend is a very competent barrister, with the intellectual discipline which that entails, he is very reserved in his words, even in private. He does not make sweeping generalisations, nor give opinions which are not based strictly on fact, nor leap to conclusions unless he has evidence to back them.

Hence I was rather surprised when the first words he uttered in relation to the disclosure that Qantas had intentionally continued to sell tickets on 8000 flights after they had cancelled those flights were: “It’s fraud. It’s theft.”

I concur of course.

Intentionally seeking to gain a benefit by deceiving someone out of their property is fraud. That Qantas did it on an industrial scale is a matter of serious concern, which is now being addressed by the ACCC in commencing a prosecution of the airline.

This is the latest in a long string of outrages involving Qantas under the leadership of its deceptively woke CEO Alan Joyce.

I will list a few of them.

During the covid lockdown crisis, Qantas obtained at least $2 billion in subsidies from state and federal governments. This was significantly more than any of its smaller competitors.

After several years of covid related losses, Qantas recently announced a $1.7 billion profit. It has not signalled any intention of returning any of those subsidies. Nor has it shied away from paying extremely large salaries and bonuses to its senior executives.

When the covid occurred, Qantas stood down thousands of employees without pay. One of those was, up until that point, on extended sick leave during to cancer. Whilst it was legally entitled to stand that employee down, doing so exhibited, on the part of Qantas management, an extreme degree of callousness which is abhorrent to the Australian community.

Prior to this, Qantas has, in order to maximise its profits, outsourced thousands of jobs, causing a decline in customer service and staff morale. Whilst this does not appear to have decreased safety standards, this is the sort of calculated risk which usually only becomes apparent when there is an air disaster.

Until this past month, the ability to claim and use flight credits, such as those from those cancelled flights which had been fraudulently sold to customers, was difficult. Last year, for example, you could only use those credits for flights that cost the same or more than the credits you held. This link to Choice gives some detail on this:

https://www.choice.com.au/travel/on-holidays/airlines/articles/qantas-flight-credits-failure

Industrial relations negotiations run by the supposedly woke Mr Joyce in the past have been particularly ruthless, including shutting down the airline at one stage. Indeed, much as I am a rather right wing person, Alan Joyce makes me look like a socialist in comparison.

All up, Qantas is now a very toxic brand. You do not treat staff, customers, and the taxpayer in the way that they have without commercial repercussions. It is sad that the toxicity of Qantas is being used by some as an issue to try and reopen the issue of allowing more flights by the even more toxic Qatar Airways.