Life on Earth #6

HERE: 

Chinese was on the menu in both Canberra and Washington this week. It was Duck Peking (as best you can), as Kevin Rudd and Joel Fitzgibbon tried to avoid being named Dim Sim of the Year. The Great Fire Wall protecting Rudd’s secret meeting with Minister of Propaganda from China, took a hit. Confucius say: “To have friends come from afar is happiness, is it not?” The SMH claimed that our military intelligence weren’t being that intelligent by spying on Joel Fitzgibbon regarding his relationship with a Chinese lady whose flat he uses. Fitzgibbon appeared on TV looking as thought he’d had an all-night-banquet in Lygon Street. Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, has introduced a “Tim Tam Ban” as the traditional biscuit is said to contain chocolate from the Ivory Coast. Tim (Tam Ban) Costello supports Clover’s move claiming “who … wants child labour’s sweat and blood on their teeth.” Exactly what Tim has been eating is unclear. 

THERE:  

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was seen everywhere in Washington clutching a book on China, but there was no lunch with President Barack Obama. But he did meet the Archbishop of Canterbury while in London for the G20 leaders meeting. Actually it is the G22. Spain and the Netherlands are late members. It is unclear whether these countries are replacements in case of injury or bad decisions. But the G20/22 meeting, according to The Spectator, will cost about $A100 million, with about $A10 million going on the staging and sound system. It is unclear whether this money is part of Gordon Brown’s “stimulus package”. The G20 is expected to stimulate mass protests from about 150 unhappy organizations. 

EVERYWHERE: 

Also in the UK a fox-hunting rider had his head severed by the rear rotor of a gyrocopter, piloted by an animal rights protester. Meanwhile in Australia a media report suggested that jailed judge Marcus Einfeld was demanding that his cell door be left open, because he was hot, and that he have the services of a masseur. In Thailand a local fireman rescued an eight-year-old boy sitting on a ledge on the third floor of his school, by dressing up in his (the fireman’s) Spiderman suit. An annual “Testicle Festival”, run by a Rotary Club in Oakland, California, hopes to beat last years bag of $US28,000 by selling the cooked private parts of castrated steers. A slice of the action sells for $US50 a piece. Back in the UK the Year’s Oddest Book Title went to, The 2009–2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais. The surprise win beat the favourite Curbside Consultation of the Colon a medical manual. In Columbia, ten FARC rebels were arrested after they failed to assassinate a government minister while riding fake police motorcycles. They had stencilled the word “Policia” back-to-front on the motorcycle’s fuel tanks.