ALIAS POOR YORICK

First, an apology for having taken so long between posts. We were waiting for parts from Sydney. As you no doubt know, it's traditional for ferret families to begin celebrating the festive season by issuing newsletters telling friends and family something about their year. These are called newsletters. It's been a year all right by golly oh yes for the Nigel Ferret family. I continue to work in the syntax department at Ampersand, and apart from those wildcat outbreaks of split infinitives back in August and September it's been a happy and productive year. I'm looking at a shift to anagrams next year. Insert own joke here. My lovely wife Nigel is currently working as an associate producer on "Australia's Got Ferrets" but we're both concerned about her future there after the network put it up against "MasterFerret" which is going gangbusters since introducing elimination rounds where contestants are actually shot. Still, she can always go

I knew we were in trouble when our lead singer Rome wanted to change the band's name to "An unnecessary assassination in Prague on an Autumn afternoon" Then he wanted to call the album "The Album". It was bad enough that our bass player now wanted to be known only as @. His email address was a bastard, and if he ever finds a provider called @, I think every single email in the universe will be diverted to him. A weird Internet black hole. Anyway we'd roughed out the album on acoustic guitars and reindeer skulls in mid-winter in Upsala  over a month. Just to make sure we were all on the edge of suicidal depression. We had planned to go mix it on solar-powered laptops on a fresh-food commune in Tahiti, except the hippy princess poofs running the place couldn't guarantee a decent supply of ketamine, so that fucked that. Rome was also insisted he could only do his vocals while being urinated on by an alpaca (a female of course, it's not like he'

Channel Ten has it's fingers crossed for a ratings frenzy with the much-hyped MasterFerret. And I'll have to tell you, I've had my doubts. This particular murky corner of the reality-tv cosmos has become overpopulated of late with, well, to call it mixed success would be kind.....  It kind of hit the ground in a flying coma with Junior Australian Celebrity Apprentice MasterChef, which saw some dazed waif called Bliss Peartree d'Artagnan wandering round with a bucket of ricotta, a pack of raw potato chips, and a terrified expression muttering "Help me oh help me Superstar Goddess Aphrodite, I'm paralyzed by existentialist angst & spiritual confusion. Oh God oh God Oh Goddess" One of the judges explained all she really had to do was deep-fry the chips in low fat oil, but to no avail. I had no idea who this embryonic superstar was until my friend explained she was a featured extra in a beach scene in Home & Away. And had a speaking part in a Just Je

This week bought to you by the Rev Vin Zinfandel of Our Lady of  Perpetual Disconcobulation in Boronia ... Good evening and thank you for this opportunity to share a few thoughts with you over the Internet. A broad church indeed. And as I always say to my flock, I'm not so much a High Anglican as a "Hi" Anglican. I like to feel we make everyone feel welcome here at our Lady of Perpetual Disconcobulation, even Presbyterians. That's just how I roll. Now I like to talk to God on a regular basis, sometimes on your behalf, and sometimes just for fun.   Years ago I said to him I said "God" because that's his name and it suits him I think but I digress, I said God here's the deal " I'll save souls for you if you save a case of Sauvignon Blanc for me". And God said nothing. Nothing at all. And as you all know, that's God's way of saying yes. Before I go on I would like to thank our parishioners for meeting our church steeple restora

I once said to you "You want the truth ? You can't handle the truth".Or was that Jack Nicholson ? Or just someone who looked like him ? It's all a bit confusing, isn't it ? Well relax, because now all can be told . "You want the truth ? You can't understand the truth ! Or something like that. Let me explain .. It's been a difficult couple of weeks and I apologise for not having got back to you sooner but the fact is I discovered the pink streaks in my hair did NOT MATCH the pink of my ugg boots. Imagine my total embarrassment, mortification and shame, as we say here on the brutal streets of Boronia. I have NOT BEEN ABLE TO SET FOOT OUT OF THE HOUSE IN A MONTH. No trips down to the Internette Laundrette to blog. Nothing. I am never trusting Krystyne down at "Rooted" with my hair ever ever again. Like never. So anyway I've got all these like really important truths to tell you. This'll explain everything. Hang on, I'll get my not

You meet someone who's email address is marshmellow_munchkin (no, really) You are morally obliged to :                                           (A) Report them to the authorities                                           (B) Taser them                                           (C) Beat them to death with a pink fluffy toy                                           (D) Feed them a bunch of cheap speed and make                                            them watch 13 episodes of "Sons of Anarchy" in a row

Winner of our inaugural folk-music lyric competition is Sean-Fergus Resentment of West Buttock with his song: "F*** the English"....from his acclaimed debut album "GIVE ME WHISKY, OR GIVE ME DEATH, BUT FIRST GIVE ME WHISKEY' Oh oh come listen to me, and I'll tell you about a pack of bastards. They stole all our potatoes then. Pack of bastards. English bastards. And they took me darling sister Maude. You pack of bastards. And they gave her an unflattering haircut. Pack of bastards. English bastards. And they took me darling dog called Spot. Pack of bastards. And they dyed weird colours and patterns into his fur, making him the laughing stock of all the other dogs in the village. Pack of English bastard scum. You bastard pack of English scum. And they took me darling bother Mick... And made him represent his country in the Eurovision Song Quest. He's never been the same since then. You f***ing English bastards. Hangs round with that Lord of the

Hello. As you were. Pay attention. Senator Lord Major-General Christopher "Sane-as-the-next-member-of-the-House-of-Lords" Monckton here. Please arise. I know I should make you stay kneeling there for the duration but I have rather a stiff neck and I spend most of my time looking down on people anyway. Where was I ? That's right. As I was saying, extensive scientific research has proved that I am right about pretty much everything, and you are a snivelling little irrelevance. As you will know if you have half a brain and I know that excludes most of you but never mind that listen up. Where was I ? Ah yes. At Oxford being brilliant but that was a long time ago and on reflection it may have been Cambridge. Shut up. I am a unique and brilliant man and am not to be bothered with trivial details. I'm here in Australia to take up my hereditary seat in the Upper House of your fine country. Australia, isn't it ? That's what Gina told me. By right granted to me in the

     The management team here at ALIAS POOR YORICK heartily endorses the Liquor Industry's move to voluntarily put health warnings on all alcohol. We applaud such measures. In fact we applaud any moves to put reading matter on the back of bottles - poems, jokes, short stories, paragraphs of complete gibberish to bewilder the hopelessly drunk. Why not. And look Australia's a big country with a big thirst and a huge range of drinkers; clearly we need a wide range of warnings. We're here to help: CAUTION:  The Law of Gravity cannot be repealed by a majority vote of the five remaining drinkers in the back bar of the Elephant & Hearing-Aid at closing time WARNING: If the Opposition policy on climate change starts making sense STOP DRINKING IMMEDIATELY. Call a doctor. Hell, just go straight to your nearest emergency medical facility. NOW. WARNING: May cause delusions of artistic and intellectual competence. DO NOT attempt to write poetry, play the guitar, or expl

Wisdom. Compassion. Utes. I've got the t-shirt, I've seen the Daryl Llama. Not many people realise this but Australia has two spiritual centres. One of course is Ulhuru, and the other is Bluey's Ute World in Bayswater, Melbourne. Think about it: it's got everything - dogs, Utes, it's named after a suburb in London and it's nowhere near a bay or water. How Australian can you get?  So we gathered there to meet and greet the spiritual leader we all know as the Daryl Llama, true claimant to the Lucerne Throne of Australian Farming Buddhism since he was found at the age of three piloting a Combine Harvester while rolling a cigarette and collecting a six-pack for his father from the local drive-thru bottle-shop. He was spotted by the three wise persons of Australian Farming Buddhism - Kev, Trev, and Bev who immediately recognised our next spiritual leader and handed over the Celestial Thongs of Beautness to the young lad. We've all read his books "Sheep a

BEAR GRYLLS !!  Live on Stage !! .... yes it's exciting stuff as we welcome to Melbourne the man who when all the other children simply threatened to go down the bottom of the garden and eat worms, actually went down the bottom of the garden and ate worms , taking with him only a small film crew to record visual proof for his mother that it was possible to survive alone and unaided down the bottom of the garden for periods of up to one hour (including commercial breaks).  What can we expect from this amazing man ? # Watch as Mr Grylls, armed only with steely determination, amazing survival skills and that weird black sweat make-up we plaster all over his forehead, stays alive by drinking water straight out of the tap using only some old polystyrene cups he's found under the sink ..... # Marvel as Mr Grylls survives the bitter cold of a Melbourne night by bribing the assistant floor manager to turn up the heating in the theatre # Be amazed as we all were to learn that M

And while we're on the subject, it's a little-known fact that all cats can determine the specific gravity of any object or person just by looking at them. Unfortunately, because of their inability to speak, this unique and remarkable ability is pretty much a complete waste of time..... ... and look it could well be that it was thinking of stuff like this that caused me to drive erratically on the way down to ANGELS4U, our local psychic healing and beauty parlour (formerly Uncle Les's Used Cars and Barely-Disguised Stolen Goods Emporium). I guess I was a bit excited about their Tightarse Tuesday specials although to be honest I really wasn't in the mood for the high-colonic and aura cleansing ("We'll make your bowels and your aura bright pink !") for only $121.99 . But look I really love ANGELS4U - the world needs a place where you can go get a Brazilian & at the same time have Tarot reading to see if it was worth the trouble. And I've always been

So I'm driving down a busy outer-suburban arterial listening as you do to Brian Schadenfreude's Concerto No 7 for violin, fish and cocktail onion. It's a great piece, if a little flashy in parts: I prefer the earlier Concerto No 6 for violin, oboe, and four-year-old in the back seat whining "what is this shit can't we listen to Justin Bieber instead". It's music that speaks directly to the rotting core of the rotting corpse that is our depraved and decadent modern society. And what a funky  beat.Anyway, I'm sitting at the lights beside a four-wheel-drive monster (and you should see the car she's driving, Boom boom. I ought to be ashamed of myself) & in the back seat her six-month-old baby gives me the finger. So young, so angry. Sign that baby up for those rebirthing courses now. They'll be all the rage again in twenty years. Back to the fascination, or why a life's work, beliefs or just general thoughts must be expressed in sticker f

You're probably wondering why there hasn't been a post from ALIAS POOR YORICK in over a week. Look it's been hell. The GFC finally caught up with us at parent company AMPERSAND. Which is why blogging and trading on the Blog Index has temporarily been suspended. I blame myself. With the Australian vowel rising sharply in value against the American vowel I thought I'd get a jump on the market and buy up big on American vowels. Who knew the Aussie vowel would keep rising ! Shit. Anyway we were stuck there with about two million in American vowels, and on top of that my idiot son Rupert's in Africa trying to open up diphthong derivative markets. F--- !  On top of that those bastard Brazilians flooded the market with cheap split-infinitives and shonky future pluperfect subjunctive clauses. By which time I would have already been totally rooted had I not ... oh forget it it. I told you they were shonky subjunctive clauses. And no Rupert, we are not going to invest in

Bring me my camouflage pants ! Bring me my Ed Hardy T-shirt with the flaming sword and "No Fear" on it. Bring me my thongs of total terror. War's about to hit the streets and whether it comes to the mean streets of Glen Waverly or Mt Waverly or even Waverly Gardens, I need to be there looking right and looking real. War is hell and wardrobe is of the utmost importance. WAR. What is it good for ? Looking good in black for a start off. And let's face it, war makes you look a damn sight less stupid for wearing camouflage pants. People. What exactly were we attempting to blend in with ? Apart from all those other people wearing camouflage gear. We need to leave something for the people-in-the-army ( or soldiers if you want to get picky about it) to wear. So they know they're in the army. And we're not. Except when it come time to fight the Battle of Glenhuntly. Be there or be shockingly unhip. You have been warned. I read somewhere that Iggy Pop has no socks,

Yeah I know it's Monday Tuesday.That's how casual Casual Friday can be. At ALIAS POOR YORICK we believe that if a thing's worth doing, it's worth dodging a deadline for at least a couple of days. On top of that everyone here is wearing teeshirts with wacky things written on them ! In the office ! How wild and out there are we ?? There's a concert coming up in Melbourne: Andre Rieu and The Seekers. This is quite possibly the whitest music you are ever going to hear. Or you could just stay home and stick sharpened bamboo skewers under your fingernails. One of these activities is categorized by Amnesty International as torture. And on top of that you have to deal with Ticketek. Okay, enough already with the blinding incisive satire.  And yes Virginia, the term 'motor-sport' is an oxymoron. Back to the ferrets: Last week, an allegedly domesticated ferret called "Michael" was found at Edinburgh station, allegedly lost, dazed and confused. A lik

You gotta help me doctor I can't even tell when exactly it happened but one minute I'm young and cool okay well maybe not young and cool okay I'm over fifty and I'm still putting too much gel in my hair and then all of a sudden I call someone a punk and I'm not talking about Sid Vicious. No. It's punk as in young punk. As in you goddam no-good young punks. Just like that my dialogue's straight out of a 1957 black and white b-grade movie.Which wouldn't be so bad, except I'm  good with it. Yep. Feels right. Oh shit. You gotta help me. I'm overawed by technology. It's tragic. I'm standing in front of automatic doors going "I am Lord Firestorm Wolftiger, Master of the Eastern Quadrants & I command you to open" & I've got kids going 'you know mate that self-satirical post-modernist ironic shit isn't really cutting it". I hate six yr olds. But listen I've still got it going on man. I'm off to the runni

What to drink while reading a book of food reviews? And what to eat while reading a book of wine reviews? Very Melbourne kind of dilemmas. Especially during a festival of plays about people who write food and wine reviews to save the children in Cambodia. You'd have to go with an unpretentious unwooded semillion, wouldn't you ? Or even a pretentious one. Accompanied by some  retin-free llama-cheese pizzas cooked in a wood fired oven blessed by Tibetan refugee monks. I mean what else. It's obvious.  And people of Melbourne I don't know how to break this to you but there is a two week gap in the year where there are NO FESTIVALS PLANNED. WTF people! How can you have let this happen ? I love festivals. I even accidentally signed up for a gold pass to a week-long knitting festival. Make no mistake, I love knitting. Okay. Well. I totally approve of knitting. Otherwise the world would be littered with balls of coloured wool and that'd be wrong. So, hey. Let's knit.

 "LIFE, DEATH, PRIZES" : I swear to you this is true. It was the masthead on a magazine called CHAT. I remember when papers had proper mastheads with Latin stuff like Verita Vino et Alia, which roughly translates as "our reporters are drunk half the time but they have a theoretical commitment to the truth". Now we're down to "Life, Death, Prizes". Then again, that pretty much covers it all, doesn't it. A sparse but complete cosmological view. I swear to you this was a real magazine. I saw it in a servo on Canterbury Rd in Bayswater. One of those I'm in the waiting room and I've got five minutes I'll read this load-of-crap magazine. And you know five minutes is about all you've got before your brain turns to maggot-infested mush and you start thinking things like "Gee that Zumba looks like fun and I've heard it's great exercise. Just the thing for a fifty-six year old white man " Anyway, I swear this was a real

 Is weasel word a euphemism ?  Or is euphemism in fact a weasel word ?  Or the other way round ? Am I talking complete cobblers ? I reject this. Reject is the new deny. There's no confirm or deny here. You just simply whack the white ball off the table. As in 'the Japanese whaling companies reject the accusation that 'scientific whaling' is the biggest load of  cobblers since someone suggested Shane Warne's tweets were a form of writing. Reject. It's brilliant. Mr Hitler and Mr Goebbels would have loved this shit...... "Hitler today rejected accusations that he had invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland, explaining that his neighbours had gone out leaving the lights on and he'd popped in to switch them off . And what's this? Oops, France, you've left the back door unlocked again. Careless .." And moving right along to the relatively trivial, we here at ALIAS POOR YORICK are a bit tickled at a local theatre company's warning that their

           If you thought the only thing Aldi was good for was buying up a shitload of cheap chilli-cherry chocolate you are wrong my friend. For only $29.95 I bought a universal remote control that actually works. Tried it out over the weekend. Set it to Egypt: Mubarak gone. Push of a button.  Brilliant . Okay, back home: Push a button : Get a bunch of emails from everyone I've ever known approving of everything I've ever done. And the Jag XK 140 is on the way. Now if I can just figure out which button gets Shane Warne to shut up on Twitter & which stops Andrew Bolt talking complete bullshit, we're getting somewhere. This is going to be fun. Requests anyone ?  Today's thought is from Mr Ramshackle McThought of No I've Never Heard Of It Either who says "Fools rush in where angels check with OH&S and negotiate an equitable hourly rate" Finally, another entry into our "Satire-is-basically-redundant" file. Ripped from today's he

Hi my name's Fuchsia Arpeggio and I'd like to thank ALIAS POOR YORICK for this opportunity to become their Culture Editor-at-Large. A little about me. Starship Trooperess for Gen Z. I'm nineteen and I'm finishing my PhD in drug & alcohol counselling at Wedgeburn Tafe. My thesis is Freud & Cocaine: What's Up With That ? So like anyway anyway my POD (partner-of-today) Frinton says that's what I should write about first time up. He's so cool. He's my spiritual quantum spanner. And he's such a beautiful man - he looks like Justin Bieber only not as tough. How like lucky am I. Anyway anyway. Freud. Cocaine. Like Huh !!?? I mean he had a beard and a medical degree and a three-piece suit and everything. I thought he was like a proper doctor. But like Frinton says back then cocaine wasn't actually a drug. It was nineteenth century cocaine so it was more, like,  therapeutical. Which I guess makes it all right. I hate drugs. I've always treat

Ferengi on the starboard bow. No need to arm the photon torpedoes, they're just having a half-price summer sale on unobtanium. Damn those Ferengi. They think of everything. Not that they have anything to do with today's story - I've just always wanted an excuse to write .."Damn those Ferengi". Thanks. I feel better now. .  . First however, a message from Ron Comic-Relief of Not Far From There, who tells us that Tony Abbot is an anagram of Boy Not Bat. Who I'm pretty sure  are playing the orange stage at the Big Day Out. And Ron, come on mate. Don't try and screw us around because spellcheck on this thing is crap. You owe us a "t". Anyway. Yes. Sorry. Where was I ? Right. So sometimes I am required to collect delinquent accounts from people in the paint & panel-beating industry. Don't ask. We live in a multi-tasking world. Making ends meet and all that. At least since I got this fabulously well-paid job editing this blog I've been

Don't talk to me about the Sex Pistols. Posers. We invented punk right here in Mildura back in 1973. Real punk. We didn't even have a name for it. We were too busy being authentic. We just turned up and drowned in each other's vomit. The lead singer would bite his own head off, regurgitate it and kick himself in the face till he was covered in blood. The band was so loud every time they played planes would fall out of the sky. The manager was some rat bastard called Rat Bastard. Got a contract out of Virgin Records paying the band fifty grand if they never played again. So they spent all the money on ferrets  & drugs then put out a record called Ukele Genoicide. Forty-two minutes of a recording of ukeles being feed into a big meat-grinder. F--- it was unreal how much they kept it real. They used to get so drunk they'd smash other people's instruments. That's punk. I remember they had this rotting pigs head on a stake on stage every time they played. Same one

And no, I don't want to talk about that guns-for-jokes deal the team here at Alias Poor Yorick tried to set up with the Taliban. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Lateral thinking, comedy-cash-and-peace-in-our-time, all that stuff. What can I say. Hearts in the right place, brains somewhere in the Cayman Islands getting a tan. Anyway.  Still in the spirit of international peace and friendship, I'd been hoping to work up a joke or two especially for our Slovenian readers. Hello Slovenia. How are ? Where are you ? Details a little hazy but I remember the joke was going something like Q: How many Slovenians does it take to change a light bulb ? A: Never mind about that, this is the Russian Mafia here. We want to know where you got the light bulbs, 'cos not from us for sure. Russian Mafia not happy about this ... (Well look it was a work in progress, gimme a break) Anyway. No sooner had I keyed in "Russian Mafia" for the second time when I got an urgen

During our recent enforced layover in the Northern segment of the South-Eastern Quadrant, Ensign Precocious Youth asked me to explain 'satire' to him & whether in my opinion 'satire' was dead. And of course Satire is not dead. It's merely tuckered out and lying gasping on the chaise- longue over there demanding mint juleps. Or should that be mints julep? One never knows. And what's buggered Satire ?  Real life, that's what. It's just impossible for your common-or-garden satirist to keep up with a world where a fake Taliban negotiator takes the UN for a bucketful of cash. Satire, as most of you will know, originated in Ancient Rome & was developed by two key figures - Pliny the Elder and Frankie Howerd. Modern satire, or satire as we recognise it today, is of course named after the famous French humorist Jean-Paul Satire who kicked the whole thing off with his seminal comic work EVERYTHING IS BAD, THERE IS NO GOD, & I'VE RUN OUT OF

I didn't choose ferrets, they chose me. It started that day I was driving through Boronia and saw a rough, handwritten sign that just said "Ferrets" and a phone number. You can imagine the rest. Then that defining moment driving down Ferntree Gully Rd behind a car with a window-sticker that read "We'll see what my ferret has to say". Clearly one of those super articulate ferrets I'd heard about who hang around in cafes in Northcote saying things like ... " It's time for a paradigm shift in our thinking about social-networking". Since then I've made it my business to get inside the ferret mind, and it's time to share these insights. Ferrets are widely misunderstood. For instance, did you know that no ferret has ever been a member of the communist party ? Nor has any ferret ever been convicted of major drug-trafficking. And, more importantly, no ferret has ever dressed up as Santa Claus and interrupted the writing of this blog. They

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                     Hey Daryl yes Ossie                       John Blackman remembers             Every joke, ever

          ..... today's contribution to "who needs a guru ?" is from Enrique Hyphen-Hyphen of  Quite Near There "If Joshua had learnt the violin, the walls of Jericho would still be standing" I think there's a lesson in that for all of us. I have no idea what it might be. I think we could all do with some time alone with Mr Leonard Cohen. See you in the "Tower of Song"

Fuchsia, Arpeggio ... come here immediately. I'm appalled. I ask you two to plate up and you barely even show up. Not in any real culinary sense. What is this ? Huh ? What is it supposed to be ? Call this zabaglione ? This is rubbish. This lacks spiritual and structural integrity, and metaphysically it's just a mess. Zabaglione should taste like the sweat off an angel's neck. This ..... Unspeakable. I'm sorry but you'll both have to go. Pack your bags  and get out. FUCHSIA & ARPEGGIO:  But Daddy, we're only eight years old Eight ? Don't make this any worse. Young Cordelia Smith-Jones. Perfect profiteroles. What is she ? Six ? Can barely pronounce profiteroles, but she shows up and she plates up. Like a proper child. Go on, get out ! FUCHSIA & ARPEGGIO:  But Daddy ... After everything we've done . I could weep. Your mother and I took you to elBulli in utero. You'd both eaten $900 worth of squid-ink ice-cream before you were born.  Now

Happy days; Dr Geoff "Hepcat" Edelstein has found our email address on the back of an old Gucci wrapper & sends this thought - If you still think money can't buy happiness, you're just not shopping at the right place What can we say. Conspicuous consumption, my friends, is not for the faint-of-heart or the feeble-minded. Okay. Well. It's not for the faint-of-heart.

Now if I can be perfectly honest about this ( there's nothing like a change) I love a good weasel word myself. Frankness is a laudable quality in communication, but it can get messy. And you know that's going to happen when someone says "Don't take this the wrong way, but .. " There's the first clue. Nothing good ever comes after "but". ..I love you madly but I've been having sex with your sister & her friend Gunther. And their goat . Who, by the way, is very fond of you and feels intensely guilty about the whole thing. As do I. Well maybe not intensely, but definitely guilty. For sure. Should I shut up now? Okay. Yes . What are you doing with that knife ? But back to "Don't take this the wrong way...."  Here's a thought : put it a different way. "Don't take this the wrong way ... leads to "I've always loathed you, your children are ugly and stupid. and your wife is the spawn of Satan"  And I alwa

I say, I say, I say ... Who was that lady I saw you with last night ? That was no lady, that was a friend of mine called Gunther who's decided to live his life as a woman. He's going through a particularly difficult gender-reassignment & I was offering him a shoulder to cry on. We went down to the Elephant & Hearing Aid and heard about  about this really good support group. Now we're both addicted to spiced-apple chai, and I still haven't found how to get mascara stains off the shoulder of my shirt.

              I'm a man of small ambitions: I'd like to see a Persian carpet shop have a 'closing down' sale, and then actually close. I'd like to see America admit that the real reason it's in Afghanistan is because "it looked funny at them" in the pub. I'd like to see the PM, faced with an awkward question during a TV interview, just go "Look ! A giraffe !" and run away Friends, work with me;  we can make this happen. Legislation. Whatever it takes. Let's make ourselves a promise that by 2020 no child need ever have to say "That's my Dad over there. The white guy with dreadlocks" I want a t-shirt that reads "Fountaingate: where the weak are killed and eaten" I want to see music writers required to sign an agreement that they will never refer to a band as having "visceral intensity" when what they mean is the band plays really f-----g loud. I'd like to see increased respect for the

We are in the back bar of the Elephant & Hearing Aid where Moses is drinking gimlets with an Australian film producer while they discuss plans to film an all-new version of the Ten Commandments. And yes we know for a fact that Moses drinks gimlets because we looked it up. No, silly, not the Bible. Wikipedia. Moses is becoming frustrated because the producer is insisting that ten commandments is way too many and is going to slow down the action. He thinks five is plenty. And "commandments" is a bit control-freak. Couldn't they be like you know .. "directions" ? Moses insists no, that's it. There's Ten Commandments. End of story. The producer stamps his foot and says "Look, it's not like this is all carved in stone, is it" Moses starts laughing and the producer retreats to the bar for more drinks. We zoom in on Moses phone as he texts: God you old bastard. You invented irony without telling me. LOL. Moses

An Irishman, an Australian, and an Englishman walk into the front bar of the Elephant & Hearing Aid. The barman asks them what they want to drink and the Irishman says "You know I'm really sick of all this racial stereotyping". The Englishman agrees and the Australian says "And you know what else, I don't even know why we're in the pub again: I'm getting worried about how much I drink" . So they all go to a nearby bistro and enjoy a nice spiced apple chai. The barman turns up and complains that he was there at the beginning of the joke but now he has nothing to do. The four men decide to form a support group and develop an interactive theatre piece referencing their search for identity as individuals and as a collective & to try an find a punchline for the joke. They apply for an Australia Council grant to stage the production and the vote is swayed in their favour when the Englishman says "And one of us could be a trans-gender pole

Oscar Wilde was once forced to approach Dame Nellie Melba on a Paris street and say "Madam I am about to do something terrible - I'm going to ask you for money"  Well relax friends because we wouldn't do anything as embarrassing as that. Just as pushy but. The team here at ALIAS POOR YORICK simply ask that you pass on the blog link to one friend. Or, if you feel like going totally ape-shit crazy, two friends. We suggest a simple endorsement like "This is the funniest thing you'll ever read and it will change your life and the lives of all your loved ones" Thanks. We appreciate your help. And while we're here - a big welcome to readers in Slovenia, Singapore, Sudan, and Suriname. We love to be joined by people from countries that begin with "S". All that sibilance is so soothing.  So long & see you soon.

The Editor Dear Sir/Madam/Don't Oppress Me With Your Outdated Honorifics "Stifle the robots me old coffee cup, here come the janets" . Does anyone else miss The Bill ? God I do. It's bad enough having to endure the quotidian horrors of summer television viewing if you can call it that ! But now this. Why has no-one else noticed? Am I the only little Dutch boy keeping one eye on the dyke ?  "The Bill" is cancelled. Now, a matter of mere months later, Australia is flooded. Coincidence ? I think not. Come on ABC, do something about this please !!  Stop trying to distract us with your programming staples of sex & drugs & folderol. It's simply not good enough. Also. No, perhaps not. And as a wise man once said "Children should be seen and not stapled to the wall" Yours in consternation Commodore "Three Times a Lady" Winslow Ankle (RN Ret) Beaumaris

Chairman Mao once said that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single egg. I wish I could think of snappy revolutionary rhetoric like that. Of course on reflection I may have misheard . We had Glen Miller cranked up pretty loud at the time, and my hearing's not what it could be and Gene Krupa was tearing it up big time. And I've always wondered about the absence of other words which usually travel in a posse with 'egg': like toast & coffee & orange juice. But look Mr Zedong was running a fairly substantial revolution at the time and I didn't like to question him ... still ....  Anyway, to the business at hand: No look I'm sorry you just can't have "extreme muesli". It's just silly. I'm sure you can see why. We have no wish to name and shame. You know who you are. Just stop it now. I mean can't you see if we let you have "extreme muesli" it opens the floodgates. Next it's "extreme chess" or  .

What a terrifying concept, implying as it does that everything else here at ALIAS POOR YORICK is clear & coherent & somehow imbued with purpose. You may care to go make a cup of tea and read the sports section while this is going on. If you're staying, please don the appropriate safety gear and sign the OH&S waiver. Remember that you're dealing with people who drive round all day happily entertaining thoughts like  "..if you didn't want me to back into your Porsche, why did you park it there ?" and " I think I'll start up a law firm so I can call it Corpuscle, Thripp & Medici" And while we're on the subject, how come people with Tourettes never jump up and yell "credenza" or "parchment" from the middle of a crowded room ?  If you're anything like me you're probably on the lookout for the sort of  "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity  that doesn't come along every day. That's right, we&

And we would like to remind you that all comedy in ALIAS POOR YORICK is Artisan comedy. Nothing mass-produced, nothing artificial, and never tested on animals. Free from lactose, gluten, and jokes about Paris Hilton, this Blogue is written entirely under natural light by resentment-free writers living in mud brick houses near  a babbling brook in the Dandenongs. They are in essence free-range writers, many of whom have never known the pain of watching or writing for 'Two & a Half Men'. We were fortunate over the holiday season to be visited by Zen master and Pan-Pacific Tap-Dancing champion, Elvis Macgregor Cohen II, who was able to take us through a number of guided meditations. The aim of these is to uncover and embrace the Ten Absolute Truths. We are honoured to share these with you: 1. Forty percent of all the barmy people in the world retire to live in Beaumaris, where they write letters to the Editor. TV & Radio are favoured topics. 2. Even when you have the

We've gone crazy ! Join us now !  All-new ridiculous low prices. Become a Comediologist. Be funny. Get Respect and Power. Get rich and live forever !!! THIS WEEK ONLY :     Become a totally advanced spiritually superior operating Clown for only $15000 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Become a totally advanced spiritually superior operating Clown with your own talk-show for only $50000 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We've gone crazy, we've gone mad ! At these prices you'll be laughing at us ! Act now !!!  Offer only available as long as credibility lasts !!! Quick !! People are waiting to laugh at you !!

Dear TV Guide, Everything on television is too loud and too bright. Please fix this. I like Richard Morecroft. What on earth does the ABC think it's doing ? And another thing. Also, please bring back Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. He has a nice voice. Come on Channel 10 ! Everything was better on the radio. I like cheese. Winslow Ankle (RN Ret) Beaumaris

Friend, if you have half a mind to join the Church of Comediology you're just the person we're looking for. Comediology is a super-advanced religion that makes you these simple, solemn promises:  join us, and you will become really really funny, get lots of sex, rule the world, and live forever. Great, huh ? How does it work ?     It's simple: the more you give us money, the more we make you funny ! Wow ! Where did Comediology come from ?    It came from God, silly. It's a religion. It's basic tenets were revealed to our founder L. Jeff Cupboard late one Tuesday afternoon, as all major religions have been ( It's true - check Wikipedia ) Of course. Tell me more   At the time of the Revealation, L. Jeff Cupboard was a struggling writer/shepherd/underwear model who had just published a book called  "CREATIFY NEW WORDS & IMPRAZE PEOPLE ( HEY IT WORKED FOR SHAKESPEARE)"  And no, it's not his real name. His real name is L.Jeff Wardrobe. Ward

I promise that no matter what, I will get my new year's resolutions written on time