ALIAS POOR YORICK

Dear Australian Parliamentary Expense Account Register Review Committee, I can explain everything. Really. But first, I have to say how much I love democracy. Especially Australian democracy. It's a brilliant and precious thing and worth fighting for. My grandfather lied about his age and died in two world wars for our particularly vital and valuable form of democracy. Yes, he died twice so that people like Mr Lafayette of the Runcible Spoon party could be voted into the Senate on .003% of the primary vote as long as his directed his preferences to the Third Party Fire &Theft Insurance Party and they in turn directed their preferences to the Guns & Tits Alliance. How can you not love a system like this.  And as for me, well, as a result of being photographed in this safety gear and directing my preferences to the Ice-cream Headache Party while the coalition directed theirs to the Close Personal Friends of Satan Party at the same time as I stood quietly in...

It's that time of the year when a holiday seems essential. The footy's finished, Darth Vader's weird little brother Tony has taken over the country, and your drug dealer has booked himself into a Buddhist meditation retreat. Time to get out of town. And let's face it, no-one wants the same old same old when it comes to holidays. Please don't try to get me to Ulan Bator again. I do not want to stay in a Yurt. I will not sleep in something that sounds like someone has misspelled a dairy product. Yurt. I feel like I've been cornered by a rabid goblin travel agent channelling Dr Seuss - Hey Burt, don't be so curt, would it really hurt, to stay in a yurt.   Besides, I want something new. Jeremy and Claire went to the North Pole for a fortnight and died. I mean it cost them a fortune, but they'll never have a holiday like it again. Nothing will top that. Except if you visit my close personal friends at M. Polo & Sons, Travel Agents to th...

Let me make one thing perfectly clear - I did not want to make this concession speech. I did not wish to concede this election. You may have noticed that it has been some nine days since polls closed and that I am only now standing on this stage because my staff and other concerned party members are behind me goading me with pointed sticks and pitchforks in a decidedly non-ironic fashion. They tell me that the numbers are against me, that I do not have enough votes to govern and I say that numbers can be  treacherous lying little scum pig bastard things of no real value in determining a proper and useful result. However I am forced to accept that I may be in the minority on this point. Before I move on to grudging congratulations and the all-important business of finding people to blame let me just say that although we may not have received as many votes as we had hoped, these votes were of an indisputably higher value than the votes cast against us, and were cas...

Top Ten Really Really First World Problems 1.  You run out of Greek feta for your spinach and feta omelette and have to use Bulgarian feta instead 2. You pay $10,000 more than you should for a new Fiat 500 3. You and your partner have a really intense argument about whether the correct wine to have with Blue Castillo is a zinfandel or a pinot-Gris. This argument becomes so intense one of you writes an email to zany Age wine writer Mark Shields only to discover he has been dead for fifteen years. This leads inexplicably to fresh arguments and bitter recriminations over an affair one of you had with a sommelier back in the late-nineties. And then things get completely out of control when you argue about whether you can even have wine, let alone cheese, on your newly-adopted paleo diet.  In the bitterly contested divorce settlement your partner gets custody of the fake Brett Whitely. 4. Your friends laugh at the way you don't seem totally comfortable...

Call me Macgregor. Mmm, that sounds good. Kind of punchy. I might just carry on and write a book. Find me a bloody enormous fish immediately. But no, seriously, I am diverted from my true purpose. I am here to claim my Scottish heritage. To embrace my inner Scot. Yes my friends (except the f***ing English) I really am he who is called MacGregor. Why am I talking like this ? I have no idea . Perhaps it's the poetry innate in the soul of every true Celt, perhaps it is that this heart of mine truly belongs in the Higlands, perhaps it is this whisky. But friends (except the f***ing English) I may not look like the stuff of the Higlands. Or even the Highlands. But I am Scottish where it counts, on the inside. Yes, my heart is wearing a kilt, and there's a dirk stuck somewhere in my esophagus, which may account for that stabbing pain I occasionally experience. And 'tis now I must share my song with you. I wrote this song while suffering from exposure high high in th...

It was a day like any other day, except it was dark, so it may have been night. You notice things like that in my game. You have to. I was in my office. I had no idea what was going on. I work best like that. I lit a cigarette and poured a large scotch - it's important to have a proper breakfast. It'd been a long dull week punctuated only by bursts of extreme boredom and I felt like slapping someone. There was no-one around so I slapped myself. And I liked it. Just then a woman stumbled into the office, which was something of a relief because I was sick of slapping myself. And four word sentences. Besides, this story was going nowhere and I'd been there before. This dame was quite something. She had long blonde legs that went all the way to the ground and straight back up again with only a brief pause for an espresso and a cigarette. She was beautiful in a dangerous way, dangerous in a beautiful way,  and had eyes that said she was capable of microwaving your...

Stand back in shock and awe other political parties, the Ferret Party is here and we mean to win this election. We are the party that is determined to look the future full in the face  with nary a sideways glance behind us as we move forward. Shoulder to shoulder with you the people. And we will win this thing for the simple reason that we cannot lose. Our leader, Lord Clive Ferret, is worth ten billion dollars, which makes him a billion times smarter than any of you. Unless of course you are worth ten million dollars, in which case he is a thousand times smarter than you. If you are worth just under a million dollars, then ... oh look, he's just heaps smarter than any of you, so shut up. So why, you ask, go on then, ask away, why oh why will the Ferret Party be the best rulers ever ever in the history of Australia so far ?  Because : 1. No Ferret Prime Minister has ever led this country into war 2. We promise that ballroom dancing will be int...

    I have struggled over the years with the single origin espresso on offer at Expresso Espresso. There has been strength without comprehension, power without passion, and sometimes that most exquisite but fatal flaw in a single origin coffee - beauty without restraint. This has all changed. A new bean, an exciting new beginning. They would only tell me it comes from a bush, somewhere in the foothills of Senegal, which was once urinated on by a white rhino. It is not for me to speculate about spiritual significance of this animal, but there is magic afoot. There is at first sip a reluctance to engage. It is as if the coffee were saying "come here, no go away". And then the dance begins. There is Berlioz, there is Bartok, there is even a hint of Wagner at his more lyrical and lilting. There is that life-affirming splash of ozone as the lightening storm approaches. There is cinnamon and chocolate and tobacco and Armagnac all tied up in a der...

You look great. Have you lost weight ? You're doing something new with your hair, aren't you ? And those shoes are fabulous. Really. You look terrific. Now you'll find as the election approaches that the other parties will get bogged down in policies and promises. We won't be making that mistake. We know what you want, and it's our job to explain to you just how much we'd like to be able to give you those things, if only that were possible. We'll be running a beautifully nuanced campaign, slim, sleek, and oddly reminiscent of those late sixties Peter Stuyvesant Passport to International Smoking Pleasure advertisements that we all remember from the movies. I mean pictures. Strewth cor blimey mate, we are after all real Australians. Like you. And like you, we are deeply concerned about the economy.  Is it working ? Have we got the right sort of economy ? Do we even need an economy at all ? Possibly not, according to Treasury, but they've had me w...

Hello, God here. No no, no need for that sort of carry on. I've told you before about that. All that God-fearing stuff is so very old-fashioned. Just a simple gidday will do. And a cup of English Breakfast tea would be nice. And a date scone, if you're having one. But please,  no more of that grovelling around on the ground and wailing and all that crap. But while we're on the topic, a bit of gratitude wouldn't go amiss. I mean I'm the one who gave you peacocks, and chili chocolate, and sex. Not that you were supposed to enjoy all three of them at the same time. Yes you ! You grubby little bastard. I know who you are. Just stop it before I rethink the whole freewill thing altogether. Now, where was I .. ah, yeah look I'm thinking about just nicking off altogether. I'm just jack of it really. It's not easy being omnipotent. And as for being omniscient, you think that's cool ? I know what Clive Palmer looks like naked. So just like shut up dudes. ...

Cabinet reshuffle ? Ignore it, it's just a front. Fact is, folks, that Julia's pretty much had it with her Labour Party colleagues and has been looking further afield for someone to rule with. I mean with whom to rule. Guess who she found ? Me ! She stumbled across ALIAS POOR YORICK while cruising the Net looking for ferret jokes to amuse Greg Combet with. I mean, with which to amuse Greg Combet. Read the whole thing, and immediately decided she needed to rule, I mean govern, with me at her side. So it's a done deal. We'll be running the whole country, apart from that boring money stuff. And who can bothered with that. We'll be appointing my personal accountant, Vinnie "The Stoat" Ravioli, as finance minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer. That man can make a tax return sing. He's an artist. Julia and I will look after everything else. We'll rule as a triumvirate. Except with only two of us. Julia says not to worry it'll be all right, s...

How many Popes does it take to change a light bulb ? "Let me begin by saying that we take the problem of light bulbs which require changing extremely seriously. It is a matter of great concern to me, and the church as a whole. There have been suggestions that there has been an attempt within the church to downplay the importance of replacing faulty light bulbs, suggestions which I refute absolutely. The entire problem has not been helped by what we could only describe as lurid sensationalism in the press. A solution to the light bulb problem is being pursued aggressively, and we would like to see that action being more fairly represented in the popular press. Of course I have no personal knowledge of  faulty light bulbs, but I accept that there may be, from place to place, faulty lightbulbs. I intend to do everything in my power to change these light bulbs. I hope that clarifies the matter. And I would also like to remind you that as pope, I am infallible, and I don't w...

NOT THE POPE Well Bro, I'm gutted. Bloody devastated. I know you shouldn't count your eggs before they're all in the same basket, but I really thought I was in with a chance here. I suppose the pearls will have to go back. So what the hell happened ? Look I don't want to be bitter and twisted but I blame the catholics. You bastards. Always looking after their own. It's bad enough you chased us out of France five hundred years ago, but now this ! You bastards. I hope you realise you've missed out on the chance to see all the cardinals in dinner suits instead of that gay shit they're stuck with now. It would've been a way cool popehood. And what about the Bugatti Veyron ? Would've been the best popemobile ever ! And I had it all costed out - totally pimped and bullet-proofed under budget. Enough left over to clean that graffiti off the ceiling of the Cistern Chapel and slap on a couple of coats of low-sheen Arctic White. Youse have blown this ...

A NEW ETIQUETTE COLUMN FROM OUR EDITOR-AT-LARGE Lord MacGregor McGregor I am not The Stig. Neither are you. And neither is the nineteen year old P-plater in a Hyundai Excel with black vinyl wrap, an exhaust pipe big enough to fit a small pig in,  and No Fear emblazoned in huge letters on the rear window. And neither is The Stig. Well, not any more. So who are we really ? Apparently the answers are to be found on the back window of your car. And Facebook. Look no further. But first, stick families. If in fact your entire family consists of stick figures, then by all means tell us about this on the back window of your car. However, if your family consists of actual people & pets, then I really must insist that you stop misleading us on the back window of your car. Do not lie to me in traffic. It will end badly for all of us. Now. About your protestation that you have a "baby on board". Congratulations, you have a child. We here at ALIAS POOR YORI...

At Proust's Kitchen we serve only one dish. It is steak. It is perfect. Heston Blumenthal ate here. It made him cry. Anthony Bourdain also came here and cried, and not just because we slapped him with a spatula for being, how you say, a complete bloody tool. No, they all come, they all cry. It is the perfection. Should you feel you may be worthy of eating in our perfect restaurant, please feel free to send us an email. If it sufficiently amuses us, we will send you an application form. You will almost certainly fail, but the enormous effort involved is, we assure you, worth it. And how, you ask, can we be so confident ?  We can make the best steak in the world because we have the best cows in the world. And we treat them like royalty. They live in resort-like splendour in a location we prefer not to disclose so that there is little risk of them being disturbed by tourists, paparazzi, and insanely-jealous rival restaurateurs. There are no fences. There is only fre...

After many years of intense thinking , I was struck the other afternoon at about four-thirty-five by the answers to pretty much everything. Not quite total truth, but at least a working model thereof. A compendium of complete wisdom, if you will. Or even if you won't. And I think it's extremely unkind of my friends to suggest that this moment of clarity came after I'd quaffed 14 double-shot lattes in my new position as Quality Assurance Director down at Mondo Espresso. This is harsh. Now, as we all know, Direct and Inverse Scattering for Beltrami Fields ( or "Far Field Theory") depicts stability after chaos upon reaching the theoretical point of infinity. What I now know is that is also guarantees the universal truth of the following: (a) Never take a spoon to a knife fight (b) It's really hard to look tough when you're driving a Hyundai Excel (c) Any sentence which begins with "Simply" is a damn lie, and any sentence containing ...

POPE YORICK II   * (This post contains no horse meat)   ** (This post contains small amounts of recycled comedy, in keeping with our Keep Comedy Green policy) I shouldn't really be talking about this yet, I mean nothing's confirmed ... you didn't even know I was papabile did you ( for the tiny minority of my readers who don't already know, this means shortlisted for the pope gig, one of the chosen few, a likely contender, and while we're on the subject it's not too late to get a few bucks down on me, I think you can still get 12 or even 15 to 1 odds, money for jam because it's pretty much a lock, just a couple of contractual details and your obdt svt will be installed as Pope Yorick II. I'm not saying money has changed hands, I'm just saying this is a bet you can't lose )  But wait, I hear you say, you're not even a catholic. And you're right, and my point is, so what ? You've had an all-catholic team in the Vatican up to no...

 LANCE PEPTIDE, CAUGHT IN THE ACT Accusations and awkward alliterations (& abysmal syntax) are flying as World drug authorities concede for the first time the true extent of the infiltration of sport and sports-related activities into the drug-taking world.  And it's been going on for years, claims Lance Peptide (pictured above) who talked publicly about his own involvement in sport after being photographed by paparazzi while clearly dressed in some sort of athletic outfit and taking part in field & track activity instead of drinking the beer and snorting the three lines of meth crystals laid out on the serving tray. I am scum, said Mr Peptide, and I am not alone. Nor is this a recent development. I can remember my cocaine dealer back in the mid-eighties turning up to a drug meet in a cricket jumper. Didn't give a stuff. And I can give you names right now, I'm not going to but I could, of several well-known high-ranking cocaine an...

BUT FIRST A JOKE :  How many Australians does it take to change a lightbulb ?  What's wrong with the lightbulb ? That's a bloody good Aussie lightbulb. I dunno, you come over here, get on the dole, steal our women, and then have the cheek to whinge about our lightbulbs. My father died in the war for that lightbulb. Well okay he didn't die in the war, but he once got so pissed on Anzac Day that he had to take three days off work. And let's not even talk about Vietnam. He went there on a Tiger Airlines tour once and got so bloody crook from a pork roll we thought he might lose a kidney. And all you bloody foreigners can do is criticize our lightbulbs !  You can all bugger off.   PROFESSOR JEFRI L'ÉSTRANGE, SENIOR LECTURER IN SOME SORT OF BULLSHIT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WEST RINGWOOD At first glance, it might seem that anyone as screamingly flamboyant as this would be a shoo-in for this honour, but it's not as straight-forward as ...

. Please stop asking me to get in touch with my feelings. I got in touch with my feelings once and it was icky. I was in a supermarket at the time and I cried all over the fennel pollen. People thought I was having a Martyrchef moment..."no Tarquin that's fine, you just sit there and watch the tennis while I dust the pickled antelope forelock with fennel pollen, no no, you just relax, I'll strain the jus, it's not like I've had to take a second job to pay our saffron bill at the Provedore, I mean I just lounge around here all day while you're at your great big important job at SBS"... I'm sorry I have no idea where that came from, yet again it highlights the very real dangers of feelings and trying to get in touch with them. I remember the time I tried to do it on Facebook - I put in a friend request to my emotions & it was just ignored. I have no idea how I feel about that. Emotions are overrated, I'd rather have Euros. When I was growin...

 ALIAS POOR YORICK Editor-in-Chief Jeff Browett reads  Gina Rinehart's poetry for the first time       (February 2012)       Neatly sandwiched between 2011 and 2013, 2012 was a year that was up to the job. For me the highlight was the Olympics, which, by any possible measure was won by Australia. As long as that measure doesn't involve facts or figures. I'm telling you though, our failures were heroic, our excuses Olympian in their delusional scope and grandeur. We won where it counts, and yes as a matter of fact I am dictating this while competing in a polo match which means you'll have to excuses lapses in syntax and judgement. Well look I'm a busy man and it's the only way ... Murdoch you little fucker, get the fuck out of my way, it's bad enough you people tapping a dead girl's cellphone, but cheating at polo !? What sort of a fucking degenerate are you ... I'm sorry you had to hear th...