ALIAS POOR YORICK

P.M. REACTS TO POLLS SHOWING BLAKE FROM "THE BACHELOR"  AHEAD OF HIM AS PREFERRED PRIME MINISTER   Do not be disturbed by my increasingly reptilian appearance. It's just a trick of the light. And I was having a bad hair day. In fact a number of bad hair days. I cannot in all honesty say I have had a good hair day since October 24th 1973, and I'm not even positive about that as I recall coming second in a boxing match in the morning and may be mistaken about the good hair day thing.  Nor should you pay any attention to those crackpot theories about earth being invaded by a race of super-intelligent alien reptiles who have disguised themselves as world leaders and taken control. I promise you there is no truth whatsoever in such rumours. And I would never lie to you. As such. I hate my life right now. you've got no idea what's it's like. I keep having this terrible dream where I'm in Parliament and I call Bill Shorten the Prime minister. What ? ...

DR BRICKLAW CURMUDGEON, UNICORN EXPERT Welcome to part two of "How the Unicorn Became Extinct". If you haven't read part one, I suggest you do so immediately. It's not compulsory of course, but if you don't then I'm going to have to produce a snappy, coherent summary of the narrative arc so far, and quite frankly I'm just a tad exhausted from chasing down that unreliable bastard Atticus Finch.  I don't know, you try to support writers, I pay him good money, and he can't finish the job. A deadline's a deadline. He promised me Part Two by the end of the day, first thing tomorrow at the latest. Then by lunchtime at the very very latest.  I'm not saying he's a lying unreliable alcoholic swine but I start getting these texts:    Toe bitten off by rabid Pekingese/Pomeranian Cross. In hospital for shots and toe transplant. Need an extra four hours to finish.    Trapped in Woolworths car park for three hours by psychotic womba...

Special Guest Author ATTICUS FINCH Everyone knows that animals can count. What is less well known is that they are really sloppy about it. It tends to go 4,5,6......lots. Which is okay I guess. If a lion asks another lion how many antelope there are over there and the answer is 'lots', it doesn't matter much if there's eleven antelope or sixteen, because 'lots' means lunch is here. Likewise, if an antelope asks another antelope how many lions there are over there and the first antelope says "lots", it doesn't matter whether there's twelve or twenty lions because really we are in deep shit. Unicorns were at the time a prized delicacy and demand was fierce. Occasionally a worried lion would ask just how many unicorn were left, and of course the answer was always "lots". A group of lions grew concerned when it became obvious to them that the "lots"of unicorn were considerable smaller than the "lots"of the previ...

PRIME MINISTER TONY ABBOTT Hello Blokes, Diggers, and Cobbers of Australia. It is my very great privilege as Prime Minister of this very great country to have a bit of a natter with you this evening. A bit of a chat in plain lingo you can all understand. Because plain speaking is what we in this government are all about. And there are things, stone the flaming crows mate, you need to be told. I think I should start by reminding you that in the first year of this government wombat-related deaths are at an all time low, hippopotamus-related deaths have virtually disappeared, and as a result of this government's  bold decision to ban climate change we have saved billions of dollars of spending on climate change-related measures. Now, onto matters of international importance. Putin the blame where blame belongs. Laugh laugh. Did you see what I did there ? Bit of a pun. Bit of a joke. People say I have no sense of humour. They are wrong. I write most of Joe Hockey's dialo...

If you eat enough kale you will live forever. Maybe even longer. You've all heard the crazy talk, the wild claims, the quasi-religious fervour. Is kale that good ? Can it all be true. Yes it can. Yes it is. Yes. Oh yes. If you're not eating your own body-weight in kale every week you're being a fool to yourself and a burden to others. Some say that kale is almost as good as sex and money and religion all wrapped into one. This is of course quite ridiculous - kale is better than that. A single cup of raw kale every day will give you the ability to conquer large chunks of Europe and bits of North Africa while designing champagne glasses in your spare time. Just ask Napoleon Bonaparte. Kale will make you taller, whiten your teeth, and massively increase the love and respect you get from your family and friends. Your ability to speak foreign languages will improve by up to 50%. Making kale an integral part of your diet will change your life in many and wondrous ways. ...

I've had this rather disturbing letter I thought I should share with you all. It's from a Mr Billable-Hours of the eminent legal firm  Ersatz, Cocaine, Ponytail, and Bottomfeeder Mr Jeff Browett Editor/CEO ALIAS POOR YORICK Dear Sir, I'm writing in regard to your two sons Rupert and Frinton (Good God man what were you thinking ? Were you drunk ? Trying to get them into Eton ? Both ?) who you sold to the gypsies twelve years ago for allegedly "being naughty". I represent the two gypsies to whom you sold the boys. There appear to be a number of problems with the arrangement, to whit (no I don't know what it means either but my boss told me I had to put in stuff like that). Anyway. There is no legal basis, either in statute or by common law precedent, to sell your children to the gypsies "for being naughty" Secondly, and I've consulted with colleagues on this one, refusing to buy you a carton of Benson & Hedges and deliver it to ...

    Let's make no mistake about it, there will be legal action. I'm sick of people stealing my ideas before I've even had them and yes Nick Cave I'm talking to you. Don't try to pretend you've forgotten that night we spent in Berlin at the Bildungsroman Bar drinking bats blood & ketamine cocktails and talking about film. I reckoned I could make a more pretentious film about myself than you could and you said "No Jeff, you're wrong. No-one could make a more pretentious film about themselves than I could". Okay Nick, so you win, but did you have to steal all my ideas ?  My film was directed by my barista Jvornquist & my personal pubic hair stylist Narelle ClimateChangeAction.com.au ( politics and pubic hair are a powerful combination). They have no actual experience of film-making as such but they are both intensively creative and interesting people and if you take a couple of Dramamine before the movie starts you can deal pretty well ...

Fathers Day. It's always the same isn't it. Hipster-beard aftershave from the younger kids, intervention orders from the older ones, and the usual letter from Justin Bieber begging me to adopt him and teach how to be cool and tough and hilarious.As if. And the predictably hostile silence from the step-kids Rhinestone and Rhinegold. Yes they are twins, not they're not identical but they are very close,  and yes they are almost certainly on close personal terms with Satan. That'll teach me to marry a performance artist-lifestyle counselor I met in rehab. She turned our divorce settlement into a show that ran for two weeks at the Fringe Festival. I got a touching card from my youngest adopted African child Ptolemy who assures me that he thinks so highly of me that he calls me Oloishiru Ingishu, a Masai name which means "He whom the cows love so much they call for him in times of distress". Told him it was a nice thought but I'd used that same line thr...

HEY JOE, WHERE YOU GOING WITH THAT GLUM Dear Diary, Dash it all I'm really cross, and a bit sad. Everyone's being simply beastly to me and it just isn't fair. All this bloody fuss over bloody bloody sodding poor people. I'm sorry I said they didn't have cars and even if they did they never drive very far and so the petrol tax wouldn't affect them. What I should have said was I hate the crappy cars that poor people own that I have to look at every day as I'm driven to work. Yesterday I had to look at three Hyundai Excels. Two of them were dirty and one of them was really rusty. It was horrible. And I saw an old FQ Holden being driven by a really old and unattractive person. I felt ill.  People just don't think about what I have to put up with. And anyone with half a brain can see that most of these bloody bloody sodding poor people are deliberately staying poor so they don't have to shoulder their fair share of the tax burden. Leaners not lif...

CLIVE PALMER AT REGULAR STAFF BRIEFING First, you may be experiencing a tingling feeling, a feeling of warmth and of general well-being. Do not be alarmed. This is because you are being addressed by me, Viscompte d' Coal-Bearing Deposits, Clive Palmer. Your feelings are perfectly natural. I am fabulous in all respects & damn near fatally attractive to all mammals. I am also a genius, which really goes without saying, but why take a chance?  I am here to explain everything.I did not enter politics for silly or trivial reasons. I like the seats. No really, they're great. Especially on the cross benches. You can really stretch out. But on to more pressing matters. Now, as you know I am extremely rich. Which makes me at least one hundred times smarter than the rest of you. I have two billion dollars, you have a mortgage. So shut up and listen: Abbott is a pompous idiot who pads his budgie smugglers with real budgies. Hockey thinks he's tough, but he couldn...

Wed 2nd July Got to Canberra. Exciting being a senator. Shouldn't have bought the kids along for the ride. Two of them threw up as we drove through Goulburn. Can't say I blame them, but. Met one of the other new senators, Jeff from the Ice Cream Headache party, you know, the blogging bitcoin billionaire. He told me if I really want to impress Tony Abbott when I meet him I should lick him on the face. He reckoned this is sort of like a secret language among politicians and it'd show him I know what's what. He was right. I tried it and Tony looked pretty surprised about how much I was in the know already. Thurs 3rd July Had a breakfast meeting with my new mate Clive Palmer. I licked him on the face and he didn't seem impressed at all. I'm starting to wonder just how much he really knows about politics. I asked him if I could drive his Rolls and he said no. Starting to wonder just how much of a mate he really is. Fri 4th July Had a bottle of Wild Turk...

BUZZWHIZQUIZ.COM in association with ALIAS POOR YORICK and Facebook presents "WHICH DEADLY SIN IS REALLY YOU?"  If you're sick of answering tragically transparent questions in order to find out which 60's folk band you should have been in or which one of Hitler's evil henchmen is really you (I got Goering. Embarrassing) then you may be ready to find out about your defining character defect. There are Seven Deadly Sins. Which one is you?  Press Play to Start                                            PLAY 1. Seven seems like an arbitrary number for Deadly Sins. Perhaps there should be one more. What do you think should be the Eighth Deadly Sin ? (a) Knowing the lyrics to the Pina Colada song (b) Being ambivalent about the use of the Oxford comma (c) Failing to travel at the correct speed when merging onto a Freeway (d) Actually seven seems like t...

AUSTRALIA REVEALS SECRET OF WIMBLEDON SUCCESS

  "MasterBastard" CARRY-OVER CHAMPION  TONY ABBOTT Ladies and gentlemen it's a very great honour to be here this evening and a very special feeling to win back-to-back MasterBastard series. This isn't something you do by yourself and I'd like to thank Rupert and Gina for giving me this opportunity. Now let me get straight to it. A few people, a small misguided but vocal minority have suggested I have broken election promises and even lied. This is a lie. I have never lied, nor could I ever lie. I am a Rhodes Scholar and not lying is one of our rules. What you have to understand is I was telling the truth then and what I said then is now still true but the facts have changed. This is the fault of the previous government. When you weren't looking, ladies and gentlemen, this evil Labour Government spent literally billions on geegaws and whizzbangs, on folderol and flutter-me-jubbles. They spent your pension money, ladies and gentlemen, on lollies and icecr...

STAFF LEARN OF CHANGES AT "ALIAS POOR YORICK" Here quick, hold this. Don't ask questions, this is an emergency. If anyone asks it's full of unmarked punchlines. And  you haven't seen me. Unless it's Richard Branson, in which case you have, but it was somewhere else. Tell him I needed the money for cab-fare and I'll get it back off Gina. Whatever. I'll sort it out later. You have to realise we have an emergency on our hands. The former editor has left this publication in a hell of a state and we're going to have to take drastic action. At this rate we'll have run out of jokes by the end of the decade, in fact damn it man we're running out of comedy material even as we speak. I don't care what the World Comedy Fund say about the health of this publication, we need to make cuts. Lots of them. I love making cuts. It make me feel alive.  Cut everything. Particularly wages. Paying people is killing us and it has to stop. They started poo...

Do mermaids really use luggage ?  Or for that matter, do mermaids need bathing caps ? Is it only 1950s' mermaids who wear them ? As you know, we here at ALIAS POOR YORICK insist on asking the difficult questions. Not always the big important ones, but the ones we ask are extremely interesting, like "Which pre-20th Century psychotic mass-killer are you ?"  I'm Vlad the Impaler. Go figure. But more importantly, do aliens live among us ? Surveys show that possibly as many as 17% of  Americans believe that aliens are here & living unnoticed among us. Why are they here ? Is it because Netflix will not allow them to purchase "House of Cards" on their home planet ? Do they wish to make contact with our old friends the ferrets in order to form some sort of superpower axis of awesomeness ?  Do they wish to learn all they can about our ways, then enslave us, and use us in a thousand unspeakable ways? Is it some sort of adventure holiday for them ?  Clearly...

The young Royals have a lot to live up to. This is what happened when The Queen and The Prince Phillip visited a couple of years ago. Mayhem and everything. A Right Royal Visit indeed. Lift your game Will & Kate: How anyone can describe this royal visit as boring is a mystery to the staff here at ALIAS POOR YORICK. We are abuzz and agog. Especially Royal Reporter-at-Large Paul Yorick... We joined the Queen & Prince Phillip last night at Trades Hall for the  Rain dance & Crop blessing ceremony. Jacked up on crack and rum, the royal couple daubed the traditional possum-blood stripes on their faces before sacrificing a goat, three mice, and Derryn Hinch in order to ensure bountiful crops for next year. The ceremony concluded with the crowd & the Royals joining in an a capella version of Khe Sanh. Then it was into the ceremonial stolen EH wagon for a red-light-crashing drive down to Fitzroy St & some serious pool hustling at Benny's Bennies & Benzos A...

Late Braking News Action being taken today by the Australian Writers of Comedy Wackiness And Risible Drivel (AWCWARD)  against former foreign minister Bob Carr after he boasted of extensive self-parody in his recent book "I Want My Muesli Now". Writers claim that parody is their business, and that Bob Carr should stick to what he's good at - embarrassing Australia overseas. The comedy writers intend to extend the legal fight, setting in motion a class action against all Australian politicians, with particular reference to the NSW Liberal party, and seeking specific damages from former Premier Barry O'Farrell, Senator Arthur Sinodinos, and PM Mr Tony Abbott. "They're doing us out of a job", said Jeff Browett,  AWCWARD Victorian Branch Assistant Treasurer, who went on to explain: "It's basically a demarcation dispute. We're suing them for restraint of trade, practising comedy without a license, and some other legal and grown-up soundi...

Senator Arthur Sinodinos at Corruption Hearings Q: Are you Senator Arthur Sinodinos ? Oh I say, steady on. There's no need for that sort of language Q: Are you Senator Arthur Sinodinos, Assistant Treasurer in the Abbott government ?  I don't know. I don't recall  Q: It's a simple question Senator. Please answer. And that's another thing. I agreed to come along here out of the goodness of my heart ... Q: You were subpoenaed That too. But apart from that, I'm here out of the goodness of my heart to help sort things out. I didn't expect some sort of inquisition. Q: This is a corruption inquiry. Questions will be asked. That's pretty much how this how thing works. Yeah all right, but youse have got to stop picking on me Q: No-one's picking on you Senator. We're simply asking questions. If we could return to the period of time you were chairman of Australian Water Holdings ... I protest. that's an outrageous suggestion....

GARY, HAIR TO THE THRONE Firstly, let me make one thing perfectly clear. This is an important election and it is vital that you elect Greens candidate Senator Scott Ludlam. Our parliament needs this hair, and the brain which lies beneath. If you do not vote for Senator Scott Ludlam radioactive weevils with deep-seated psychological problems will eat your brain. Or even worse, the Senate will be controlled by Tony Abbott and his coalition of evil flying monkeys.  VOTE (1) SCOTT & GARY. You won't be sorry. Now. Some important tips: (a) If you turn up in tee shirt and jeans, apologizing for having left your dinner suit at the cleaners, this will not necessarily count as an informal vote. We will just be quietly disappointed. You could have made an effort. This is as I said an important election. Would it kill you to at least wear a jacket and tie ? (b) You cannot vote for this man, or for his hair. I know both of them are still all over the news, but he has nothing to...

                                                             Arble Jarble, Jarble Jarble Run like a fox, run like chickens, Marry me & we'll carve on marble Rude little poems about Charlie Dickens                 I want to be two pounds of strawberries           and a cup of sugar at most           I want to make myself into jam           so you can spread me on your toast         (HIPSTER VERSE:  To be played on mandolin & bass ukelele after drinking three espressos in Northcote) I'll be a bitcoin billionaire for you...

 * Chaos on the set of the second series of MasterBastard tonight causes production shutdown. Reigning champion Tony "Lying Eyes"Abbott knighted two of the camera operators and gave a life peerage to the set designer. New contestant Attorney General George Brandis then called the standby props person a "stinky bum fart weasel" because that's what free speech is all about. Several of the other contestants burst out laughing and were unable to continue. Indignant Floor Manager Bronwyn "Be Bob A Lu Bop" Bishop immediately threw them out of  the studio, saying that this was totally unacceptable behaviour: "We've got people here doing their very best to be complete bastards and all you lot can do is laugh". Further outbursts of infectious laughter turned into disorder. Bishop then evicted the entire camera crew, the boom operator, a make-up person, several talent agents, and a guy called Terry who no-one can figure out what he does but it...

PM TONY ABBOTT & PM PETER O'NEILL TO SHARE VICTORY Runaway ratings success and first foray into entertainment television for RuperTV, "MasterBastard" came to a sensational series end today when judges were unable to pick a clear winner, calling the first final a draw. The two finalists, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill, surprised judges and audience alike when they happily agreed to share the victors spoils; their win having been virtually guaranteed by the agreement to proceed no further with any sort of inquiry into recent events in the detention centre on Manus Island. Bastardry at its best and brightest. The judging panel, headed by former World Champion Complete Bastard George Bush Jr, said that while PM Abbott looked like a runaway winner from the start, PM O'Neill came galloping to the fore with this act of casual collusion. "Casual collusion goes a long way in the business of  bastardry...

CRAIG THOMPSON & BARRISTER GARY "SHADES'' JAMES Q.C  Hello, I'm Craig Thompson. Unless otherwise advised by my attorney.So, am I guilty? Well I've been "found" guilty, but does that actually mean I'm guilty. I don't think so. It's such a subjective opinion when all's said and done. One man's opinion. And really it was a bunch of hookers and some porno films it's not like there was any actual illegal stuff going on. Okay the credit card fraud thing. Okay, that one man was a magistrate. Yeah yeah. Okay okay okay. You're right. No, yeah, no, right. I get your point. Okay I'm guilty. Look I'll tell you what I'll do. How about I give all the money back. That's fair enough, eh ? I'll give back all the money and chuck in a couple of hundred for your trouble. Okay, a grand. I'll chuck in a grand on top and we'll say no more about it. Okay. I'll chuck in a grand and I'll be nice to some ...