HOLY SMOKE!!

I find it amazing that  Sydneysiders aren’t out in their thousands protesting about the inconvenience and damage proposed to be done to our city, let alone the hundred and forty million dollars of taxpayers money  we are expected to pay, for the visit of an aging German cleric, and an Italian corpse in good condition.
Once again the police will be out in force searching for bible bombs. Once again the barricades will be up for days, and citizens who have the misfortune to live in a Randwick suburban street will not be able to drive in or out of their own driveways for a week. A large section of Hyde Park will be reserved for pilgrims, while another will be set aside for merchandising.  Here’s your chance, Jesus! why don’t you celebrate your second coming by dropping in and turning over the tables!

I remember, years ago, when we visited the holy shrine of Fatima in Portugal, where the holy virgin appeared before a couple of kids who naturally fell on their knees and subsequently became nuns. What a way to recruit staff! They didn’t even have to rub a lamp. However, I suspect that some clever marketing man started a firm, probably called  something like “Fatima Solutions”, and bought all the rights to the roadsides within a couple of kilometers  of the  holy place.  On these he erected hundreds of stalls  and leased them to  all his mates who filled them full of the most god almighty religious junk to sell to the gullible and the curious. There were endless cameos and pictures of a bloke who looked exactly like Osama Bin Laden, but who, I was assured, was the Saviour himself. As well as that there were literally hundreds of picture and statuettes of a lady holding a baby.  Both mother and baby wore halos, so I assumed they were both virgins.  And those things were only a small sample of the literally thousands of celestial junk on offer.  I bought a set of rosary beads which glowed in the dark and gave it to some catholic friends in case they were taken short, as it were.
Although we passed quite close to Lourdes I’m sure we could have sampled another lot of holy bric-a-brac, but we decided to give it a miss.

One holy pilgrimage was enough for us.

A PM’s job is a 24 hours a day one, a public servant’s isn’t.

Congratulation’s Kev! In a few short words you lost the vote of every public servant, State and Federal, active and retired.  Not a bad effort, wouldn’t you say?  A few more bits of public arrogance like that and you’ll join the short list of one-term prime ministers.
Maybe if you quietened down a bit and leave the public appearances to some of your more balanced ministers like, say, Lindsay Tanner or your very able deputy, the public might forget your gaffe.
Go to the park for a day. Spend some time with your family.  Take Therese to a movie. Sit in the church for an hour or two and read what the bible has to say on humility.  Do anything but for all our sakes keep your boyish features off the television!  We can afford to lose you, but we can’t afford another Coalition Government for a while yet. Get the message from the latest public opinion poll – the public still likes your Government, but the don’t like you as much as they did before.  We don’t mind the end of the honeymoon, but we don’t want and end to the marriage.