Howard entlarvt Obama

Robinson really intended to write an English post this time – to balance things out, as this blog has an increasing tendency towards the German language. But the English-speaking blogosphere was so quick to comment on the Howard-Obama story, which is Robinson’s issue for the day, that there is not much benefit in adding yet another English voice to it. So once more: A German post on an Australian issue. Or an American issue. Or an Iraqi issue. Or…well an issue that interests some people. People like Robinson.

 

 

«So, Ihr lieben. Euer Märlionkel wird euch jetzt die Geschichte von der Wahrheit erzählen. Die Wahrheit hat die englischsprachige Blogosphäre schon erreicht, gerne gebe ich dieses wertvolle Wissen nun auch an die Nordhalbkugel weiter.

 

A consistent high-quality blogger…

…is Anonymous Lefty, who also wrote a piece on the Howard-Obama story. You will now also find a link to Lefty on my blogroll.

 

Robinson is part of the high society now

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: His Most Noble Lord Robinson the Innocent of Bampton Underhoop Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

 

Strange news from the airwaves

A Sudanese refugee was bashed up in Parramatta lately. After Tamworth rednecks and Sydney metropolitan shock jocks whipped up anti-Sudanese sentiments (aided by the unfortunate fact that the man who was found guilty by a Victorian court of having raped three women happened to be Sudanese), this does not really come as a surprise. What did come as a surprise was this laconic news read on Channel Ten, where they said police re-enacted the Parramatta bashing in the hope of jogging witnesses’ memories. Robinson scratches his head: «Another bashing… A bashing with good intentions at least.»

 

Another strange story was heard on ABC local radio with Virginia Trioli. A group of medicos, called the Perth Group, claims HIV/AIDS does not exist, or at least that there is no connection between having HIV and AIDS. People who had unprotected sex although they knew they had the virus use the group’s «findings» as a defence before court. The group has even been able to get South African President Thabo Mbeki to question whether AIDS exists. «What a great contribution to Africa’s prevention efforts», Robinson thinks sarcastically.

 

And then Qantas: Today they apologised for showing a censored version of the movie The Queen. Their international film distributor had bleeped the word «God» – apparently a new staff member regarded it as a swearword. Robinson declines to comment… – … «Muwahahahahaaaa!»

 

Most googled item of the week…

…, according to Brisbane radio station 4BC, in the US has been the Australian Open. Where, it has to be noted, Roger Federer was shining again. As Robinson used to say: «The others are quite feder too, but Roger is even federer!»

 

In Australia, Internet surfers hoped to find information about Myspace, eBay, games, Runescape, White Pages and Christmas. «As if you would google for that stuff!», Robinson exclaims. Apart from «games» and «Christmas», you would assume that it is quite obvious where to surf to get onto Myspace, eBay, Runescape and the White Pages. Robinson theorises: «If we take human rationality for granted, the only reasons for such search strings to be typed into Google would be that people did not want to access the respective websites, but rather wanted to get third-party information and/or opinions about the websites. This suggests a general distrust in how these companies do business.» Though Robinson has to admit it is more plausible just to assume surfers are not rational or lack the imagination to find the most basic commercial sites without Google.

 

However, Robinson would like to add that he is convinced the weekly results only reflect reality after the exclusion of search terms like fuck, tits, pussy, prick, cunt, dick, slut, whore and so on. He would like to apologise to all the masturbating surfers who have clicked on this blog searching for fucks, tits, pussies, pricks, cunts, dicks, sluts and whores without finding what they were after. But thanks for the clicks anyway.

 

“FYI”

Robinson can be quite cruel sometimes. Lately, he wrote in his blog:

“FYI: I’m going on holidays now. Just in case you wanted to know. To Tasmania. Yes, it’s going to be fun. Bush walking and camping and so on. Away from this noisy, smelly, hot city. I don’t care about the fireworks. They’ll be on again next year, trust me.”

No mention of, let alone any word of solidarity to, those poor people who are sentenced to stay in Sydney and (God forbid) go to work. It looks like he’s too up himself, or maybe just “too ready” for a break.

http://australiablog.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/robinsons.pdf

 

First Visitor

There he was, the first visitor staying over at my place. Sandro with whom I used to go to school. Was quite unreal, to be the host in this place, so far far away from where we grew up. Was heaps fun to be “the local”: Always warned him, “I’m not sure if this is the way, I think it is, but we’ll have to try it out”. We usually ended up where we wanted to.

The only thing I couldn’t understand was his fascination with Australian coathangers. I mean, I know they’re not as big in Switzerland, but hey, it’s a coathanger after all. But see for yourself:

He has by now of course seen more of Oz than myself. But I’ll catch up, you just wait.

 

How to avoid alcohol poisoning

Robinson feels terribly sorry for making his loyal readers wait so long. A possible explanation for his slackness in contributing to the blog may be that he is no longer an unemployed immigrant but a working everyday person. Anyhow, enough things have happened to fill another chapter now.

First, Robinson would like to clarify one point: He is not just a pseudonym to protect an existing person. He is a half-fictional person. This is why the name Robinson is being kept up, even though his inventor no longer has to conceal his identity, now that Ms Robinson has officially given her employer notice of her demission. She has by the way applied for a visa now, and they hope that will go well.

And now to the title of this blog entry: It is only a catch, Robinson won't be able to give satisfying solutions on the question how to avoid alcohol poisoning. He'd be happy to know though, so if one of the honourable readers knows a safe method of going out in Australia, please post a comment. Last Sunday Robinson recalled his father's warning: «Don't let them make you drink more than you can cope with.» How right the old man was! «Die Kraft des Saftes», or what they called it in the German-dubbed version of Spaceballs, was quite overwhelming. Robinson found it alright at the evening itself, but then the next day, he was up shit creek in a barbed-wire canoe with no paddle (sorry, but he loves this expression). At least, it does not seem to be some Swiss gene that made him surrender to a bellyache the day after the party. His cousin told him he was in quite bad shape himself, too.

Of course, it's cheap to say «it was them who made me drink»: Robinson strongly believes that everyone's responsible for his or her own liver. So what do you do, when the my-round-your-round-his-round-her-round thing has started?

a) drink it, and when it's your turn, buy another round. That's what Robinson did, and it didn't yield the desired results the next day.

b) drink it, wait until it's your turn, and then refuse to continue the vicious circle by not buying any more drinks. Probable side-effect: Robinson wouldn't be invited out any more.

c) take the drink and covertly give it to the plants. Possible side-effect: The plants will get a hiccup.

d) make sure that your drinks aren't alcoholic. Probable side-effect: «Haha, that bloke with this funny accent refuses to get drunk. How wrong is that!»

Any more contributions?

 

Robinson Ardent about his Present Job

Well really, Robinson is no longer very far away from feeling at home. He recognises that the main problem up to now was not that he was a stranger, but that he felt useless not having had any tasks to do on a daily basis. But now that there is something to do for him in his new country of residence, he feels needed and enthusiastically plunges himself into work. His superior’s remarks on how quick he got into the requested style of writing just add to his zeal, despite the fact that Robinson is not yet ready to summarise five minutes of news in five minutes.

Work is, up to now at least, equivalent to fun. Robinson loves dealing with news and current affairs and media and all that information that is thrown into peoples faces. And this is what he is working with. He summarises very briefly all news items that affect Australia (so no international stuff without Australian involvement), except sports, traffic, and weather. These latter kinds of news items are only summarised if a client of his employer requests summaries (Commonwealth Games), or if there is more to the weather than just weather (Cyclone Larry), more to the traffic than just traffic (Sydney Ferries strike), or more to sports than just sports (sale of the South Sydney Rugby League Club Rabbitohs to Russell Crowe and his mate).

Robinson not just summarises news but also talkback shows, where people can call in and give their statement about an issue that has been raised by the presenter. He doesn’t think that in Switzerland there are that many talkback shows, and those that exist are on a very low level. Robinson finds getting to know the opinions of everyday persons on current issues just as inspiring as the issues themselves.

The most important difference to working as a journalist, is that his job is no longer to inform the general public about what happened, but to inform clients (companies, politicians, parties, media, organisations and so on) about how they are portrayed in the media. Robinson can now omit information that he would otherwise have felt obliged to pass on. If a client wants to know more about a particular news item found in the summaries, he or she can order a full transcript from Robinson’s employer.

Our immigrant is very thankful that he got this job, and thinks this is a great opportunity to learn and grow. If he were ever to work as a journalist in Australia, this job will have prepared him well for that. Also, since he cannot think of a Swiss company that offers such media monitoring services, he is intrigued by the thought of starting such a business himself once without having to face much competition.

 

Mrs Robinson is happy that it works, but still misses her husband

Dear Robinson

It works! I am happy to tell you that I found out how to blog! I am just wondering if there’s a logout… I’ll discover it if there’s one.

It is very cold and wet here in Switzerland. It was snowing this afternoon, but the snow didn’t stay on the floor or the trees. Our cat just came in. It is at home very often. Outside it’s probably too ugly. I think that when it looks at me and does its strange noises it is always asking me where you are. But it doesn’t seem to understand my answers. Maybe that’s better so. I think our little tiger is bored all day when I am working and misses you. So do I.

There’s strange and sad music on the radio and it starts to snow again. Ruzica has disappeared somewhere in the flat. My co-habitant (is this the right word?) is having a bath because he has caught a rough cold. I am thinking about the fact, that at your place it must be warm and everything is new and interesting. At my place it’s everyday a bit the same as usual. This evening, my friend Tatjana is coming to visit me. We are going to eat Quesadillas. I have to change the music channel. I can’t listen to it anymore, it’s too stupid and emotional like those dumb Xmas-Songs. I am waiting for spring… But how to survive spring without you? So I am waiting for summer, when we can spend our time together again…

Love & Respect, Mrs Robinson