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24 May 2005 at 13:07

age 17, windswept and interviewed

A few hours after losing my virginity we all went to Edinburgh Castle, where this picture was taken. Her previous boyfriend, whose name was something like Denis, was the leader of a Hell's Angel chapter. Our relationship lasted several weeks, during which she soon learned that if she said the magic words "I thought I saw Denis and his mates over there," it was a handy way of getting me to do what she wanted.



My initiation had taken place in my bedroom. She and I were in my bed, while from the next bed my room-mate interviewed me on my impressions of the experience, so that I had to keep up a running commentary. He was in love with her but she wasn't interested, although their relaxed body language in the picture below suggests otherwise.



In the morning, when the landlady knocked on the door with a cup of tea, there was a mad scramble to hide my lover in the wardrobe.

It wasn't till a week later that she and I made love without an audience, and I found myself kind of missing the suppport of a third party. At least he had kept the conversation going.

I have avoided identifying her, and am even considering applying pixellation, just in case she sees this, and is still in touch with Denis and his Angels.

Blogger Hotboy said...

I fail to see what all this has to do with Nazi Germany, or penguins. What kind of girl would have relations with a guy with a haircut like that anyway? Hotboy  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

I shall shortly be publishing a 1970s fashion photo of hotboy, and the readers can make up their own minds.  

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Blogger Hotboy said...

Let's have the girls in leatherhosen!  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

hotboy, I thought all your meditation was supposed to calm your worldly urges. robmcj  

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23 May 2005 at 16:22

a 2-day conference in 10 minutes

Here's your chance to catch up with the Blogtalk Downunder conference (Sydney, 19-21 May 2005). I'm doing my best to summarise each paper, for the convenience of colleagues and anyone else interested in the future of blogging in general, and especially in educational applications of blogs.

So far I have blogged these summaries:

portfolio-building using blogs - tan, teo, aw and lim

assessment by blog - cooper & boddington

weblogs as learning environments - gavin sade

video in blogs - adrian miles

Blogger Hotboy said...

Did the Fewrur have a blog in his last days? Hotboy  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

I am not as yet authorised to speak for the Fewrur, but the order may come any day.  

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20 May 2005 at 17:16

"blogging good for you" - it's official


NOT LISTENING
Many people don't know how to listen, they're too busy jumping down your throat in search of springboards for their own pet themes. Spending time with these people only encourages them, so this blog recommends you avoid them, especially if you actually enjoy your own company.

LISTENING TO YOURSELF
Choosing solitude used to be regarded with suspicion, and listening to yourself was once a sign of madness, but nowadays you can claim you're practising a higher-order skill called reflection (also known as cognitive housekeeping).

BLOG FOR HEALTH
And blogging is now officially good for your health, "combining the benefits of solitary reflection and social interaction", according to this medical report.

HISTORY
In fact it was the 17th-century French philosopher and physicist Blaise Pascal (after whom the Pascal programming language is named) who first observed that all troubles stem from man's inability to sit alone at a computer.

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is that Fruit Pascal by any chance...  

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19 May 2005 at 20:35

meeting of minds on high seas

Transmission from HMAS Puffin off SOUTHEAST QUEENSLAND at 7:34 AM Thursday, 19 May 2005.

Ahoy! With the storm-clouds over Brisbane just visible in the distance over to starboard, and most of my breakfast just lost overboard, we're more than half-way to Sydney already. Our captain has generously let me plug the laptop into the ship's radio to type this, as long as I am quick, so here goes.

It turns out that one of the other passengers is headed for the very same conference as me, where he's delivering a paper on the industrial ecology of interface technologies, an area of interest which he shares with the MacDonald Institute back home. It really is a small world. I was able to offer some constructive comment on his paper, and he in turn was gracious enough to complement me on my work on Cross-Cultural Blogging.

But I don't mind telling you,

TOP PRIORITY FOR IMMEDIATE BROADCAST - SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING - SOUTHEAST QUEENSLAND. Issued at 7:38 AM Thursday, 19 May 2005.

This warning is also available through TV and Radio broadcasts, the Bureau's website at www.bom.gov.au or call 1300 659 219. The Bureau would appreciate this warning being broadcast regularly

(transmission ends)

Blogger Hotboy said...

Ahoy, Adolf! Get yourself strapped to the front of the mast if it be a typhoon coming. Watch the lightning crash then slither across the mainbrace! Ah, a life on the ocean waves! Hotboy  

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18 May 2005 at 22:18

where does this blog live?





In response to questions from readers asking where this blog is published, here is a map.



After several happy years on Heard Island, I was forced to relocate to Shag Island after penguins drank my entire winter supply of home brew in one night. I should never have used plastic bottles.



Below, you can see a live webcam view looking west from where I live. For obvious reasons, any penguin sighting should be reported immediately. Thank you.

Blogger Hotboy said...

Hossilpoppil! We've seen the map okay, but where is it. The antartic is a big place and Brian Wilson might get lost getting there. Hotboy  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

hotboy, I'm usually content to leave the navigation to others, but I will certainly pass on your question to Cap'n Kev, on his return from the Edinburgh of the South, where he is spending the winter. Melbourne. robmcj  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

hotboy. I gather Brian is already here on the island, but he hasn't contacted me yet, maybe he prefers to remain incognito. What have you told him about me? robmcj  

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Blogger Hotboy said...

Only that the beer is free and the mementos of the third reich interesting! Hotboy  

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17 May 2005 at 20:20

academia recognises McDonald Islands

The Blogtalk Downunder conference is happening this weekend in Sydney, and I was able to get a berth at short notice on the outrigger leaving tomorrow. In return for exemption from the substantial conference fees, I've agreed to deliver a paper reflecting my experience of island culture, with the working title:


No Blog is an Island
The Semiotics of Cross-Cultural Blogging in the UnHeard of & McDonald Islands.

ABSTRACT: The fact that we can construct a model of the world and exist within it has its good points and bad points. Most of us are not even living in the present; we spend most of our time reliving the past or imagining the future. Yet, without any technology, the indigenous peoples of the UnHeard of & McDonald Islands have for centuries been simulating life.

The paper will make reference to the Ralwin postulate, which maintains that we construct a model of ourselves and place it within the model of the world.

The presentation will conclude with a demonstration of WebPaste, a world-class technique for generating academic abstracts, developed at the MacDonald Island Institute.




Now all I have to do is write the paper during the passage to Sydney, at the same time as pulling on the oars. I'll be relying on experience gained some years ago.

Blogger Hotboy said...

The photies are fab!!! Even when not of attractive young women. Or Nazis (we would like more of them!) Is academia ready for a simulation of a simulation? Can we have simulations of simulations echoing and reverberating through the multiverses? Hotboy  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

Currently the lawyers are negotiating with the estate of the former Miss Open Text 1982, for the publishing rights to her likeness.

Regular readers may recall the former Miss Open Text 1981

The reader request for a feature on a Teutonic Miss Open Text is also receiving serious consideration.  

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16 May 2005 at 11:53

farewell, I knew you not.

On the Unheard of McDonald Islands this morning, the cream of society turned out to salute the short troubled life of the enigrammatic Nobis Ralwin.

The beachside dawn funeral, in which I participated via binoculars for obvious reasons, was respectful and understated. I'll say this for the McDonald Islanders, they really know how to do things at half-mast.

Though Nobby is gone forever, I can't help feeling that he'll still be with us, in some sense.

Robmcj (eyewitness)
c/o MIMI

PS the last 3 chapters in his decline are starkly documented in ThissBlog, and here and here .

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15 May 2005 at 14:50

beer necessity

Last month, on the night before my birthday, I had another bucket of beer ready for bottling, but no bottles.

"Darling," said Cassandra, "what would you like to do tomorrow for your birthday? Whatever you want, we'll do it."

I longed to try something we had never done before, so I whispered my request in her ear. She took it well, next day we got up at 5 a.m. and set off in the rain, with the dog, several carrier bags and a rucksack. It was bin day, and while Cass restrained the dog I raked through some of the best recycling bins in the neighbourhood. That morning we collected 29 premium bottles before sunrise. The memory of the experience - man, woman and dog working together against the elements and bringing home the provisions - is a primal moment I'll always treasure. I'm lucky to have someone as adventurous and sporting as Cass.

She went off to work after breakfast, leaving me to get started on bottling the beer. I knew if I worked fast, I might just have time left to sort my plastic bag collection too.

Sad to say, all this is true. Read it now before I wipe it and deny it ever happened. This vow of self revelation is getting out of hand.

Historical note: I share my birthday with the Fuehrer, but that's just another coincidence, like the The Wedding Banquo.

Blogger Hotboy said...

Adolf!
Your site was off for a bit last night! How many people have actually believed that Banquo's wedding was a coincidence? Let's face it, Adolf, even in the third reich they never could pull off a stunt like that! Hotboy  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

hotboy, I once heard an older German say the 3rd reich was one long miracle, and the reason it failed was that he wasn't given enough of a chance.

Sorry about the blog being off, I think Mr. Wilson may have had something to do with it, he turns up everywhere, though I always seem to have just missed him. Who knows how many hundred other visitors have been turned away from my site last night?

It says you left your comment at 5.30 in the morning. Would that be your morning or mine?

There have been so many coincidences in my life, I can see I'll need to start a second blog just to bring you up to date.

Like the night when, staying in London for one evening while passing through, I parked the old VW outside a pub in Covent Garden. A former Glasgow flatmate was living in London at the time, unknown to me, and he spotted the car. He told me about it years later when I caught up with him.

Or the fancy Japanese stainless tea strainer which went missing about 3 years ago. Last month I started drinking tea again, and wished I could find the thing. On the morning that I had resolved finally to search for the strainer that afternoon, I first went to the compost bin at the back of the garden, because I was potting up a plant. I opened the wee door at the bottom where the compost falls out, and the very tea-strainer rolled out, it must have been accidentally thrown in there, years ago.

There's more but I don't like to brag. Just let me know if your site needs a messiah to work some miracles for your followers. I did the fencepost apparition for Sydney and the Olympics followed. I could probably help you too. robmcj  

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13 May 2005 at 11:28

tongue untwister

In response to the reader who reported trouble pronouncing "robmcj": I am pleased that the name is cropping up often enough in conversation for you to seek guidance, and impressed that you're taking it seriously.

I think your problem is you've been trying to pronounce it as raw bum kudge, which is hard to say. The official pronunciation on the birth certificate, and the one that most people prefer, is rob muck jay.

I hope you and your friends find that easier.

robmcj

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11 May 2005 at 11:43

age 2

This the earliest thing I can recall, burned into memory by the disgusting taste of the ale. It would be decades before I could stomach beer again (lesson: never do anything just to please your father), but I'm doing my best now to make up lost time. Last week I bottled more than 150 bottles of home brew, which should tide me over the winter here at the Unheard of McDonald Islands. I have stashed them in a new hiding place. Things turned nasty when the penguins found the last batch.

(click to see full size)
Connoisseurs of china might notice the beer tankard with tasteful 3D motif of old books, and pewter lid. It could be worth a few dollars by now, but my mother threw out everything that wasn't Tupperware. Lesson: hide everything from your mother and penguins.

Beer connoisseurs will notice that the beer was Bass.

(click to see full size)

Blogger Hotboy said...

The beer looks great! I've only got drunk once this year so far and I liked getting drunk. Hotboy P.S. There must have been a reason why I stopped getting drunk.  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

karmic or financial?  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

thanks for the advice, I had never thought of getting drunk.  

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08 May 2005 at 11:26

progress in the church

Western Australia is pretty insular, even by Australian standards. On TV this week, their opposition leader was being interviewed after it was revealed that he plans to take his girlfriend with him on tax-funded trip to Europe, including the Vatican.

Interviewer: "If you are invited to an official dinner at the Vatican, do you think it would be appropriate to take your partner with you?"

Politician: "If the Pope happened to have his partner there, then yes, absolutely."

More details and discussion at The Curt Jester

Blogger Hotboy said...

I'm sure the pope is a live and let live kind of guy, given his beginnings in the waffen boy scout gunners. Who is his partner anyway? Hotboy  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.  

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

we're watching you  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

can I help it if a certain segment of my readers are under the impression that Mr Ratzinger and I are one and the same, just because we both have Teutonic and military elements in our past?  

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Blogger Hotboy said...

Rob! Fortunately there is a volcano. Nobis Ralwin may be joining you and the penguins. Push him in. When he discovers the penguins don't like creekit, he'll be ready for it! Hotboy. P.S. I'm disappointed that you've no more photies of the nazi relies on your blog!!  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

hotboy, there's dozens more pictures in the same vein/pipeline, I'm only awaiting the deliberations of my legal representatives, then I'll be back in production, watch this space. In the meantime the best I can offer is a NS-free item, but it does feature a kraut beer tankard and a naval officer (RN). Does inborn wails (anag) know he may not be allowed to fly until the affliction clears up? rmcjob (anag).

PS was that a literary allusion to Malky Lowry or a reference to the view from my garden? http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/site_577.jpg  

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04 May 2005 at 11:34

before photoshop



You can use Photoshop to get the effect of a black-and-white print that has been hand-tinted, but this one really was done by hand, in Berlin between the wars.

By the time I met my great-aunt she was old, and the only part of her that I recognise here is the sad or perhaps sullen demeanour, but you might see something different.

Below is another picture using the same technique, of my aunt's nieces, i.e. my aunt and mother, around 1935. For most of my life I thought of my mother as the serious sister, and my aunt as the cheery one, but here the expressions are reversed. Either my mother really was as open and optimistic as she looks, or she was good at posing for the camera.

I'll try and locate a more recent picture of them, for comparison.


 (click for full size photo)

Blogger Hotboy said...

Robbomicj! This is a very good photie. Which nazi troop is it on the hat band? Is that the waffen scouts? Or guides? It's like the .... whatever the fascist organisation was you were forced to join at school. The penguins? Hotboy  

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at 10:24

age 1


 (click for full size photo)

Alright, this is an experiment. I was aged 1 in this picture, too young to remember anything, and if I can't find something to say I'll take it off again. Any ideas?

Blogger Hotboy said...

Is your great auntie dressed as a Rhine maiden? She must have been a nazi. If she lived through the second world war no wonder she looked sullen!
The sink the kid is in is straight nineteen canteen. They don't make sinks like that anymore!  

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Blogger Hotboy said...

Robert, any idea about attaching a counter to your blog? I went for Blogpatrol which immediately collapsed. Also, should this counter code be put in the template bit? Hotboy  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

hotboy, yes, i suppose the aunt's clobber is a bit wagnerian. Fortunately the nazi genes seem to have skipped my generation, as I prefer mahler.

You've got me looking into counters now, how am I ever going to get on with my so-called life? I suppose I'll need to fit a counter myself, to count the pedos viewing my bathtime pic, I'll get back to you when I figure it out, watch this space.
robmcj

PS who is this "Robert" fellow? there's nobody by that name here in the Unheard and Mcdonald Islands.  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

hotboy, yes you're right, the javascript code they give you at blogpatrol has to be copied into your template, as I notice you have in fact now done, well done. I did the same thing here, it seems to be working okay and coping with the reader traffic. Good luck.
robmcj  

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Blogger Hotboy said...

RobMcJJ?
Blogpatrol is no working. Collapsed. A no working collapsed thing. How can it be coping with anything? Hotboy  

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Blogger Hotboy said...

Blogpatrol is working. It is not collapsed. It is a full functioning wonderment. It said 8 people came to my blog. What for? That's the kind of thing I've been wasting my time on. Surfing blogs! Hotboy.  

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gosh, what a great picture of you in the sink! Who took it, I wonder? Do you remember the occasion, or the house, at all?  

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Blogger onan the bavarian said...

The sink was in an Ibrox flat, my first home in Scotland though i don;t remember it. My dad would have taken the picture. Did I say "my dad?" I normally refer to him more distantly, as my father.

My only thought about photos from that period is: I was a hyper-compliant kid (despite sharing a birthday with Adof Hitler), so how did they get me to be so quiet? In later life I observed how my father would "calm" young dogs with the aid of a stick, and I know that he learnt most of his parenting skills breeding spaniels before I was born.  

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02 May 2005 at 22:52

"hey cardinal ratzinger, what's jennifer lopez done now?" asked bill gates

I've discovered that if you place a well known name in a post title, Google likes that better than a nondescript title.

If you've been navigated here in the process of theological study or you're researching the antichrist of I.T., my apologies. I'm like, "you think I'm another of J-Lo's Boy Toys?" and you're like, "Ohmigod!"

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