Naive Psychologist

Remains of the day

Dedicated to the year ten English teacher who set an assignment ‘design a book cover’, and gave a B to the girl who designed the back cover because of course I meant the front cover, thus punishing the girl for her (complete) inability to draw, although the subject in question was English, and wasn’t having compulsory art lessons suffering enough for a person like her? And also that B completely ignored the fact that in choosing to design the back cover, the girl demonstrated excellent creativity and insightful analysis of the book in question as well as a good understanding of all that there is in a book as object (isbn etc etc etc) and even her mother agreed that she was not being a smart arse and praised her creativity. And yes, that was the same teacher who taught Shakespeare by assigning a part from Romeo and Juliet to different students in the class and making them read it aloud day after day after week and stretching into a month, and NEVER NOT ONCE EVER giving the girl in question a part to read. Bitter? Yeah. And twisted too.

The candle burns not for us, but for those whom we failed to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who ‘disappeared’. That’s who the candle is for.
Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty International.

Amnesty International is 45 years old today

‘Do I look funny in this?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And gorgeous too.’

‘I hope so.’

Adelaide is off to stand up on a stage in front of people and try to make them laugh.

And what’s the one thing you don’t want to hear at your second-to-last rehearsal?

‘Erm…what did you do with your funny stuff?’

WTF and OMG indeed.

The Hypotheticals replayed last night on Channel 9 ended in a most disturbing way. Too many people around the table – including the new people’s hero Bill Shorten – were willing to consider transporting someone (who may or may not have information about Osama bin Laden) off to Egypt where there is some new torture method to do with teeth.

Amnesty International says this:
Torture and other ill-treatment that is cruel, inhuman or degrading is repugnant, immoral and illegal, and always wrong…Torture or other ill-treatment not only harms the victim, it brutalises the perpetrator and the societies that allow it to happen. It is cruel, inhuman and degrades us all.

To add your name to 11000 candles to stop torture, visit the website here.

And Bill Shorten: you’ve got some thinking to do (IMHO)

Say you were a bit shorter than most other people you knew. And say a couple of years of child-bearing plus too much red wine plus genetics had left you with not insubstantial hips and a bottom that makes sitting quite comfy really.

Would you buy something from a label called wombat?

The day is grey and they are knocking the tram barn down. She has never known a time that the tram barn was used and the tram she gets off now spends its nights down at Morphetville.

There is a road, a barricade, a man with a reflective jacket and a radio. She can’t get close enough to take a photo. But because of the way the wind blows, she gets a light spray from the hose they are using to keep down the dust.

She leaves Victoria Square, walks along King William Street, and it must be the day for it.

They are knocking The Criterion down.

She is not one to huff and puff about things that aren’t the same and she tries not to say too often we all used to and isn’t it a shame? And did she mention her family’s income depends on the fact that when one building goes down another goes up in its place.

But they are grace-filled buildings, and when they get knocked down, no one even bothers to watch.

She reaches the Beehive Corner. She would be cross if Haigh’s got knocked down. She starts her shopping with a packet of dark frogs. She has earlier promised herself that she will not, but she does not berate herself for the chocolate slip. Perhaps she should have chosen peppermint today.

On Sundays in the Mall, most of the good shops are closed. She never comes in, so she hadn’t known.

She is here now, and has to make do. She buys the present first.

There is a school band, playing under the canopy. They are lucky, because the forecast was for rain. Some of them wear uniforms and some of them do not quite. Their uniform doesn’t include a tie. They make her think of her boyfriend who played a trumpet and her brother who played the trombone.

The teacher is not young. She imagines that he thinks, in February every year, can I do another year of this?

And then he thinks: but if I didn’t, what would I do?

The adelaide blogopera experiment is here

It was her introduction to the phenomona known as pupil-free days.

It’s true: if you eat enough chocolate frogs you will look like one.

She could only hope that the mister – a prince of the handsomest kind – would take the time to kiss her before he scoffed her down.