On wholesome food

“Made with 100% Australian breast chicken”. This claim, from a leading fast foot company about some new wrap they’ve come up with, is very strange. To what does the “100%” refer? Putting in a number, “100%”, suggests that it could be less than that, say 50% or 75%. The first possibility is that we are being patriotic by buying chicken that is 100% Australian. No dual citizenship chickens, no permanent-resident-but-not-real-citizen fowls or birds that don’t like Vegemite have been used. Perhaps the “100%” qualifies “breast”. Only chickens with real breasts have been used; no silicone implants allowed. Finally could the product be anything other than 100% chicken? There have been some strange experiments in genetics of late – you’re getting 100% chicken here, no dogken or turkiken or chickmouse or anything like that.

An immediately adjacent ad, strategically placed during morning TV to help me lose weight by making me nauseous at the very thought and unwilling to eat anything at all, suggests that the benefit of the omelette on offer is that it was “made with real ingredients, such as eggs.” If  ‘real’ ingredients are a feature of the product, perhaps there are alternatives on offer from inferior competitors. Perhaps some ingredients are mere memories of ingredients; inferior in every way to the writhing, shining, oozing, real ingredients currently available. Perhaps they are ingredients that are yet to be – eggs bought on the futures market that have yet to be laid but are, nonetheless, included in today’s breakfast by accountants with a grounding in accruals and a bad drug habit. The mathematician in me also considers the possibility of imaginary ingredients – ingredients that exist only as theoretical constructs with very little relationship to reality. Eating them would have negligible impact on your waistline but could suck you through a vortex into a universe of fractal dimension if you had too many.

I’m also dubious that a “freshly cracked egg” is a guarantee of quality. Some jokes, especially the ones you get on email circulation at work, are freshly cracked but they are certainly not new … or wholesome.

“Hormone free chicken.” How that, I doubt. Chickens have hormones. I have a rooster about three doors down as evidence. Or had – maybe the fox I bought has finally done his job; I’ve been able to sleep in the last few days (for the record, I have no idea what he says but a very good idea of what he eats). Anyway, I think they mean

 “Chickens to which we have not added any unnatural hormones (a.k.a. body building supplements, protein shakes, strengthening agents or cough medications).”

In short – chickens that have never been part of a Tour de France team. I’m glad they’re not trying to sell me chickens on roids because that’s illegal. Any kind of hormone additives fed to chickens are illegal. If this is a recommendation for a product, then I think we could go further with such slogans as:

“Second hand cars – guaranteed not stolen”

“Arsenic free apples – safe to take from strange old ladies”

“Lead pencils – no, not really”

“Wedding rings – won’t turn you into an untrustworthy, photophobic little greeby guy”

“Refrigerators – 100% CFC free”

I’ve seen that last one around a bit. CFCs have been illegal in the developed world for nigh on twenty years. It’s like promoting your product by telling you it’s not made with asbestos or doesn’t include DDT.

Finally, I’m not convinced that “organic” is a noteworthy or distinguishing quality when it comes to fruit. Is it possible to come up with an inorganic banana?

Pensioners are revolting

The pensioners of Australia are in revolt following announcements from the federal government that the pension age will be raised to 70 and that the family home will be considered an asset when calculating pension entitlement.

“I hope dentures get better”, commented one man, “we'll be eating our houses one bedroom at a time in the future.”

A spokeswoman for the Australian College of Codgers, Geezers and Biddies (ACCGB) said in a statement:

“Well you can take the nice little old lady routine and stuff it! From now on, it's fee-for-service. You want the grandkids looked after? It's $30 an hour and I want my scheduled breaks. Lions Club building some new picnic tables? I'm available Thursday week and the invoice will include GST. Biscuits at Nan's? Fifty cents each, 75 if you want chocolate. And the problems you're having with your husband and kids? I'm not talking to you without a mental health plan from your GP and private health insurance; I'm a registered provider now.”

Meanwhile, concern has been raised about the suitability of many childcare facilities to accommodate the chronically ill dependents of many pensioners. Wheelchair access is often not provided and the childproof gates don't allow enough turning room for hospital gurneys for the bedridden. "I mean, what choice do we have?" asked one woman, "If I have to go out to work, I can't leave him on his own." Carers are also concerned that their wards have long since forgotten how to use crayons, how best to optimally combine glue and crepe paper to stain the largest amount of skin, and never did learn the words to "Rock a bye your bear". “We’re just not sure they’ll fit in”, said the woman.

A government spokesman responded by saying that the department was addressing the shortage of care places by lowering the working age to four and a half. "Education is a waste anyway," he said, "most kids don't want to be at school and what’s being taught not staying with them as they get older; most adults think 6 + 7 x 4 is 52. And, as for critical thinking, just ask any ten adults if they think the contestants on reality TV are just average people like them, not has been or wanna be models and actresses. Bugger it, get them out and working."

Responding to criticisms that this policy represented a return to Victorian Britain,  the spokesman said, "Well it's the last time they had an economy and an empire over there."

Meanwhile, a parliamentary committee is continuing its probe into the Productivity Commission* and the cost of employing a four person consultancy from Yorkshire to advise on cost-of-labour improvements in the economy.  Minutes of their most recent meeting, apparently held in a pub, are at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtSw3daGoo

 *For non-Australians: In a dry country famous for deserts, the Productivity Commission stands out -  a pseudo-government agency full of the driest economists on the planet. The job of the Commission is, apparently, to make sure that we all work harder and longer so that the rich keep getting more so.

Humiliation by design

Schadenfreude is a word that doesn’t get used often enough. It’s a German word meaning “taking pleasure in other people’s discomfort or pain”. Note, it’s not “sadism” which is the pleasure you get from inflicting pain on others. You can easily tell the difference. Schadenfreude is what you feel when you watch “The Biggest Loser”; the sensation of “rather you than me”. Sadism is why the people that created “The Bachelor” are inflicting it on you.

In our daily lives, we suffer little humiliations that bring pleasure to others. Are they schadenfreude or sadism? Your call.

Toilets with walls just over a metre high. You know the ones? The wall starts about 50cm from the ground and ends at 150cm – about right for a normal 12 year old to be able to see over the top of. Convenient if you want to chat amiably to other ease-takers but uncomfortable if pooing in public is not something you enjoy.  Someone designed those. Was is just a cost-saving to use less material or was the humiliation deliberate? My call is schadenfreude: the pleasure you feel watching sh*t happening to other people.

Security windows. You go to Emergency and you’re feeling well below standard – or you wouldn’t be there. You go to see the nurse, so that they can assess how urgent you’re not, and you have to speak through the perspex window. They used to put holes in them about mouth height to allow the ingress and egress of sound but not anymore; there’s a letter box sized opening at the bottom and that’s it. And everyone, other than people with a live-in contract at a chocolate factory and chronic liver disease, has to bend to get their mouths near the window. If you don’t the nurse, who can lip read but won’t, will ask you the same questions three times – which, of course, you’ve got the patience to put up with, feeling as hale as you do. So, strike a pose! Bent over sideways to talk, doubled over front-ways in pain, leaking blood from under the bandages and showing your backside to the world - clad in the house-cleaning tracksuit pants that were the only thing you could grab as you walked out. My call? Sadism. I think the nurses hate their jobs and want to take it out on the patients. It’s the same reason that waiting room chairs are as comfortable as they aren’t.

Airplane toilets. For men over 5’2”, this one’s for you. At risk of being crude, men pee standing up. That’s our divine right and it’s not negotiable. To make that work you need a good firm footing a reasonable distance from the porcelain. Then you go on a plane. It would be fine if the loo was up against an internal wall but it’s not, it’s shoved into the corner against the sloping fuselage. The curvature  of the wallroof means that you have to plant your feet well back and lean it at the hips to have any hope of hitting the target. So there you are, with your best parts forward, your feet well back, unable to see what you’re aiming at, with weapon in one hand and the other trying to find something to brace yourself against. At this point, a little light in the cockpit alerts the pilot to fake some turbulence and you sign your name across the wall in your best cursive writing. The worry that follows is that the amount of paper you’ve had to use cleaning it up won’t flush away. Despite the humiliation, I’m calling schadenfreude on this one. If it was sadism, the door wouldn’t lock as well as it does.

Waste transfer stations. The old tip (landfill site) was great; big pile of garbage and plenty of room to get your trailer in to unload. Now the general public can’t be trusted with access to putrefying detritus and we have to use the waste transfer station. All very hygienic with concrete driveway and large bin into which you can dump your refuse. Fine - provided you can back a trailer up a cobbled laneway, in an Italian hilltop town, in the rain, on the day of the annual harvest festival. And no-one can back a trailer. They’re designed that way.  Deep in the heart of the engineering is a little random movement generator which will thwart you every time. But you try. You remind yourself of the rules:

 “OK, think about this before we start:  steering wheel down left to get the thing to go left, steering wheel down right to make it go right. Unless it’s already too far left in which case it will keep going left. Unless you’re on a slope in which case it will go right if the angle subtended by a line orthogonal to the axle with an imaginary line drawn through the Pole Star is less than 45 degrees, otherwise it will go left. Or unless you’re tired in which case it’s just as likely to refuse to go anywhere other than straight up.”

 This is all complicated by the magnet built in just behind the left brake light which drags the trailer inexorably towards neighbouring vehicles.

The humiliation is completed by a “helpful” passer-by or council worker standing behind you giving hand signals for left rudder, right rudder, come closer, slower, faster and that weird one they do with a clenched fist held over a raised finger moving in a circular motion which I can never really fathom but I think is a reflection on my masculinity.

Waste transfer stations are engineered sadism, pure and simple. I’ll accept debate on the other ones but I’m not entertaining any other views on this last point.

We are outsourcing the wrong things

Recent news articles and press releases – how often they are the same thing – have bemoaned the continuing loss of jobs offshore. First it was manufacturing, then call centres  (staffed by everybody they could find in Mumbai called Joan), then computer programming and now engineering. So many things that we have done in the past are being outsourced or offshored. By the way, when I find the petri dish in which that last word was cultivated, I’ll force its creator to eat it, tweezers and all.

Why are we outsourcing this stuff? Some people even enjoy being engineers and computer programmers. There are hundreds of other things I’d like to get someone else to do:

Attend meetings for me.  I used to think to myself, “Can’t we stop having meetings so that I can get on with my work?” Then it dawned on me that for most people, this is work. This is what we do now. We attend meetings and respond to emails, often at the same time. No-one’s got the money to employ us to actually design or build anything, that kind of thing is done in Bangladesh because the board has a responsibility to the shareholders to maximize the profits; a sense of personal satisfaction at work is something we can’t afford any more. So we go to meetings and discuss the framework, the strategies and the quality assurance mechanisms around, through and in spite of which things will be done by someone else. Can’t I take back the job and outsource the meetings?

Keep my electronic devices up to date. I bought a new blu-ray player the other day. Before I could even watch one movie, it had to update its software. Almost everything in my house needs constant updating of the software, the firmware or the “this has never happened to me before, I’ve been under a lot of stress lately” -ware. I was a geek at school and knew everything there was to know about the computers. Now, I’m a geek without a clue. I don’t know what’s going on, I just follow along like a sheep and don’t turn my computer off while Windows fails to complete an important update for the third time this week.  This process takes up hours of my time, hundreds of my dollars in purchased bandwidth and years off my life in stress and hassle. And when I’ve got devices that really need an immediate software update – my kids – I can’t get one. Couldn’t I outsource this?

Talk to boring people for me. I call my bank and my call is re-routed to India. I call my ISP and my call is re-routed to Pakistan. I call my telco and my call is re-routed to … well I’m not sure because it’s never actually connected to anything yet. At least nothing I can make any sense out of. I’m starting to think there’s a deep-sea octopus about halfway across the Pacific hanging onto the other end of the line, bubbling at me and then hanging up in bewilderment that there’s no-one there, yet again.  Clearly these people don’t want to talk to me. There are a great many people that I don’t want to talk to. Couldn’t I organise a set up whereby, if they called me or bailed me up outside the supermarket, I could put them on hold for a minute and then let them talk to Joan about it?

Cutting school lunches. My wife and I flatter ourselves that we’re good parents. We provide a good education for our children, make them do chores and be polite, and turn up for the ritual torture of the “end of unit” displays in the classroom. We feed our kids well and only use McDonalds when it’s a real emergency such as when we’re tired or hung-over. But we hate packing school lunches. Every bloody morning. Sandwiches, piece of cake, yoghurt, fruit, carrot sticks, little box of fruit juice. Half of it comes home uneaten but I dare not pack less the next day in case it’s the one day they’ve got double PE and keel over in a dead faint at the end of fourth period for want of carbs. We hate it but we do it, we pack it and it’s healthy. I can’t send my kids to school with chips and lollies because then I’d have nothing to feel superior about. Is there a company somewhere that can cut my kids’ lunches without them being seen going to the tuckshop every day?

Feeling guilty. Douglas Adams, in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, created the character of an Electric Monk whose job it was to believe things for you. In a similar vein, can I please outsource feeling guilty about the seemingly endless list of things I’m at fault for? Warming the planet by driving a car, bloating the landfill by drinking take-away coffee with the little toddler-proof lid on, demeaning women everywhere by finding models in bikinis attractive, embarrassing my children by listening to classical music in public places, not staying young forever, not having an appropriate BMI and generally enjoying the benefits of ancestry – being, as I am,  a first-world, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class, well-educated male blessed with a stable family and a life-time’s supply of hyphens. I come from a Catholic background.  I’m more than happy to accept that it’s all my fault, but is there anyone out there I can get to feel guilty for me?

Conversations with my one year old

Scene 1 – shopping

[Enter me, walking, and one year old in pram]

Hey, that toy looks interesting and colourful. Give it to me!

No, you’re not getting the toy, we have places to go.

But I want it, it looks easy to break or at least smear something on.

Come on you, straining against the seat belt is not going to help.

I … can … just … about …reach … it …

Oh no you don’t, I’m going to move you away.

Don’t do that.

Over here for you.

I’m warning you, this will not end well. We’ve had this conversation before.

Just wait there while daddy pays for this.

If you want me to embarrass you in public, I will. Don’t think I’ll hold back just because there are people here.

[Dignified silence on my part]

Right. I warned you.

BOOM!

Scene 2 – the change table

[Enter me carrying one year old]

Come on dude, we’ll change those pants of yours. Here, you hold this while I change that nappy.

You’ve tried this before.

Go on. Grab it!

You try this every time. My goal here is to spread powder, cream and excrement as widely as possible. I’m going to scream and roll around and, no, some ditzy fluffy toy is not going to distract me from my task.

It’s so cute!

No it’s not! The factory worker that made that face was having an unfortunate reaction to flu medication and was hallucinating badly at the end of a 16 hour shift. It’s terrifying.

It’s a bear!

I can see that, dopey. Bears eat people. This one also appears to have eaten a small porcupine which is struggling to get back out again.

Well I’ll raspberry your tummy!

Don’t!

I’ll raspberry your tummy. You love that!

I’m full of milk and baby food.

Raspberry!

Don’t bend me in the middle like that. You’re down the business end. Don’t …

BOOM!

Scene three – the park

[Enter me with coffee and one year old.]

Now you go and play while dad has his coffee.

[sotto voce] Like that’s going to happen!

Hmmm?

Nothing dad. Enjoy your coffee.

What are you up to?

Climbing the slippery dip. It’s all wet too, so it’s really dangerous.

Come back down from there.

Not until you put your coffee down to get cold and lift me off.

There. Down. No, don’t go back up there.

Why not, your coffee still looks like it’s warm enough to be drinkable.

Dad is trying to drink his coffee here. You go down and run around.

I know what you’re trying to do. You’ve got Buckley’s.*

Now where are you off to

These rocks over here. I’m developed enough to climb them but my balance isn’t so good. I’m planning to climb just high enough that you can’t one-arm-from-behind lift me down.

You’re a cheeky man! Run around over that way.

Which way? The one near all the other children, where you can sit on the little wall for a bit, chat to that cute mum and drink your coffee? No. I’m thinking over that way towards the large dog with the uncertain temperament.

You come back here. You’re too cheeky!

You’ve got nothing. I’m going to run and laugh at the same time and there’s nothing you can do to me. I’m one. I’m cute. I’m laughing. You can’t smack me – especially not in front of all these people.

I’m going to put you back into the pram.

You know, it seems like a good idea but it’s just not. We came here for me to play.

In we go. Straps on.

You get me out of here! I’ll count to three!

There’s a good boy.

One. Two. Three. Right …

BOOM!

*Cultural reference: Australian slang "You've got Buckley's" is a short form of "You've got two chances, Buckley's and none" - meaning you've got no chance. The etymology is disputed but the one I like is that it's a pun on the name of an old Melbourne department store "Buckley's and Nunn"

Scene 4 – the cot

[Enter me carrying one year old with bottle of milk and dummy.]

Ok mate, time for sleep.

Gee, I wonder what you’re up to; putting me to bed early like this. Trying to get to mum before she’s tired are we?

Onto the pillow. Here’s the bottle. Here’s your little blankie.

Parents are so cute. You love your little routines, and your belief that milk and a blanket are organic tranquilisers is endearing.

I’ll put your little music thing on. It’s been a big day. Off to sleep.

Yeah, you think! Saying “it’s been a big day” won’t psych me into being tired. Look into my eyes. I am not getting sleepy!

Time to lie down dude.

No. I’m going to bounce up and down in the cot. At this age, I can still use the “I don’t understand words yet” defence. Look, I’ll even paint some pictures on the floor with the dregs of my milk.

Right. Here’s the pillow. Here’s the blanket and here’s your dummy. Lie down.

And here’s me saying “no”.

[Time passes]

I know you’ve been ignoring me hoping I’ll get bored and go to sleep and you think you’ve nearly won but you’re so wrong! Outsmarted by a toddler again! That’s got to hurt.  I’m just lying here on this pillow with my eyes open. I’ll give it thirty more seconds for you to get your hopes up and then I’ll stand up and laugh.

Come on dude. Sleep time now. You’ve had your bottle.

Ah, sweet. In about sixty seconds, he’s going to think that a second bottle of milk is a good idea. He falls for it every time.

OK mate. Here’s the other bottle but you have to sleep now.

And the things that will do to my tummy …

BOOM!

Scene 5 – my house with one year old and a visitor of a similar age whose father has come over for a beer.

[Enter both one year olds, who give one another the secret dribble exchange handshake]

I see you too are a Junior Mason.

I am. Are you prepared?

Of course.

Where are the dangerous chemicals kept?

In the cupboard under the sink.

Ah, so original these adults are. (Jedi, I am becoming). Child lock?

Not since they got sick of taking it off every time they needed the dish cloth.

Excellent. How about power points without the plastic protectors?

Master bedroom, behind the bedside table on dad’s side.

Furniture?

The dining room chairs are low enough to get a leg up on, then onto the table with the candles and the matches they think I can’t reach. There’s also a step on the side of the bath from which we can fall headfirst into the tub.

You truly are an expert.

But, wait there’s more!

Steak knives?

Nothing so predictable. My old brothers have left Lego pieces down the back of the couch – fit beautifully in the mouth. Then there’s the toilet door that doesn’t lock properly unless you really slam it: perfect for walking in mid-stream. Finally, I can get the fridge open. The beers are in the door, second shelf from the bottom and they fizz over everywhere then you drop them.

You are truly an artiste.

Why, thank you. How long should we give them?

Oh, let them get 2/3rds of the way down their first drink; just enough to be relaxed and under the illusion that they’re getting an uninterrupted hour. In the meanwhile, can I tempt you to a little suspicious silence?

[Exeunt omnes – laughing]

BOOM to follow.

Who does North Korea think it's kidding?

Who does North Korea think it’s kidding?
Honestly, who do they think they are kidding?

To their credit, the DPRK’s rulers are not media tarts – they don’t say much – but what they do say is such transparent rubbish that I wonder for whose benefit they are saying it?

Some of the classics we’ve had recently include:

• We’re going to launch a satellite,

• We’ve built a smartphone,

• We’re building a ski resort,

• We’re training cyber-warriors,

• We’re building an electromagnetic pulse weapon, and

• We’re going to attack the United States.

Someone who’s spent what little money the Nigerian prince left them on the last six flab blasting machines wouldn’t fall for these stories. These blokes can’t mix concrete that will stay together let alone succeed at any of these other things.  My son has more chance of knocking a hole in the moon with the ray gun he’s putting together out of old printer circuit boards and Blu-Tak than North Korea has of building a pulse weapon; at least my son has access to 21^st century technology.

Certainly, no-one outside North Korea believes any of it. I think world leaders are only holding back from laughing in public because they fear the one thing North Korea isn’t lying about is that they have the bomb and that the one thing they don’t have is a sense of humour. There must be, however, some good jokes over a few beers at the International Intelligence Officers Association annual dinner and dance:

“Did you hear the latest from the Kims?”

“Hang on, hang on. I’ve still got a mouthful of beer. [swallows] Right, go on!”

I can’t think that the locals would be buying too much of it either. The few who have televisions also have eyes and can see the world around them. And that’s if they even bother to turn on the set in the first place … if it works … when it’s their day to have electricity … and use of one of the commune’s three pairs of spectacles. There’s not much on. The free-to-air TV market in the DPRK has recently been opened up to competition and the savvy viewer can choose between Great Military Parades of the Past, Lifestyles of the Rich and Kim, Morning Juche-ercise (where you get fit goose-stepping and flipping cards over to create crowd pictures) and Big Brother – where one contestant is voted off each week by the one person in North Korea who has a vote (and you can bet, if he votes you off, you won’t be making a surprise comeback later in the series).

So I’m at a bit of a loss to figure out who they are producing all this fiction for.

There is one possibility – that there just aren’t all that many people in North Korea and they’re trying to keep up the pretense that there is a real country somewhere in there.

What do we actually get to see of North Korea? 

 Almost invariably, we get a picture of Kim Jong Un, dressed in an old Catholic priest’s outfit that he picked up from the thrift shop at the Vatican last time he was there, and the same three or four generals wearing the standard Communist general REALLY big hat and uniforms adorned with sheriff badges they got from some showbags that North Korean diplomats were spotted frantically buying up at the Moree annual show and cattle muster in 2011. Looking at them, the “generals” are probably geezers on loan from the Great Leader Retirement Home and the little blue books they are always carrying are  to remind them of the name of the bloke in the black suit, their own names and when next  to take their pills.

Sure, there are some extras on the set, dressed as technicians or scientists or soldiers or something but the only time you see large numbers of people are when they’re all doing the same thing at the same time; which reeks of CGI to me.

It may be that there are only about 100 people in the whole country. They get moved around depending on where someone needs to be seen. When the Kims shut down the Kaesong Joint Industrial Complex, it’s not because they’re offended, it’s because they need the population to be available to appear as ferocious guards near the DMZ, to be technicians at mission control or labourers on a construction site.

When you’re trying to bluff on a handful of nothing, sixes high, you want to have a damn good poker face. As the dictator bluffing, you need to make sure you look credible. Kim Jong Un hasn’t learned this yet, nor had the Iranians last time they announced they’d built a high-tech military asset – in that case a stealth fighter that one Australian analyst commented might rock back and forth if you put 20 cents in the slot. There’s a business opportunity here: these guys need a good production company. Any takers? 

Scandal in the building industry

The local building industry has been rocked this week by a third set of allegations relating to a prominent local builder.

According to an affidavit, obtained by this reporter, it is alleged that Robert Fitzwilliam Thistlethwaite – operating under the trading name “Bob the Builder” has been overcharging and over-servicing local primary producers. The allegations have been made by one Farmer Pickles who claims that Bob is “over at his place every other day, fixing something that he claims needs urgent attention.”

Certainly Mr Thistlethwaite appears to have come into some money in recent times with the lean-to sheds that were a local landmark for so long replaced by a set of fine new sheds with structural integrity and power doors. He has also taken on new staff to supplement the original team of four psychologically disturbed machines.

This latest development is bad news for the reputation of Bob the Builder as it comes on the back of other allegations of “over servicing”, in that case of one Mrs Potts. The word around town is the Bob was at Mrs Potts’ place almost as frequently as he is supposed to have been down at the farm. In that case, though, it seems that Mrs Potts was a willing participant in the services rendered with the appointments book at Bob’s yard noting calls for urgent attention from Bob as many as three times per week.

It is unclear to the authorities if the allegations are to be taken seriously or are vexatious complaints made by Bob’s one time business partner and rumoured paramour, Wendy.  It had been believed for some time that Wendy, whose surname has been suppressed by the courts, was only a business associate of Bob, but recent comments made on Wendy’s blog to the effect “he might have an oversized spanner in his pants but that’s about all” suggest that the relationship may have been more intimate than first thought; Wendy may be a woman scorned.

Notwithstanding any personal animosity in the matter, Bob will still have to appear in court on Thursday next to answer another set of charges relating to workplace health and safety and breaches of immigration regulations. According to a statement of claim laid before the court, inspectors from the Builders Licensing Board visited a number of Bob’s worksites over the last few years and cited him for a range of breaches:

Riding unsecured on machines from job to job, apparently dangling one handed from the side of earth moving machinery;

Employing flammable labour in the form of a scarecrow called Spud;

Failing to provide a healthy working environment and tolerating bullying.

This last allegation follows a psychiatric assessment of Lofty whose chronic anxiety disorder, it is claimed, arose from working with Muck and Rolly who have thuggish, bullying personalities and Dizzy whose manic tendencies have exacerbated Lofty’s existing frailties.

Questions have also been raised about Dmitry the Dropsaw and Olga the Orbital Sander who, it is claimed, are illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe who have been working on Bob’s sites and being paid under award rates while not being covered by worker’s compensation insurance.

The outcomes of the court matters may, in the end, prove irrelevant as local businesses seek to take their custom to an establishment less mired in scandal.