we had to spend Thursday

getting our cars fixed up. Matt's had a front end prang and my wheel alignment was gone so I did not get around to doing all the last minute things like getting some tools for Peter and books and pencils for Betty, Delilah and Vivienne and some shoes for Paul and some milo for me. To offset this worry it is a delight to read and watch the handwringers as interest rates went up by a quarter percent. The Daily Telegraph growled how terrible it was - as if PM Howard is going to be bothered. He knows that anyone who reads the Telegraph is too stupid to remember the grumbling come voting time and that the Tele is just trying to buy some favour with the dumb punters who buy the dreadful rag and the rantings of Piers Akerman. Piers! No wonder the poor bastard is so screwed up. With a name like that his parents ought to be in Guantamo Gaol either as "detainees" for the crime of calling a poor little kid Piers or as torturers for being able to inflict misery on even little babies without so much as a wince. I loved the letter in the SMH, "I suppose we will now have to put up with a cacophony of bleating from all those hoodwinked Howard's Battlers who have overextended themselves with huge mortgages to satisfy their gluttonous consumerism. Don't hold out much hope of your situation being rectified as it is quite possible that the duplicitous little twerp will find a way to delude you and deceive you into voting for him again next year. Stop your whinging and live with it; you made your bed so lie in it." Good stuff. Likewise I've got no sympathy for the victims of the new workplace reforms. Suffer, you fools! You voted for him,