Toad in the Hole

Beer bounty for cane toads
By Peter Michael
February 26, 2007

TOM Hedley, Australia's biggest private hotel owner and one of Queensland's richest men, has thrown his support behind plans to introduce a beer-for-a-bag-of-toads bounty. KEN Ritchie never thought he'd see the day a cane toad would be worth its weight in beer, let alone two.

"Hell, I'll give them two beers," said Mr Hedley, who also owns and drinks at his favourite watering hole the Red Beret. Latest estimates are that there are between 100 and 200 million cane toads in Australia, which means at the standard Queensland "pot" glass size of 285mls, it would take 57 million litres of free beer to wipe out pest - at two toads a bag. But Mr Hedley thinks it will be money well spent. "As far as I am concerned they're pests and a nuisance to society," said Mr Hedley. "If offering a beer for a bag of toads is one way to wipe them out once and for all then I am all for it," he said.

The RSPCA welcomed the multi-millionaire's backing, saying the proposal could be modelled on a similar beer-for-a-toad bounty run in the Northern Territory.

"How it worked in Darwin is they brought in the toads to the RSPCA to be humanely euthanised and they were then issued a voucher to get a beer – with a daily limit on the number of beers," said RSPCA spokesman Michael Beatty.

"It could be more than a gimmick. It could seriously help reduce the toad population, especially around suburbia," he said.

All those years belting the crap out of those ugly creatures for free - all that beer I could have been swimming in!! Though one assumes the gratis grog is not extended to the under 12's...

And in the same newspaper:-

Dinner plate sized cane toad found in NT
February 27, 2007

A cane toad the size of a dinner plate has been found on a Northern Territory golf course, provoking alarm about their march across Australia.

Ground keeper Phillip Jones came found the creature on one of the fairways at The Gardens Golf Course in Darwin city early this morning.

Shocked by its size, he clubbed the toad before showing it to other staff members. "You know those big rubber buckets? Well, if you looked inside it fills the whole of the bottom of it," said the golf course's functions manager Lars Holm.

Mr Holm said he suspected monsoonal rains in Darwin had probably flushed the toad out into the open.

First released in Queensland, cane toads have since multiplied and marched across Australia, poisoning millions of native animals, including crocodiles in World Heritage-listed Kakadu.

The NT Government has teamed with other states in a concerted effort to stop their invasion. But with no known way of stopping the toads, it is up to scientists to find a solution.

"The only way we are going to get rid of them is to give the CSIRO money to research and see what they can do," Mr Holm said. "There is no point running around trying to club the bastards because there is just too many of them."

And it seems in Darwin they are breeding them big. "Phillip is a Queenslander but he's never seen one as big as that," Mr Holm said. "He was pretty shocked, we all were when we saw it. After I took a look I said: `Good, now bury the bugger'."

A Valentine's Day Poem

A Valentine's Day Poem
(in authentic Hallmark alternative rhyming couplets!)

once i wore the fading dawn
and you would rest upon my pit
wet words lashed together to seal a storm
soon to break, to batter, to rip

i often wonder (in statistics and numbers)
the price of accumulated tears
the toll of half slumber
the net worth of stiffling fears

though... i no longer wish it prettier
echoed destruction is not selective, sure
but reassuringly drippy and full of scenes bawdier
kindness held tighter, hiccups soothed with more

time neatens
pea soup parts
and i remain
glad in (my) heart

TGIF

The 6 day week is over. Hurrah. Three 13hr days and the onset of my 1st truly heinous flu this winter. I'm half dead. Obviously then, I'm now heading straight out to booze it up with a girlfriend @ our favourite Sudanese joint... after the gym.

Sometimes I amaze myself.

Mambo Australiano

Was having an argument (... no, discussion... nah, the words 'horse's ass' were used - it was an argument) with a friend about whether Australia has a unique aesthetic the other day. He dutifully said (very unimaginatively if you ask me) it was "a fusion of the multicultural elements which make up our young population". Yawn. That's what we're force fed to believe since the age of 5... I refer you to the bloody 'I am, you are, we are Australian' song/mantra.

I'm not saying it's wrong, in fact it would be silly to say it was anything but an entirely valid and logical point. But to accept that as a definitive explanation just seems a little dismissive to me. To me, it basically says we're nothing but a derivative culture. Not going to go into a big song and dance (again!) about it, but I think we're better than that. Just to prove my point, I'm plastering this blog with one small example of a uniquely Australian design icon. I know Scott is never going to read this but, IN YOUR FACE YOU HORSE'S ASS! (please don't misunderstand, I love Scott, he's great - he just happens to be very WRONG)

Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word

Ok, I'm changing the name of this blog to: "Odd Emails I get @ Work" (or something a little catchier to that effect).

If you expecting a Brown Western Hat
From - Christie's & Company Ltd, Witan Park
Witney, Oxon.

Please contact the postroom.

I think some lucky cowboy's fixin' to go a courtin'!

A Rose By Any Other Name

Just like you can count on the middle classes to dole out ridiculously flowery Edwardian names (which they will then ironically shorten to one syllable, androgynous sobriquets like Kit or Jess), you can count on the rich to bestow stupid, stupid names. Hardly surprising in our business then, that it's become regular sport to identify and ridicule those select clients with the most outrageous nomens.

In this spirit, the following email arrived in my inbox today:

Count and Countess Labia

... in attendance at tonight's event. Also in attendance: Mr and Mrs Dick. Sadly not as a double date.

Dammit! My best last week was 'Jemima Scuttlebuck' - I think I've been trumped! Lucky I've still got Mrs. Dikshit in the bag for next week.

Hoops & Yo-Yo

Here's a random little sales pitch for your Friday afternoon reading pleasure...

My new absolute favourite source of online greeting cards - even if it is run by those dastardly ba$tard$ at Hallmark (yes, I'm already warming up for my Valentine's day rant).

Send them to your friends, send them to your family, send them to your colleagues, send them to yourself - they're fabulously fun and free!!

Pogo Dancing & Polar Bears

Scored last minute tix yesterday to a Bloc Party gig at the Astoria. Number #1 - LOVE the venue (so sad it's days are numbered!). Number #2 - Love the Bloc. Bounced around like a hyperactive, rather formerly dressed teenager for 3 hours... before realising I was a sad old person trying to jump around like a teenager in completely inappropriate work kit. Luckily by that stage I was fairly trashed so the realisation didn't cramp the dancing S.T.Y.L.E.

One black cloud over the evening - they didn't play my favourite song! Any band who works Polar Bears into their lyrics is OK by me.

Two more years, there's only two more years
Two more years, there's only two more years
Two more years so hold on

You've cried enough this lifetime, my beloved polar bear
Tears to fill a sea to drown a beacon
To start anew all over, remove those scars from your arms
To start anew all over more enlightened

Errr, I may be losing all my rocky credentials here - that excerpt sounds a touch too touchy feely. Rest assured much more hard core when belted out in song.