Nothing that Abbott said last night surprised me. The fact that my husband has taken to calling me “toots” and keeps asking me what I’m doing out of the kitchen has helped my resilience somewhat, so now when I see him on TV I can resist the urge to run at it full tilt and try to knock the offensive off the screen.  ”You know, when Tony’s Prime Minister, you won’t be able to tell me to make my own damn dinner anymore” he tells me. “Tony understands a woman’s place”. Bless the man, he has a real taste for sardonic humour.

But enough about Abbott (please!)  I’m more concerned with Julia.

What happened to her? Her rapier wit and ability to reduce Tony (and most other politicians) to a gibbering heap of bumper sticker phrases? In the past Abbott was only able to ‘beat’ her in an argument by shouting over her. Now, she is letting him get away with making any claims he wants while she stands grinning and looking constipated. It seems that the very act of making someone Prime Minister renders them incapable of maintaining both a personality and an opinion. It happened to Rudd, and now it’s happening to Gillard.

It was obvious by the way the worm dipped violently towards ‘do not want!’ every time someone mentioned boats, that hardly anybody wants this to be an election issue, let alone a major one.   Despite that, it was inevitable it would come up. They both just repeated their commercial scripts, and pretty well ignored each other.  Gillard totally neglected to mention that Naru shouldn’t be an option for Australia, because they aren’t a signatory to the Refugee Convention! It’s a major point people should be aware of, and the reason Australia has such a shithouse human rights track record in the eyes of the world.

She wouldn’t talk about Rudd. C’mon, like she didn’t think that would come up? Look over here Australia, yes, that’s right, look right at that blinking light…. *flash* good. Now, Kevin who you say? Great, it worked.   Seriously, she’s a politician. She did what politicans do. Own it, explain it, and people will either agree or not, and everyone will move on. Not wanting to discuss it makes you look like a backstabber Julia, even if you aren’t. And hell, even if you are, you’re a politician, people are cynical enough about your profession to get over it by Friday.

Abbott/Liberal is promising to cut spending and introduce no big taxes. Excellent. Now, why for the love of pete did Julia not ask him how he planned to do it? Cut infrastructure spending? Public service, programs, can improvement projects perhaps? Instead she veered her trainwreck to the right and started a one-upmanship gamble by vaguely insisting they would cut spending also. It was like watching the Budget special of “Deal or No Deal”.

I really, sincerely hope Julia gets her groove back and stops behaving as though she exists merely to justify herself to Tony Abbott.  He’s representative of all that’s wrong with this country – a middle-aged white man with no grip on reality, no true idea about how ‘average’ people live, and no true vision of the future. He described stay-at-home-mums as ‘housewives’ for sobbing out loud. Surely she realises how far above him she is?

Meanwhile the best part of the Debate was Bob Brown’s tweets, which were also incredibly depressing because the politician making the most sense and displaying the most actual, proper policies, has to do so via social networking because the PTB don’t have the vision to involve him.

This time, it’s the Education Tax Rebate. Also known as the ‘buy a new laptop every financial year’ rebate, because basically that’s all you could do with it the past two years.  It didn’t cover textbooks, uniforms, excursions, or any of the other expenses that school aged children actually incur.  So, two years down and a few more laptops lying around the house, internet connection beefed up with rebate moolah, and parents of school kids are left twiddling thumbs, wondering what else they can claim.  Thankfully, we’re saved by an election! Both Libs and Labs have added more random crap to the claimable list. Uniforms, books, stationery etc are on both lists. Excellent.

Liberals, in another awesome example of promoting middle class welfare, have added a few hilarious extras. School fees, both public and private. Now, seriously, how many families out there with kids in private school actually get FTB part A? And to how many of them, would $500 per year rebate on school fees make any kind of difference? That’s probably the locker padlock safety deposit taken care of.

The best part though, are these items:

Extra-curricular school activities, such as music, sports, dance and drama lessons
Musical instruments
Sporting fees & equipment
School photos

Yes, that’s right. As long as I stay home, earn piss all, and allow my husband to be the bacon-earner to my little missus, the Government will pay for my children to learn ballet. Excellent.  And, this year I can go ahead and order that bumper pack of glossies from the school photographer, so everyone I’ve ever met gets a copy of  an extreme close-up of my kid glaring in front of a faux-Japanese garden backdrop. Yay government!

The thing is, it’s not the sobbing contestants getting to me (they do, I’m not immune to irritation).

It’s not the conspiracy theories that the show is in fact rigged (which, I kinda think it is, and I might do another post on that. I do love a good conspiracy theory).

It’s not even the monotonous and repetitive ads for other channel 10 shows, or ads by the show’s sponsors, followed by an announcement that the show is sponsored by the company that just advertised their products ten seconds ago, which when teamed with the meaningful silences and suspense and ‘we’ll tell you something after the next ad break’ which basically allow the viewer to see 10 mins of actual cooking per hour of programming.

Hell, it’s not even George’s deconstructed salads.

It’s the fucking micro herbs. Give me a break.  For starters, they are sprouts. And while sprouts can be an interesting way to add different flavours to dishes (not really my bag, but anyway…), calling it a micro herb doesn’t make you more hep and less hippy.

Then it’s the powdered additives. Meat glue, leithicin, that weird shit that they use to make ’snow’. multidextrose powder I think? And titanium oxide.  Now, I’m pretty sure that if a contestant used custard powder they would have their ass handed to them, and yet a chef uses some of this rubbish and suddenly it’s a legit product.  It’s easy to think it must taste excellent and you’d never know it was made by a chemist and not a chef, but then thing about the amount of industry ‘experts’ on telly right now peddling chemical ridden crap to an unsuspecting public. That dude who flogs Vegeta, which is basically MSG and salt in a can. Or Julie Goodwin, last year’s winner, who was telling us that MasterFoods flavour bases and sauces are just as good as actual cooking.   Or molecular gastronomy, which last year was rubbished and this year is a must-know technique, for all those wanting their food to not look like food.

Then there’s presentation. Schmear. Save me. What I don’t want when I’m about to eat, is the vision of anyone smearing anything across the plate, just before adding the food.  And I don’t care who you are, but a schmear of mash potato is just a stupid thing to taunt someone with.  The colour and consistency is another thing. While I recognise my preference for an actual bread roll with a burger over bread ’soil’ is a personal thing, I can’t believe what the judges will flame one day and applaud the next.  Claire’s QANTAS main course was ‘boring’ looking (which it was), but on Friday night’s Master Class, George served up a frothy mushroom sauce with the colour and consistency of dog sick. And everyone ‘ooh’ed all over it (which may be a euphemism, now I think about it).  If you’re ever going to de-construct something, it should be the colour of mushrooms.

I don’t know why they don’t just have a ‘Continental Pasta and Sauce’ mystery box and be done with it. As long as it’s garnished with micro-herbs, of course.

I made an exception last night, since I had to both buy a DVD and get petrol, and I’d left the refuelling situation to the point where it was possible that if I drove across town to the independent petrol station, I’d be cruising to the pump on fumes.   Of course, Murphy’s law dictates that the moment I hand over the receipt to get my whopping $2 discount, the forces conspired against me and damaged disc one of my DVD set.

The same laws of nature of course also dictate that when I absolutely have to go into a shopping centre, daycare is cancelled.  And on finding out daycare is cancelled, my two year old flatly refused to put on shoes or brush her hair in protest.

So, running late for school drop-off, frazzled, un-caffeinated, and dragging a screaming, barefoot child who looks like she slept wearing a crown of thorns, I battle my way into the shopping centre to exchange without a receipt.   I kid you not, as we passed a gift store I heard a little girl say, ‘mummy, that child has no shoes!’ and I turned just in time to see the mother clutch her own child closer to her, looking warily at the two of us.  I knew it was going to be an excellent morning then and there.

Now, I know that I don’t have a receipt, and technically they don’t have to allow an exchange, but really, was a lecture necessary? Or the glare and the rolling of eyes?  Or neglecting to unlock the meffing DVD after I went down to the entertainment department to find the replacement, so that when I went into Woolworths a few minutes later I set off the alarms causing everyone within a 30 metre radius to stop what they were doing and stare openly at me?

And by the end, it cost me a $3.00 tub of yoghurt, a hot chocolate and smartie cookie from the cafe ($6) and a promise of lunch at McDonalds just to get out of the shopping centre without my toddler drawing any more attention to us.   So I’m down $9 and had a really rubbish start to the day, purely because of discount fuel. I told you they were evil.

Kind of a loaded question really. Should I mention that last year they accidentally removed the ADSL code from my line, resulting in three weeks without internet, because they couldn’t work out what was wrong, and the person who could fix it didn’t speak directly to customers or to the Telstra staff who could speak to me? Should I add that after it was eventually fixed (at a cost of $129 by me and much haranguing from my ISP to get Telstra to fix the ruddy issue), they then proceeded to send me letter after letter telling me my landline account had to be cancelled and set up again, because ’something’ was wrong with it? Would my new account manager want to know that I can’t hear the word ‘Telstra’ without making a face?

I didn’t bother. I just said, ‘well, I suppose it could be cheaper. ‘

She then went on to question me extensively on my phone, mobile and internet usage. Bizarrely, she asked me why I don’t make the same number of calls every month; sometimes I make 5 STD calls, sometimes 10.  She seemed confused at this behaviour.

I was already pretty annoyed by this point, as she had interrupted me watching The Princess Bride and causing me to pause just as Westley was rolling down the hill. My instinct to hang up on her battled internally with my need to know what brilliant deal they would come up with this time.  Actual customer service? A phone line that stays connected, no matter what switch the cleaner accidentally flicks?

Oh no. She wanted to sell me a Bigpond plan.  She asked what I was using now (ADSL 1, 1500 plan, 20GB download per month for $49.95) and claimed she could better this. I snorted. She paused, and then ploughed on into her spiel.  Apparently I can get ADSL2 now, and for only $69.95 I could have a whole 12GB.   This super special deal means that I could connect at up to 8000mbps, which would be shaped down to 1500 when I hit that limit.

I’ll admit this had me stumped momentarily. I’d be paying an extra $20 per month, and at best be using my current speed for half of that time given the smaller download limit.   She actually laughed at me when I pointed that out, and said, ‘but it’s faster‘.  Yes, but wouldn’t it being faster mean that I’d hit that limit even sooner? So possibly only accessing that faster speed for one week out of the month?  She laughed again. And went quiet. And then mumbled something like, ‘I don’t think you understand.’

But the weirdest part came next.

While we were chatting I was looking up my current ISP’s plans for ADSL2+.  Their equivalent plan is the same price and the same download limit I currently have.  I told her this (not mentioning that the site is telling me ADSL2 is not yet available in my area) and she said, ‘yes but Telstra speeds will be faster than another ISP’.

Me: I’m sorry? I thought you all use the same lines?

Her: We do, but Bigpond is faster on those lines

Me: How does that work? Do you slow your competitors down?

Her: Yes, so ours is the fastest available

Me: Is that even ethical? Other ISPs don’t have a choice but to use your lines, do they?

Her: If you want to use your own line you can have faster ADSL

Now, at this point I’m not sure if she was suggesting that I hire a backhoe and put my own phone lines in, which I admit is tempting.  All the same, it appeared she was telling me that Telstra deliberately slows the service available to other ISPs, so they can’t offer competitive deals.  I told her I wouldn’t sign up for a company that did that. She didn’t really know what to say.

We then had the discussion about whether Telstra includes uploads into the 12GB limit. At first she said ‘oh yes, they are included!’ as though that was a good thing, then put me on hold to speak to her manager, who said Telstra doesn’t charge for uploads.  If they don’t, it’s a new thing.

She went back to trying to convince me that ADSL2 was the business and I should definitely get on board with it.  She was now claiming that potentially, I could connect at speeds up to 20,000mbps. I said that I thought it depended on how far away from the exchange I was, wasn’t that true?  Couldn’t she tell me what speeds I’ll connect at? No, apparently that information only came from the technicians (the same people who couldn’t talk to me when my ADSL wasn’t working).  She actually couldn’t tell me until I signed up.  Yay, internet connection lottery, who knows what you might get? I said there wasn’t a chance and asked her if there was any way she could make my bill cheaper.  She ended up reducing my line rental by $10, so not only did she not get me to buy more products, I now pay a tenner less to them. I hope she doesn’t work on commission.

I can’t be arsed getting off the couch and I’ve been surfing forums pretty much since I got up.  At  one point, I detoured to Google Images to find a picture of Robert Pattinson to appease a twifan who may have been traumatised by my Maybelline signature there.

Now, Twilight aside, I’m a bit of a fan of RPatz. Not because he makes me all SQUEEE!!!! (which he doesn’t, although I have noticed in some of his candid shots he looks a little like a younger version of my husband (who, in turn, sometimes looks like a younger version of Bob Geldof)) but because he refers to Twilight fans as voyeurs, called SMeyer out on her creepiness and refuses to watch the films. He’s also desperately trying to redeem his career, playing Dali in Little Ashes and planning similar departures from predictability in other upcoming roles.

Anyway, that was a bit of a digression, this isn’t actually about Twilight.

When I was looking for the image, I typed “rob…” into google images and the first suggested result was “Robert Pattinson”. He’s the #1 googled Rob out there, apparently. Out of interest I deleted and simply typed in “r”, and guess what… he is the most searched for “R” on the planet.  Rihanna is second, so I suppose anything is possible when it comes to kids and search engines.

It made me wonder though, what came up under the other letters:

A – angelina jolie B – beyonce C – christmas D – dogs E – edward cullen F – flowers G – google images H – halloween I – images J – justin bieber K – katrina kaif L - lady gaga M – megan fox N – new moon O – owl city P – puppies Q – question mark R - robert pattinson S - selena gomez T – taylor lautner U – ugly people V – vanessa hudgens W – wallpaper X – xbox 360 Y – youtube Z – zac efron

Now, while recognising that the Twilight series (I refuse to call it a saga, it’s not a bloody saga, it’s just another example of thesaurus rape) has sold something like 85 million copies, I just absolutely refuse to believe that there are that many people out there googling these terms. Further evidence is found in the letter G. Rly? People are going into google images and typing ‘google images’? No. I don’t think so.

I’m now utterly convinced of a conspiracy. I don’t believe that Google is reflecting popular culture at all, I believe it’s dictating it.  Take the letter D for example. Despite the incredible hype surrounding the two-part finalé to the Harry Potter series, Deathly Hallows doesn’t feature at all. David Beckham does, and someone called Demi Lovato, but no DH, no Draco, nothing.  Puppies and ugly people I’d believe, and I’m sure question marks are highly sought after, but the rest …. just no.

And now, because I can, here’s the number seven most popular ‘dan…’

Repeat the above paragraph for 1500 pages and you have Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking dawn.

OK, so the writing is terrible.  She’s not the first author who has a toxic relationship with adjectives.  Matthew Riley doesn’t seem to use them at all (aside from “super”) and often resorts to italics and even diagrams in their place. And both Riley and Meyer have managed to earn a fortune despite being unable to master their trade craft.  It’s not such a problem it seems, as long as one has a good story idea.

This is the point at which Riley and Meyer part ways.  I’m not a fan of Matty’s books; I’ve read a couple of them and have possibly grimaced once or twice myself. They read like a movie script.  They do have two things that Meyer’s books don’t though – plot, and themes.

The story of Twilight was supposedly loosely based on Romeo and Juliet. Young love against all odds.  Forbidden love.  Etcetera.

The problem is, their love isn’t forbidden. The Cullens have no problem, her parents haven’t forbidden her to see Edward, her friends think he’s hot.  The only real issue seems to be that he’s cold and she’s horny.  They don’t have to hide their relationship like R&J; there wasn’t even an issue with compatability in that she wasn’t the least bit put off by his sanguinivorous nature.  There’s no real conflict and zero character growth.  She sees him, falls in deep smit across a carpark, he glares at her, disappears for a few days and returns all nice and flirty.  So what exactly is the plot in Twilight, given that it’s not the beginning of their relationship?

One could argue that James trying to kill her might be the plot.  The problem with this is that James doesn’t turn up until around 2/3 of the way through the book and seems more of an afterthought, a ‘crap I need some tension and suspense in here somewhere’ moment.  So maybe it’s Bella moving away from her mother to a small town and figuring out her new life.  Bella goes to school, does OK, makes some friends, falls for a vampire.  She doesn’t change at all throughout the book; doesn’t grow as a person, has no particular insight into anything around her, and doesn’t do anything.   They don’t even buy a van and drive around the country solving mysteries. Yes – Scooby Do cartoons have more of a plot than Twilight does.

There’s also the small issue of character. They don’t have any. We are told Bella loves to read, but we never hear about any books other than Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliet (which they are studying in class).  Edward has been reading literature for a century; he knows it all off by heart.  Yet they never discuss books, never draw comparisons between real life and literature aside from the above books (and then, only briefly), and neither of them actually shows the slightest interest in reading. We’re told lots of things about these two people, and are given no evidence to support it. We’re told how gorgeous Edward is, yet he has chalky white skin, purple shadows under his eyes, and his irises are yellow.  What’s not to love?

We also never really learn much about either of them. Edward is over 100 and plays piano. Bella is clumsy and not good at sport.  That’s kind of it.  Bella has no aspirations in life, no hobbies or skills to mention.  We don’t know where Edward came from; who he was before he was a vampire.

Like Romeo and Juliet, Bella and Edward aren’t in love.  At best it’s a combination of lust and infatuation, and at worst it’s an unhealthy and abusive relationship.

Consider this. You have a friend who has a new boyfriend.  She tells you that she fell for him after one glance across a carpark. He didn’t seem to like her at first but in no time at all he was all over her. He sneaks into her bedroom when she’s asleep and watches her, and listens to her dream.  He took the engine out of her car to stop her visiting another friend whom he dislikes and mistrusts.  She has to phone that same friend in secret because he looks angry when he catches her talking to him.  They don’t really know each other well. They don’t talk about much except how into each other they are.  He often looks furious when she disagrees with him.  They have both attempted suicide when forced apart. He had to go away for a few days so he had his sister kidnap her and hold her hostage while he was gone.  He also bullied and manipulated her into agreeing to marry him, before she could get what she wanted out of the relationship.  But he does all this because he really, truly loves her so it’s ok.   You’re reaching for the Yellow Pages to find the domestic violence hotline just reading that, right? So why is it OK to put these ideas in fiction aimed at teens and young adults, to glamorise suicide and to perpetuate the notion that no girl is complete until the cutest boy in school smiles at her? Is it alright because he’s a vampire? That being treated like a possession and losing all free will is just dandy, as long as your suitor does it because he loves you?

I’m not even going to bother with the gaping holes in the story and Meyer’s insistence on scientifically explaining fantasy; that’s a whole other essay right there.  I will say though that it’s a shame she didn’t just sell the rights to the story to someone else.  Glittering aside, the story of a family of vegetarian vampires and shape-shifting Native Americans could have been a good one.   It just shouldn’t have been written like high school fan-fic or diary entries.

I was still deliberating over whether I should attempt an Indiana Jones style dive roll between them before the gap closed yet again, or whether it would be faster to simply backtrack, dash down an adjacent aisle, and come back to this one from the other direction to grab what I needed (which was, at this point, just three metres away), when I recalled this article I had read several days ago.

It occurred to me that to fine specimens of humanity like Amy Alkon, the world is made up of two types of people – those who are so entirely saturated in their own self-importance that they believe the world should step aside for them and bend to their every selfish whim, and those who are in a permanent state of internal rage over the perceived selfishness of anyone who deigns to invade their headspace with any form of noise without asking prior permission from those around them.

In reality, there is a third group, of which most of us are members.  Slow moving people annoy me, as do noisy eaters, people with beards (especially if they have food stuck in it *shudder*), anyone wearing those absurd caps with a really flat, wide brim, shrieking children and that weird guy down the road who rolls up one leg of his jeans.  The difference is that I’m not self absorbed enough to believe that the entire world should change to suit my personal preferences, and that I certainly have faults and little idiosyncrasies that possibly annoy society at large (my inability to park straight probably being one of them).

The problem with both extreme groups (including people like Alkon), is that neither can recognise their own selfishness and how it impacts negatively on us all.  In that article I hear condemnation of a mother whose child was being noisy.  I hear how children should stay locked inside until they can learn to be silent in public, and how other people on a plane shouldn’t have to put up with the ‘theft of our attention, our time and our peace of mind’.  What I don’t hear is that anyone else on the plane attempted to distract the child for everyone’s comfort, or the stewardess offering him a snack or a drink to shut him up, or even that the glaringly obvious fact that when you cram yourself into a metal tube with 200 other people you can reasonably expect it won’t be an experience free from interaction with other people.

So we ban children off aircraft, and fat people, and anyone with body odour, and anyone who can’t chew quietly, anyone who farts or coughs or has the hiccoughs, anyone who rustles the newspaper loudly when turning the page.  Anyone who hasn’t taken a crap prior to boarding and might pinch one off into the recycled aircon.  Anyone who sighs loudly when the passenger next to them needs to get up to go to the loo. Anyone who can’t survive less than an eight hour flight without having to get up to use the loo.

And when whomever is left catches their $4000 regional flight is sitting there, enjoying the serenity while internally bitching about the cost of flights and trying to ignore the nagging thought that when they get too old they will probably be farmed off to an understaffed nursing home where nobody visits them and never venture into public again for fear of being vilified for taking up someone else’s precious time by clogging up the sidewalk with their motorised scooter, they might pause to wonder if, in their youth, they should’ve been a little more tolerant of others and a little less self absorbed.

My guilty little secret is that I love bad action films, especially when they involve the use of technology. I was actually disappointed when Takedown and Spy Game turned out to be pretty decent films, because the duck and I love nothing more than to laugh our way through a supposedly serious movie that expects the viewer to absorb lines such as, ‘I hope the internet’s waterproof’ without choking on popcorn.  Swordfish is an excellent example of this genre.

War Games 2: The Dead Code punched this ticket for us.  War Games (the original) is probably one of the earliest examples of this genre; although to be fair to its decade most original viewers wouldn’t know that it would be fairly problematic to start global thermonuclear war from one’s bedroom. The sequel, released in 2008, cannot hide behind the same naivety, and I’d rate the film highly purely because of the hilarity involved in watching it.

It would be impossible to name all of the plot errors in this film, as they happened approximately once every 43 seconds.  I did have a few outstanding thoughts and questions regarding the film though:

• Why were there goats and hookers at a weapons trading deal in the deserts of Afghanistan?
• Why does RIPLEY announce that the ‘morbidity rate’ of the missile dropped on said weapons traders, goats and hookers is 98.6%?  There were maybe 30 people in the area where the missile was dropped, and it landed in the middle of them. Who survived, a goat in a coma?
• From the guy who created the computer: “RIPLEY detected this cell through one of her honeypot sites. Attractive, high stakes games hidden in the darker reaches of the internet.”  And everyone nods.  None of the so-called counter-terrorism experts and associated geeky types have an issue with this?  For starters, a ‘honeypot’ is by definition something that is popular and highly attractive to many. So if  ’the darker reaches of the internet’ actually existed, the site wouldn’t be there.
• The government decides that the best way to find terrorists is by setting up a gambling website for them to find, apparently by accident. I mean, really. Terrorists are characterised by their love for online gambling? Why wouldn’t they just track potential threats based on search engine hits? Oh, right. Because that would be boring.
• Why can’t an apparently intelligent ‘computer whizz’ can’t tell the difference between a photo and an animation?
• How does a teenage boy know what ‘layering’ is, in regards to his neighbour’s brother using his bank account to launder money?  And why on earth would the neighbour’s brother think that the best way to hide money is to transfer it in and out of his brother’s bank account (who has the same last name as him)?
• How does a teenage girl attach a ‘mousetrap’ to the school’s website?  A device that somehow turns on her webcam so she can talk to anyone trying to ‘hack’ into her school account?
• Why would someone want to own a mobile phone that reads the content of new text messages out loud when they arrive? Especially a teenage boy. Awkward moments in front of the parents begging to be experienced.
• How do Americans gain instant access to Canadian security cameras? And how do the Canucks feel about this horrifying revelation?

Anyway. If anyone likes to spend their two hour film time pointing and laughing (well, three hours when you include all the time you have to pause because you can’t hear the dialogue over the laughing), this film is for you.

I’ve been known to ridicule the idea of food layby (otherwise known as food hampers, aka Chrisco, Castle etc).  This notion is even more absurd to me than regular layby. People actually pay more than a food item is worth and select hampers that contain products they have never tried and may not even eat, purely so they can pay it off in increments during the year.  On a forum recently, I read a stunning rationale for this behaviour:

For me, part of the appeal is getting things that I wouldn’t normally buy. It forces me to try new things and get out of my shopping rut.

Seriously. Go into a supermarket with a trolley and a blindfold. Just think of the excitement of reaching the checkout and finding that jar of crab paste you’ve never tried before! Or the pure joy of that random can of cocktail franks! I priced one of the Mexican hampers (corn chips, salsa, taco kits galore) and the kits in the pack average out at nearly $10. For one taco kit. That you can get off the shelf at most supermarkets for $6.50 or less, and $5 or less on special.  Paying over market value for a grocery luckydip is just plain crazy.

Also popular with these hamper types are the vouchers. You pay into it every week and get a voucher for K-Mart or whatever at the end. I can almost wrap my head around the rationale of those who do these hampers because they can’t trust themselves to put money in an account and not spend it, but really?  You get what you put in for the voucher, minus an administration fee, so for a $100 Coles voucher, you pay $105. It defies my personal belief that more than one person on the planet considers that to be value.

I think I’ve digressed enough from my original point, since I can’t remember what it was. Oh, coffee layby.  So the duck heads out for coffee for us on Saturday morning, and I asked him which café would gain our patronage. He asked if I had a preference, a choice between our favourite café and Michel’s. I prefer the café coffee by a long shot, but I have caffeinated myself into a corner with the ‘free coffee’ pull of Michel’s. You know, those cards they stamp so every eighth coffee is free?  The thing with those loyalty cards is that once you have one or two stamps, you have to keep going back until you get your ‘free’ beverage.  Now, going ahead with the assumption that nothing in life is actually free, this means that in reality I’m paying around 50c extra for every cup of coffee I purchase there, to absorb the cost of the ‘free’ one they are giving me.   At the very least it’s absorbed across every cup of coffee sold; so in reality not only am I laybying my future caffeine fix, but other people are paying into the fund as well.

How the hell is this any smarter than laybying groceries or toys?

Given that the coffee at these types of chain cafés is around the same price (or in some cases, a little cheaper) than independent establishments, one has to wonder how they are maintaining their profit margins while offering free coffee.  Cost cutting in other areas is the obvious answer. I’ve tried the cupcakes and I think I can see where they did it there, and I also believe the custard in the vanilla slice has been sponsored by an experimental plastics manufacturer.

And I’m not even going to go into the Jennifer Government style rant about loyalty cards and how they will lead to the downfall of civilisation. I’ll happily leave that in the capable hands of Max Barry (and while you’re there, read the hilarious letter he received from the UN.)