It is 10 years since I wrote this for The Independent Australia. The test is still applicable.
I wrote this article Is Grandma fit to babysit? KPI Test for Independent Australia when I heard that there is such a thing as Grandma School. 
In the spirit of having fun with the Superhero genre I wrote this book (Illutrations by Craig Smith) for Super Kids everywhere.
Superman has returned to the big screen in 2025.
Here is a little extract from a book I wrote for superkids who, obviously, are still learning their craft.
It was titled How to Save the World Before Breakfast (Omnibus Books) with illustrations by Craig Smith. Here’s one lesson:
The problem with leaping tall buildings in a single bound these days is that tall buildings are so tall.
Link Cranky Uncle blog
I wrote this article in 2005. Given the Anit-Vax, Anti-Science movement today especially in America, it seems more relevant now than ever.
Good evening, parents, and welcome to this Information Night about our exciting new subject, DIY Science. In this Year 7 program we don’t just respect individual beliefs; we embrace them.
And here are the fascinating topics your children will study this year:
Matter: Matter is made up of small particles called atoms. Atoms can combine to form big molecules like DNA and big crystals, which have mystical powers. Crystals bestow good fortune and can, obviously, help with homework.
Light: Light is a form of energy. Each colour of light has a different wavelength. A crystal with magical powers can split white light into different colours to form a rainbow. A rainbow is a sign of good luck or that it’s been raining. People’s heads can also split light into different colours. This is an aura. An aura is a person’s energy field. Red is for anger; while the flashing red aura means ‘Warning: I’m about to explode’.
Evolution: The survival of the fittest theory of evolution explains how man descended from monkeys. This is not the only theory about the arrival of intelligent life on earth. There are those who believe intelligent beings came from outer space. These aliens left strange markings, built the pyramids and generally boosted our IQ levels, which weren’t much at the time. Others believe dolphins are the most intelligent beings on earth. We think they know something. But what?
Life Cycle: The life cycle of the frog involves the egg, the tadpole, the frog and, according to popular folklore, the frog prince. The lifecycle of people who believe in reincarnation involves gnats, crickets, frogs and finally a higher life form. A dolphin, perhaps. While the lifecycle of Shirley Maclaine has involved Roman slave girls and Cleopatra. It is not known what life form Shirley will assume in her next life, though from her current appearance, a frog seems on the cards.
Planets: Our solar system is made up of nine planets that orbit the sun. Everything runs smoothly day in, day out until Venus aligns with Mars and suddenly all the Geminis are out of their trees and the Leos start bossing everyone about. This makes life very difficult for science teachers. And when the ruling planet Venus makes its way through Scorpio there is romance in the air. Many parents run into old flames. But we don’t call them old flames in Science. We call them Bunsen Burners.
Motion: A body will remain at rest or in the state of uniform motion in a straight line unless acted on by an external force…or a psychic. Psychics have para-normal powers, which makes it easy for them to pass the salt during dinner.
Acids and Bases: Acids and bases combine to form salt and water. Vinegar is an acid. Ammonia is a base. Salt is the stuff you put on chips. But you shouldn’t have any of these because they are all chemicals and some people think chemicals are bad for you. Ammonia isn’t the best. Just drink water. Or live on air. Some think you can do this, but there are a few drawbacks. (See respiration.)
Respiration: We breathe oxygen. Oxygen is carried by haemoglobin to cells where it combines with chemicals to produce energy and some free radicals. This means big trouble because oxygen is an oxidant. Free radicals are oxidants. And we don’t like oxidants. They are accused of causing everything from cancer to aging to toxin build-up. So we eat buckets of anti-oxidants like blueberries to get rid of them. Of course, we could just give up breathing, but that trend hasn’t taken off.
Combustion: Oxygen combines with fossil fuels during combustion to form oxides such as carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases are causing global warming. These gases come from many sources, but everyone just blames 4WDs. Methane is also a greenhouse gas. It is produced in the digestive system of cows, sheep, goats and humans along with other odorous gases. (Maybe this is what dolphins have been trying to tell us.)
Summary: So you can see DIY Science is a comprehensive subject. It is so much better than that old Science where students had to fiddle with experiments and verify facts. We use a clairvoyant to tell us the students’ test marks and save them the inconvenience of having to study or sit exams. Now I’ll hand you over to the maths teacher, who will explain the exciting New Age Maths program involving equilateral, isosceles and Bermuda triangles. Thank You.
Before Marilyn Monroe, before the Campbell’s soup cans, Andy Warhol produced BABOON!!!!! The article below about Hipster Baboons was published in the Herald Sun(Vic) and The Advertiser (SA) in 2003.
It’s not easy being a baboon. Life is pretty tough out there on the African Savanna. But not in the way you might think. Professor Sapolsky and colleagues from Stanford University, California have studied stress in baboons in Kenya’s Serengeti game reserve. They did this by taking blood samples of the baboons and testing for stress hormones. And the results are very disturbing.
Now you must keep in mind that the baboons in Kenya’s Serengeti game reserve are hip baboons. They have adopted a particularly modern lifestyle. They don’t have to forage for food. It’s there for the taking. They are seldom threatened by disease or predators. So they have time on their hands to think about more important issues in life such as relationships, sexual politics, strutting their stuff and letting it all hang out around the waterhole.
And they are stressed. Very stressed. First there’s the troop pecking order to worry about. They all wanna be the hippest baboon babes and top macho apes. Then there’s off-road rage. ‘You cut me off on the way to the waterhole!’. That sort of thing. Domestic violence. Excrement throwing is on the increase. Incest. Well, not incest. They’re not too worried about that. But these modern baboons are showing all the physical signs of modern stress. They have stomach ulcers, high blood pressure and unhealthy cholesterol levels. All that is missing are the mobile phones.
And I want to say to the baboons of the Serengeti, we humans will be there for you. We know everything there is to know about stress. We can give you advice. And here it is.
Exercise more. Try jogging. You may feel silly running around in circles without a leopard chasing you. But don’t. We humans do it all the time. And we do quite well on IQ tests so we’re not silly though I’m not sure about joggers.
Eat low-fat Savanna Grass. It will taste like that stuff you throw at each other in rage. But, a lot of humans eat food like this all the time.
Take up a leisure activity. Try golf. After you hit a little rock into 18 holes with a stick, you can spend the rest of the day at the waterhole discussing how to hit a little rock into a hole with a stick. That’s what humans do.
Try a New Age Guru. You can go to a lecture and locate your inner ape. A bit of chest-beating, mooning, and teeth gnashing with the boys in the jungle may be just what you need.
Read Cleo. If you are having trouble with your sex life. Read Cleo magazine. You’ll find out ‘How to get the best orgasm of your life’, ‘How to win him back from her’ and ‘How to get great thighs for Summer’ possibly all in one edition.
Change your lifestyleIf. you have been If hollerin’ and a hootin’ around the waterhole at night and generally partying too hard change your lifestyle. Take up meditation. Put on a relaxation tape and reflect on the meaning of life by listening to dolphins calling. Why dolphins? I don’t know. Humans think dolphins know something.
Hungover Issues. If you have been hitting the fermented Acacia pods every night, it’s time to stop. Join AA (Apes Anonymous) they’ll give you a 12-step program. Just take 12 steps away from that tree.
Become a SNAB – a Sensitive New Age Baboon. In fact, Professor Sapolsky and colleagues found that male baboons who spent the most time grooming or being groomed by females not in heat and playing with baby baboons had the lowest stress levels.
See. You’ve got to spend more time with the family. Be sensitive. Adopt a you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours attitude. And life will be good once again on the savanna.
This is an edited version of an article that was published under various headings in The Herald Sun, The Advertiser (SA), The Canberra Times and The Illawarra Mercury.
Scientists are interested in the chemistry of alcohol. This I discovered when I first met my Organic Chemistry lecturer, Dr Merewether, many casks of wine ago. Yes! Casks, that long ago. He was drinking beer from a 500 ml beaker while the research students, who all looked like Buddy Holly in lab coats, mixed Screwdrivers using pure Ethanol procured from the adjoining lab, proclaiming, ‘Thiz evanol is good shtuff.’
Scientists have learnt a lot about the chemistry of alcohol in the last thirty years, mostly I suspect, through self-experimentation. They can tell us, for instance, that the first person to get drunk, assuming equal alcohol consumption, will be a young, short, plump, female, novice drinker, who knocks back the champers while nibbling on half a cracker. The reasons are simple enough. Alcohol circulates faster in short, plump folk. (Fat doesn’t absorb alcohol). The young, female novice lacks some enzymes needed to break down alcohol. Fizzy drinks like champers go straight to the gut for fast absorption, whereas shots of vodka cause the stomach to spasm and seal. While fatty foods slow the passage of alcohol from the stomach to the gut. This is useful information.
Ideally, your designated driver this New Year’s Eve, say, will be a tall, lean, old bloke, with a liver like an old army boot, who pigs out early on fatty food and then sits there all night quietly sipping his lite ale – if he can find one.
Fortunately, scientists are more helpful when it comes to understanding hangovers. Anyone who has ever had a hangover knows the symptoms of severe dehydration, the rotting, slime-coated tongue and Jimi Hendrix playing Machine Gun on jackhammer in your head.
According to scientists, some people will suffer a worse hangover than others despite equal grog consumption. Mood counts. Happy people often manage to avoid the hangover they justly deserve. Whereas miserable types not only make miserable drunks, the next morning they are living tragedies. Poor bastards. Age counts. That headache from hell comes from alcohol swelling the brain. But as you age, your brain shrinks. So there is some optimum age, over fifty say, when you’re old enough to have a shrunken brain, but young enough to remember how many drinks you’ve actually consumed. Of course your liver’s shot. But let’s look at the glass as being half full here.
The type of alcohol consumed also contributes to the hangover. Those young lab coat-clad lads were right. The paler the alcohol, the less likely it is to carry those often pleasant-tasting, but generally nasty chemicals. In lieu of pure ethanol, Vodka will do, whereas a glass of cheap wine could be a dose of bad-tasting toxic waste.
But despite the many claims about hangover remedies, no one has yet developed a sure-fire cure. The only golden bullet for a hangover is, alas, one you load in a gun. Various concoctions from sports drinks to aspirin to a raw-egg-and-Worchestshire-Sauce drink to pigging out on fried food can help some symptoms. But, as scientists will explain, when you drink alcohol your liver will process the main chemical, ethanol to produce acetic acid aka vinegar before it starts processing methanol, ethanol’s evil cousin. Methanol is found in many drinks. Less in Vodka. More in Brandy. Your liver turns methanol into formic acid. Ant sting! You’re stinging your head from the inside out. But as your liver processes alcohols in order – Ethanol first. Methanol second – the hair of the dog can help because your liver returns to processing ethanol. But the methanol is still there and it must be processed sometime.
So when you ‘take a cup of kindness’ or two or three or more for ‘Auld Lang Syme’ this New Year’s Eve, remember that hangover cures can help some symptoms, and the hair of the dog might postpone the misery. But overdo that cup of kindness, and suffer you will, suffer you will.
PS: Victims of methanol poisoning are, counterintuitively, treated with alcohol namely ethanol to allow the kidneys to filter out some methanol before the liver starts processing it.
This article was published in the Canberra Times and other newspapers in 2013.
Roll up. Roll up. Pick a crisis, luv. Any crisis. You will not beat our price on any crisis, big or small. We have a comprehensive crisis range. We have big fat crises that wreck your health, destroy your career, mess up your family and really muck up your hair. We have little crises that you can have for one day. Maybe your latte is too cold or your wifi keeps dropping out. These user-friendly crises are known as First World Worries and, really, you can swear and curse at the world or throw a hissy fit and it’s done. For a small additional cost you can have your very own bespoke crisis. So why don’t you try a designer crisis, Luv? We could give it a name. We’ll call it a Midday Crisis. They’re very popular these days. You can throw the hissy fit. Get it out of your system and it’s done and dusted by Happy Hour or wine o’clock as we like to call it in the crisis business.
So many life crises are discussed in the media these days, you would think there was some dodgy spiv hawking them from a street cart. You wanna buy cheap crisis? You will have heard all about the Mid-Life Crisis. Carl Jung first identified this crisis by having one. He took to his backyard for several months making little canals for toy boats. I’m not sure how the Canal Knowledge helped Jung, but his Mid-Life Crisis was hardly catastrophic. He didn’t run off with a blonde babe 20 years his junior. He had affairs instead. He had also, wisely, married into money and his wife, Emma, looked after their 5 children while he was, um, otherwise occupied.
The Mid-Life Crisis is an identity crisis. It is real enough and can be devastating. It happens when you arrive at the mid-point in your life, around 40 or 45 perhaps, when you’ve created an identity that lives up to others’ expectations but it is not, in fact, based on your true self. Emotions that hound this age-based crisis include feelings of emptiness, dissatisfaction and entrapment. Men run a marathon or buy a Porsche or a motorbike or trade in the old wife for a new, faster, sports model to discover too often, and too late, that kids are an optional extra that she wants. Less cashed-up men get a tattoo, grow a ponytail and go out clubbing. One friend got a dragon tattoo, which then appeared on the cover of Stieg Larsson’s novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Even before the tattoo ink or his blood had dried on his shoulder his mid-life crisis had turned into a cliché.
Women go for a more spiritual awakening. They eat, pray, love. This may or may not involve shagging a foreigner in Bali but will, most likely, involve yoga, dietary supplements, a book club, new shoes and/or alcohol. One friend gave party drugs a good hammering. She’d arrive home from a night out giggling and full of love for the universe to be confronted by her tight-lipped 18-year-old daughter complaining ‘Mum. You’ve done it again, haven’t you? You’ve taken drugs.’ By morphing into Eddie from Ad Fab she had become yet another cliché, but one with a very bad headache the next morning.
I’m not quite sure how you can become your ‘true self’ trapped inside a cliché. But now even the Mid-Life Crisis is going through a crisis because a newer, brasher life crisis has appeared on the scene and up-staged the Mid-Life Crisis. This is the Quarter Life Crisis, which psychologists claim, hits 25 to 35-year-olds. The Quarter Life Crisis kicks in when the twenty-something party persona struggles with the yoke of adult responsibilities such as a regular job, one partner, a functional car and a fixed abode. Thirty, say, is looming on the horizon and you don’t have a full-time job, a career plan or any idea at all really. And you still live at home with mum and dad. (Perhaps, it should be called the F***ed Econony Crisis).
So you have the mid-lifers struggling at 40 to 45 to throw off the yoke of adulthood and the quarter-lifers struggling to take on the yoke of adult responsibilities. So if you really play your cards badly, you could end up in one non-stop 20-year crisis.
But there is one more crisis. This one I’ve based on observation. I call it the Late Life Crisis. You are over 60 and something very strange starts to happen. You are being dismissed from the culture. You get a Senior’s Card that entitles you to travel discounts and cheap pub meals at 6pm! You are no longer allowed to forget things. Now you suffer from ‘senior’s moments’. You are sidelined as the old guard at work. Instead of being diagnosed with an illness the doctor says ‘well, it’s what you should expect at your age’. Marketing types don’t even bother with your demographic. You’re too set in your ways. They can’t flog you new stuff. And this is what I’ve found. All my friends are getting ‘boring’. Not quite all, but too many for comfort. They are disappearing into their own life bubbles. They’re fading to grey. If they can’t reinvent themselves and find new ways to live in old age, they are going to turn into something really terrifying: their own parents.
It is hard to remember that in 2003 – post 9/11 – we were worried about terrorists. Public rubbish bins were removed or converted to clear plastic bags. We were told to be ALERT BUT NOT ALARMED. But were we? Read on. This article appeared in the Herald Sun (21 Feb 2003) and The Advertiser, SA (23 FEB 2003)
WARNING: If you read this article, you must memorise it, then eat it in the name of national security. I’ve just completed a covert anti-terrorist operation to see if Aussies are being ‘alert but not alarmed’. And I have much to report.
While holidaying by the sea I received a timely tip-off. The kid in the Harry Potter t-shirt told the kid with the Spider Man bodyboard that… Sorry. I can’t disclose this information. It’s top secret. But, suffice to say the words: anti-terrorist, training and ferry were involved. So, for you Dear Reader, I interrupted my holidays to take on this mission. My Brief: Get stories. Time: Ten hundred. Location: Queenscliff. Destination: Sorrento/Portsea. Mode of transport: Ferry. Operation: Sun Factor 30 +.
The word ‘terrorism’ would shock the good citizens of Queenscliff. The only public disturbance in this backwater involved a Cobb & Co coach horse backfiring three years ago. The Sorrento/Portsea side of the bay has a more chequered past. We misplaced a Prime Minister at Portsea. Moreover, some of the cleavages in the area are so well packed; one sneeze and they could explode any minute. So there is cause for concern.
I boarded the ferry cleverly disguised as a middle-aged female tourist in sunhat and sandals and immediately discovered I was no Mata Hari. Firstly, I was not willing to have sex with high-ranking officers from both sides. General Peter Cosgrove is cute in a cardigan-and-slippers way, but not my type. As for the other side, I don’t fancy a man in sheets. I wash enough sheets already. Meanwhile, a friend introduced me to this fit, tanned, young bloke in white t-shirt and sunglasses saying ‘Kerry, this is…… from the Special Operations Branch.’ I can’t tell you his name for the obvious reason that I can’t remember it. I was too excited. Back to spy school for me.
Once the ferry left its moorings the action quickly hotted up. The helicopter disappeared and returned to drop by rope three SAS troops in all-black assault fatigues onto the top deck of the moving ferry. Amazingly, none of us tourists were that surprised. We’ve seen action like this hundreds of times in films and on tellie. It was so familiar we almost expected Piece Brosnan to drop from the helicopter in a tuxedo and Halle Berry to scale the side of the ferry in a white bikini. It was disappointing that she didn’t.
But now I can tell you if Aussies are alert. We are. The first comment I heard was an 8-year-old kid yelling ‘Hey Dad. That’s the terrorist cops chopper. We saw it on a school excursion.’
Of the other 200 odd tourists, I heard comments like this:
‘Should we be looking for Osama Bin Laden in flippers?’
‘That chopper makes a racket.’ ‘Wha?’ ‘The chopper is noisy.’ ‘Wha?’ ‘Oh! Forget it.’
‘Look. There. Navy Seals in a rubber dingy.’ ‘We don’t have Navy Seals. We’re not trained like those yanks. We’d have Navy..um.. Tadpoles’
‘What’s them mens doing , Daddy?’ ‘They’re practising to save people Luke’.
The girls in the ferry canteen were really alert. ‘Oh my god. Those boys are so gorgeous. A man in a uniform does it to me every time’. The girls were contemplating throwing themselves overboard to be saved. But they had second thoughts. Their own crew might turn up to save them.
Are Aussies alarmed? No way. The couple pashing in the lounge for 45 minutes didn’t even notice the SWAT team. Ditto the doughnut king stuffing his face nearby. Meanwhile, the remaining tourists loved the whole shebang. Comments included ‘Don’t worry. Barry here can save us. He’s really secret agent 006 ¾..maybe…004 ½. Come to think of it, you better save yourself’. With cameras and videos blazing, the tourists took pictures of the three anti-terrorist team boardings. SWAT squad photos sure beat holiday snaps of seagulls.
On the return trip I saw three more Special Op teams land. By the last trip the tourists were so excited they started waving. One of the SWAT team waved back. And smiled.
So there it is. We Aussies are alert, but not alarmed. We’re positively cheerful about the whole business. Not only that, we have some cheerful – and simply gorgeous – anti-terrorist troops working on our behalf. This is how it should be. For the day we Aussies start to view every backpacker and every rubbish bin as a possible bomb threat is the day we lose our freedom and the day the terrorists win.
From Charming and Colliding Blog
Ministers of Education have been alarmed in the past to discover Australian High School Students know very little about the history of this country. The following essay by Ashlee M, Year 8, Coolathanu High is believed to be included in some bureaucratic report somewhere.
Australia is a large incontinent which lies in the Specific Ocean except for Tasmania which doesn’t know where it is. Australia is very hot because the Topic of Popracorn is in Queensland somewhere, which means Queenslanders are sweaty and can grow topical plants in their ears. But the most important topic is the topic of Cancer because if youse get sunburnt, Omigod, ya gonna die.
Full Article: Captain Hook and the History of Oz
kerrycue 