Every lazy Sunday lunch at nanny June's with Richard and Rosie hypnotizes Media Dragon as does the the thrill of reading Sunday papers ;-)
The Sunday Terror reports that random drug testing of staff and sniffer dog patrols at Parliament House are being considered after traces of cocaine were detected outside the offices of senior Liberal and Labor MPs Sniffer Watchdog
On a totally different issue, David Draper, the food and beverage manager at Parliament House for the past 23 years, has been suspended on full pay pending the outcome of the investigation.
His son, Justin, also was suspended reports Alex Mitchell inside the Naked Eye of the Sun Herald today. The Clerk of the peasant house, as Johno Johnson used to cheekily refer to the lower house chambers, Russell Grove and the Clerk of Parliament John Evans have hired a big legal gun to represent the Parliament in this dispute. David and his son were accused of bullying (as reported in the Daily Terror on 2 June 2005?)
I have known David for many, many, years and he certainly struck me as one of those managers who always exceeded my expectations, especially in my role as the Clerk to the Public Accounts Committee. He was known as the can-do-manager.
The drama around our first ever teleconference at the Strangers Dining Room (staged for the drawcard of our conference on infrastructure, Sir Alistair Morton, who spoke from London, could fill a book or two ... Yet David accommodated us with a smile during the entire process). One can only go by ones own past experiences and mine were always pleasant whenever I dealt with characters like David Draper or Allan Beverstock or Stafford Bennett.
As they say in the Czech lands, little fish gets always swallowed by a big fish...
Speaking of Czechs, Media Dragon dined in two places last night at the red light district. Ironically, both of the places run by Czechs are situated extremely close to the abodes of the former and the current Clerks of the Legislative Assembly.
I gather that when Grahame Harris Cooksley is not based at Mcleay St then he is barring his soul at Newport ... while Russell David Grove is a stonethrow away from 29 Orwell Street bohemian beer cafe. Doma is a great place right on the corner of George Orwell and Homer Simpson Springfield Avenue. There is no absinth like Czech absinth they say: at Doma you will taste not only the best tatar but also Staroplzenecky Absinth (70%). Media Dragon spies report that Sydneysiders are partial to Czech feast and beer as well as other wicked liquids on tap.
Short walk from Orwell who started writing 1984 in 1942 is another world at 42 Kellet Street, here the classier restaurant offers a real Prague experience. People, places, party, faces this is the blood-life of Prague. So many great dishes and bread dumplings yet so little time ... rich pickings from duck pate to Crepes Suzette Prague ;-)
Fashion has become more and more entwined with celebrities and fashion reporters have become more and more entwined with stars, but the three savvy waiteresses had the nerve to be as tall as Media Dragon and dressed in that modern X factor fashion along with the drop dead smile ... Watch them pouring Green Fary Absinth that strange creation of the Bohemian dating back to 1538. You read it right - 1538! The idea of a funeral arrangements for Media Dragon after a few absinth start to sound frighteningly sensible ;-)
Ach, I have it on the highest authorities that Homer and Jerry pinched most of their lines from Good Soldier Svejk who was partial to beer and absinth
Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Pitch Kings: A Long Way Up
Jaroslav Pelikan asks who owns the Good Book
• Who can lay claim to the Bible? [Australian filmmakers tour the Danube to unlock the mysteries of one of the 20th century's most influential thinkers. By using the river as a theme, The Ister creates a visual palimpsest, a kind of cinematic hypertext to the questions raised by river, poem, and philosophers Time and the Cold River; At times I am sick of how tied to the bottom line my students are, how unimaginatively selfish they are, how often they ask that insulting question, "What's in it for me? So, What's in It for Media Dragon? ] • · The season of clichés is upon us, with end-of-school speeches - perversely called Commencement: be alarmed ; That's what I felt as I walked the aisles of Book Expo America last weekend in New York City Paranoia and pity • · · John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reports Record Revenue, EPS and Cash Flow for Fiscal Year 2005 Wiley Rises ; There's old stereotypes, and then there's the newer old stereotypes: The hypnotic eye • · · · Author and historian Rex Lipman reveals how one soldier hoodwinked the public over the role Britain played in the Battle of Waterloo 190 years ago. This has now been established because, many years after the publication of Siborne's history -- and his death -- his grandchildren, unaware that what they were doing would destroy their grandfather's credibility as a historian and expose his flagrant dishonesty, presented all his writings, notes and correspondence to what is now the British Library Wellington's win gets the boot ; New Dawn, a look at six great enigmas of ancient civilisations • · · · · The topic Why Theatre? was apparently very good on 11 June at The Parade Theatre NIDA. While I was waiting for the end of the semester acting presentations today I was a fly on the steps at NIDA. Once a term parents are allowed to watch their teenage girls (mostly girls especially 14 - 15 vintage) Australia has many creative teachers! No teenage story has captured the imagination of actors than a fight with local government ;-) Addicted to theatre - A portrait of the artist as a young mess ; Paulo Coelho's admirers say he offers happiness to mankind, his critics that he writes New Age tosh • · · · · · Who's Mentally Ill? Nick Pas? Scott? Watson? Deciding Is Often All in the Mind ; And you'd have to be crazy: Mental illness is the new normal You'd Have to Be CrazyDecades after his [Slavic-born] aunt stumped him with a casually posed question, Tall me, vot do you tink of Bible? Jaroslav Pelikan, PhD’46, has set out to answer his “dear Aunt Vanda.” In Whose Bible Is It? A History of the Scriptures Through the Ages (Viking), Pelikan, Yale’s Sterling professor emeritus in history and a prolific author on historical Christianity, begins to address his title question by taking a look at the modern Bible. Its reader, whether Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, or otherwise, he writes, “has the right to expect ‘the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible.’” Yet, in addition to the proliferation of English translations, significant differences exist among sects and religions—Christians include the New Testament, for example, and Roman Catholics also add the Apocrypha. John the Baptist, for example, exclaims, “Do not imagine you can say, ‘We have Abraham for our father.’ I tell you that God can make children for Abraham out of these stones” (Pelikan’s italics). “Interpreters of this passage,” he writes, “were often puzzled about what connection, if any, there is between ‘children’ and ‘stones.’” Retranslating the passage, however, reveals a play on words: in the original “children” is banim and “stones” ebanim.
