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You can always tell you're in trouble when the good option involves a prosthetic leg.


Ezra woke everybody up and three am this morning, and I couldn't get myself back to sleep. Fair dinkum, I needed a crane to lift me out of bed to get ready for work. Above is a photo of the CSIRO crane down here in the Salamanca district of Hobart. I cannot confirm or deny that this crane is used to lift up whales to measure and weigh their farts (thus helping solve the global warming/cooling conundrum).

My wife wasn't allowed to watch much commercial television when she was a child, so her knowledge of pop culture references is limited, to say the least. I, on the other hand, had no such limitations. Thus my head is filled with all sorts of useless interesting and informative bibs and bobs of ephemera. This affords me many opportunities to scoff and shake my head at Jen's inability to identify my subtle reworking of J.J. from Good Times DY-NO-MITE! catchphrase or humorous "someone should blow those nuns up" that evokes the very best of Ted Bullpit.

Of course, I do try to fill in the gaps of knowledge as they emerge, but I am certain that it can all get rather confusing. Last night was an interesting case in point. Riffing on a familiar theme (a useless local politician that those in the know loathe and those don't admire), I was mediating on a shared acquaintance who had both Jen and I's respect, who worked for the [un-named] pollie.

I could not see how such an intelligent person could stand working for such a dill (a theme familiar to us all, no doubt), and my wife - who I love very much - opined that perhaps it was a case of "Mr Humphries" at work.

Hmmmm.

Mr Humphries?

"I'm free!" Mr Humphries?

Did she really liken the talented bureaucratic puppet master to the flamboyant senior menswear assistant of the Gentleman's Department?

It didn't take long to see that she was thinking of Sir Humphrey Appleby, GCB, KBE, MVO, MA (Oxon).

It appears that I have some work to do.
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Roddy said…
It seems I too was thinking of Sir Humphries.
17 November 2009 at 12:56
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