This will hurt me...

Opening gambit: our children are lucky because they will live far longer than us . Flanking manoeuvre: they should thank their lucky stars that the medical science has made all of this possible. By 'medical science', read doctor (as in 'Mengele') . Frontal assault: the MAN who is RESPONSIBLE for prolonging your children's lives LOVES to smoke. LOVES IT. In fact, the smokes - POSSIBLY - explain his EXTRAORDINARY superpowers skills. Dubious conclusion: Docs are TOPS. Docs love to SMOKE. Ciggies must be GREAT . As a side note, I'd also like to draw attention to the fantabulous 'T-Zone' theory: FORGET THE EVIDENCE, your throat DOESN'T LIE. Even when you're bombarding it with carcinogens.

Madame Curie and her radiation, Newton and his apples, Einstein and his zany hair, Hawking and that voice thing, Fermi and his particles, Maxwell and his electric fields, Salk and his vaccines, on and on it goes. What is the one thing that they had in common? A fondness for the gaspers , that’s what! Do people really believe that the confluence of the scientific revolution and the arrival of tobacco in Europe is a mere coincidence? Nothing says science than late nights, pizza, loud music and a smoke filled room. Look at this dude here in today’s ad, he’s like Bill Wyman strumming away on his bass with a ciggie in hand. Just like Bill wouldn't be able to strum out that funky and sleazy opening salvo of Miss You (let alone his sleazy come-ons to underage girls) without a handy Peter Stuyvesant , the Chesterfield that you see above is perfectly weighted to maximise the fiddling of the dial on the microscope you see. That’s where they went wrong in ye olden days (that and their at...

Today's ad is a pearler. Like a lot of advertisements today, it's aimed at the littlies, in this case toothache drops in 1885. Of course, we're not wasting our time with cloves and the like. No, these drops have a bit more of a kick to 'em. Not only was the medicine likely to dull the pain, but help put the user in a "better" mood, fire them up, enhance their sex drive, facilitate some poor choices regarding personal appearance, destroy their marriages and encourage them to make really, really self-indulgent music involving lengthy guitar solos and synthesized horns.

Personally, I don't think that the lady was likely to have uttered the above phrase, but the distance between her lifestyle and that of the wretched masses did not win her any sympathy. Pay heed, residents of the Silo Apartments ! The cake featured above is a little strawberry tea cake that Henry and I managed to cook this afternoon. I knocked off early today as Jen had an obstetrician appointment today. Well... at least Jen thinks that it was an obstetrician that she saw, they don't really introduce themselves, part of an obnoxiously superior [ahem] socially dysfunctional interesting manner whereby the patient appears a mere obstacle to a big fat paycheck a secondary concern. But enough doctor baiting! I was talking cake, and today in order to satisfy the eager el duce I opened up the cupboard, grabbed the flour and had a think about what we could whip up. Recipes? Pfft! Amateur hour. Working off an apple tea cake variation that I know well, we got some strawberries, qua...

This is just a very quick post on matters of public policy. I wanted to voice my ongoing displeasure with the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and their seeming inability to separate self-interest with the interests of Australians more broadly. I think (actually, I know), the key thing that frustrates me with this organisation is their constant refrain that “we care, we’re doctors, we help people” as if they practice their profession out of the goodness of their heart. Don’t come the raw prawn fellas, doctors are actually pretty well compensated for the hours that they work. They also work in what must be the most highly protected industry in the entire country. There would be unions across the country that would love having the power to bully and intimidate ‘bosses’ in the way that the AMA regularly does. Anyway, I am glad that we are starting to have this debate . I can only hope that the fact that the AMA appears to have ‘ declared war ’ on the Commonwealth Government might mean...