This will hurt me...

You heard! St Johns Park, New Town. June 2011. Week two into the new job, and I'm slowly picking up reading time. One really top book this week, Tom Keneally's Gossip from the Forest , a novel which reconstructs the minutia of the negotiations surrounding the declaration of an Armistice at the end of World War I. Now don’t let that concept fool you, as this is an engaging and impressive work. Kenneally paints vivid portraits of the key characters, and infuses a humanity that is often absent in this kind of work. The novel is a fantastic study of the profound challenge of ending a conflict that featured such brutality. As might be expected, the real interest can be found in the vanquished, rather than the victors. This is magnified as the key Allied negotiators - vain French Marshall Foch and cold British Admiral Weymes - relish their roles as conquerors (even though the the reality was somewhat more complex than that) and that the Germans were something approaching evil incarna...

The title today is a favourite of mine from Abe Lincoln (the President, although it does rather sound like the astute gentleman from Brookville, Ohio ). I think that captures very well my feelings toward the now (for the most part) privatised Australian telecommunications giant Telstra . Once the envy of the world, they are now renowned for their poor service. Let’s just say that the transition from bloated relic of an era where state ownership was the go into a competitive field where dynamic responses to technological change is crucial in maintaining relevance has been somewhat difficult for the artist formally known as Telecom Australia. Certainly this Geilston Bay resident feels so, anyway! I myself would have written "Typical Bloody Telstra !!! ", but I am known for the odd dramatic flourish now and again... [Now don’t forget today’s question , there is a lot riding on this...]