Instead of a poem…

…I have decided to give you a couple of snippets from The World according to Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith.

First, a statistician observes a passing woman.

Here, approaching him, was a 60-year-old woman, with two point four children, twenty-three years to go, with a weekly income of… and so on. Now there were carbon footprints to consider, too, and that was fun. This woman was walking, but had probably taken a bus. She did not go on holidays to distant destinations, Spain at the most, and so she used little aviation fuel. Her carbon footprint was probably not too bad, particularly by comparison with… with those who went to international conferences on carbon footprints. The thought amused him and he smiled again.

“You laughing at me, son?”

The woman had stopped in front of him.

Stuart was startled. “What? Laughing at you? No, not at all.”

“Because I dinnae like being laughed at, said the woman, shaking a finger at him.

“Of course not.”

She gave him a scowl and moved on. Chastened, Stuart continued his walk…

Items found in mags and such

1. John Stone on Aboriginal policy in April’s Quadrant.

I had planned to say something about this article, which I have read. Former Treasury head Stone is not afraid to put his foot in his mouth, making him a lovey of the anti-PC lobby of course. Shame about the Tasmanian Aborigines though. By Stone’s logic there aren’t any. My nephew is a fake Aborigine too, of course. Really enlightened stuff. But I found myself frustrated when, not for the first time, the Quadrant site looked like this. What is it with the Quadrant site? Does it collapse in a screaming heap if two people try to read it at the same time?

However, after one of those updates arrived from Firefox the site suddenly decided to appear. So now you can read Stone for yourself.