The Perth Quiz Challenge

It occurred to me the other day that if I were running a quiz night here in Perth I would not be able to resist the temptation to irritate everyone by including a round of questions about the city itself.

To prepare for this eventuality I have devised 10 questions that can be shoved into any quiz night you might be thinking about organising, and that you can challenge yourself with right now, should that be your idea of an enjoyable time.

(Answers supplied at the end)

1: The Perth CBD is located on the country of which Aboriginal nation? For an extra point, what is the indigenous name for Perth?

2: The natural spring at the foot of Mount Eliza is named after who?

3: What is the oldest building still standing in the Perth CBD?

4: What is the indigenous name for the Swan River?

5: In April 1993 Gary Hayes broke into the Irwin Barracks at Karrakatta and did what?

6: Why is Perth called “The City of Lights”?

7: What two cities rival Perth for the title of most isolated major city in the world?

8: In 1979 a series of plaques commemorating prominent Western Australians were placed along St George’s Terrace. Who’s plaque was removed in 2014?

9: What year did the Narrows Bridge open? For a bonus point what was it originally planned to be called?

10: The postcode 6161 covers what location?

Ready for the answers?

1: Perth is on the land of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation. 1 point for ‘Whadjuk’ or ‘Whadjuk Noongar’. Half a point for just ‘Noongar’. The indigenous name for Perth is Boorloo.

2: The spring is named after Governor Sir Edward Kennedy. 1 point for any mention of Kennedy, unless they clearly meant President Kennedy which gets no points!

3: The oldest building in the CBD is the Old Court House in Stirling Gardens.

4: The indigenous name for the Swan River is Derbarl Yerrigan. Any spelling that is clearly meant to be ‘Derbarl Yerrigan’ is acceptable.

5: In April 1993 Gary Hayes stole an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC). An APC is not a tank but we’ll be nice and accept ‘he stole a tank’ as correct.

6: Perth is “The City of Light” because everyone left their lights on in 1962 for orbiting American astronaut John Glenn. As long as they get this story broadly right they get a point.

7: Honolulu and Auckland rival Perth’s claim to be the world’s most isolated major city. Half a point for each one.

8: Rolf Harris’s plaque was removed in 2014.

9: The Narrows Bridge was opened in 1959. For the bonus point it was planned to be called “The Golden West” bridge.

10: 6161 is the postcode of Rottnest Island.

There you go. How did you do?

Hypocrisy

When dealing with the political Right one should always remember that Conservatives don’t regard hypocrisy as a vice.

Conservatism is based on inherent hierarchies – the idea that some people, ideas and things are intrinsically and unchangeably better than other people, ideas and things. As such it’s only natural and correct that different standards and different rules should apply to different objects in the hierarchy.

The result is that criticising the Right for inconsistent principals and special exceptions simply doesn’t work. What we on the Left consider appalling hypocrisy, they consider simple and obvious common sense. Complaining and protesting about it is – to them – as ridiculous as complaining and protesting about the sky being blue. It does nothing to shame them or convince them to change their ways – rather it makes us look like idiots.

So fight against the hypocrisy of the Right (and the Left when it occurs – which it regularly does) with everything you have, but don’t waste your energy trying to shame them into stopping it.

Evil. Science. Magic. Buddies

  • Evil Science and Magic Buddies
  • Science Evil and Magic Buddies
  • Buddy Magic and Evil Science
  • Magic Evil and Buddy Science
  • Evil Magic and Buddy Science
  • Buddy Science and Evil Magic
  • Evil Buddies and Science Magic
  • Evil Science and Buddy Magic
  • Magic Science and Evil Buddies
  • Magic Evil and Science Buddies
  • Evil Magic and Science Buddies
  • Buddy Evil and Science Magic
  • Science Buddies and Magic Evil
  • Magic Buddies and Evil Science
  • Buddy Magic and Science Evil
  • Magic Science and Buddy Evil
  • Science Magic and Evil Buddies
  • Science Evil and Buddy Magic
  • Magic Buddies and Science Evil
  • Science Buddies and Evil Magic
  • Buddy Science and Magic Evil
  • Buddy Evil and Magic Science
  • Evil Buddies and Magic Science
  • Science Magic and Buddy Evil

I hope this has been enlightening

Eheu Means “Oh No”

Being the kind of self-righteous snob who doesn’t consume a lot of commercial media it can sometimes happen that absolutely fantastic and hugely successful songs entirely pass me by, only for me to randomly stumble over them well after they’ve been moved into the realm of old.

For instance back in 2023 a YouTube playlist threw up Walk the Moon’s Shut Up and Dance. I’d somehow missed this absolute banger for almost a decade and had to resist the urge to run up to everyone I saw shouting “HAVE YOU HEARD THIS SONG!? YOU HAVE TO HEAR THIS SONG!!” when they’d almost certainly heard the song so much back in 2014 that they’d be happy never to be reminded of it again.

Well it’s happened again this week, with a little ditty named Pompeii by a little known British group named Bastille…

Now I wasn’t completely unaware of this track thanks to the legendary Important Videos YouTube playlist which included this gem…

…but it’s still kind of remarkable that such an amazing song has passed me by for (in this case) over a decade!

Did you know that the chant that features throughout the song is actually Latin? And that the line and the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love is a reference to the earthquake of AD 62 that severely damaged Pompeii and Herculaneum 17 years before the eruption that destroyed them? Well I do now, and my life is unmeasurably improved by that fact!

There’s also a Latin version – although the singer (one Heleen Uytterhoeven) appears to have missed the memo about eheu meaning “oh no”, “alas” or “oh crap”. Nonetheless it’s a great cover!

I wonder what hit ancient songs I’ll stumble over next?

He Gets Everywhere

Andrew Eldritch pops up in the most unexpected places. From the Wikipedia article on Numbers Stations…

In the British television spy drama Spooks episode “Nuclear Strike”, a Russian sleeper agent is awoken by a numbers station broadcast to detonate a nuclear suitcase bomb in central London. The radio broadcast states in Russian, “2.5.0.0.2.5, Finland Red, Egypt White, It is twice blest, It is twice blest, rain from heaven, rain from heaven.”

What’s to be done about that?

Music

After agonising over it for weeks I eventually decided to simply jump in and vote for the first 10 tracks I thought of for the Triple J Hottest 100 of Australian Songs. This worked pretty well, except for the realisation a few days later than I’d left out Wide Open Road – a sin so grievous I expect to be asked to return my Western Australian citizenship at any moment.

In any case, here’s how I went…

Yes, it’s pretty old stuff but I am old and someone has to stand up for the classics.

Here is a clickable list for those who like that kind of thing

(As much as I love Long Loud Hours it probably would have been shuffled out to make room for the Triffids if I’d been thinking straight).

In addition to the Hottest 100 there are a few songs that have really caught my ear lately. First up, Shy Girl by Haute and Freddy. I have no idea who these people are, but they’ve come up with something incredibly 80s sounding in this, the Year of Our Lord 2025, and I’m 100% there for it.

Secondly is this effort by G Flip. I’ve always through G Flip is cool, but their music has never really done that much for me – Disco Cowgirl though grabbed me from the very first time I heard it. The acapella bit followed by the key change at 2:30 is clichéd as hell, but it works so well!!

And finally a surprising blast from the past. I’ve always been a Florence and the Machine fan (not least because Florence Welsh is clearly some kind of ethereal goddess from the realm of the Fae) and I’ve known of Shake it Out ever since it first came out back in 2011, but I’d only ever heard some kind of chopped down radio edit, and never heard it before through headphones. The full version happened to pop up on my playlist at work and it just about blew my eyes out my head! It was like a goddamn spiritual experience! Honestly, you could found a religion on that song! OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO!! OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO-OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO-WOO!! OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO!! OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO-OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO-WOO!! TAKE ME NOW FLORENCE!!

Ahem. Sorry about that. Suffice to say I quite enjoyed it.

So, it’ll be interesting to see if any of my choices end up in the countdown. Roll on the 26th!

For Each A Road

(I’ve been avoiding blogging because I’m in the middle of hauling this antiquated pile of code across to a new server and adding content complicates matters, but what the hell. I refuse to be silenced! Even by my own common sense.)

When I was a kid something nasty happened to me. Not terribly nasty by world standards – in fact a normal person would have completely shrugged it off in a couple of days. But to a naive, overly sheltered, undiagnosed autistic kid it was devastating. I don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that it gave me PTSD. It broke me badly and left me with fears and insecurities that I’ve lived with for over 35 years.

Except I woke up on Monday last week, and they were gone. Vanished. Evaporated. Disintegrated. They’ve run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. They are an ex-terror.

Maybe years of therapy have actually worked? Or is it that getting older makes you more content with life thing?

It’s weird, but probably good?

I guess we’ll see what happens next.

Things I Want to Buy

This is a list of things I would like to buy. It’s mostly just for my own benefit, but if anyone wants to use it as a gift guide, then feel free!

Naturally I shall add to this over time.

(Also some of this stuff is so ludicrously expensive that I shall never be able to acquire it. C’est la vie!)

INANE LUXURIES
A piece of Mammoth Ivory
A flanged button australite
Weta Workshop Minas Morgul Environment
<brian_blessed>A CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT CARRIER!!</brian_blessed>

GENERAL STUFF
Large hot-wire foam cutter
Record player
A second monitor for my PC
A hard drive adaptor thingy I know what I mean damnit!

BOOKS
Iron Council – China Miéville
Interceptor City – Dan Abnett
The Infinite and the Divine – Robert Rath

GAME BOOKS
The Silver Bayonet – Joseph A McCullough
Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying
Rivers of London the RPG

GAMES
Metro 2033 Board Game
Fallout Board Game – New California Expansion

GENERAL NERDERY
Warhammer Old World Cathyan Sentinel
Horus Heresy Saturnine Praetor
Saturnine-pattern Terminator

FURNITURE
IKEA Nordli Top and plinth, white, 40 x 47cm
IKEA Nordli Modular chest of 2 drawers, white, 40 x 45cm (x3)

Gladiator Song

For fifteen pennies and a box of matches,
He’ll tell you about the things he catches,
Up in the rafters,
Down in the basement,
Running to the window sill to open up the casement,

Leaping high above the daily drama,
Only stopping for a Swedish Llama,
Quick with a jab,
Then with a cut,
Slamming all the windows shut,

You can’t tell exactly what he’s going to do,
Asking everybody for a light except for you,
Fifteen pennies and some matches from Peru,
If you doubt, call it out, with a shout!

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