Saturday, September 06, 2008

Storming the election booths

As election day snuck up on me like a lingering fart in a supermarket aisle, all I could think about was the insidious pain that continues to gather strength in my arthritic wrist.

Could I be feeling sympathy pains for Carps in my carpal region? Do I have a wrist that predicts political changes, just like some people can tell when rain is on the way?

I'm an outcast here in leafy Floreat. A battered man clinging to the bloated corpse of Brian Burke, desperately trying to stay afloat in a cruel sea of neo conservatism. The sharks are circling, taking sly snaps at mein host's greying flesh, waiting for me to lose my grip and sink below...

The local ALP candidate is hopelessly outgunned. There's no champagne on ice. In fact he's too young to drink - we hear he'll be showing his face at the local polling station once the soccer final is over. Another 10 years and the boy might be ready to step into the fray in a seat like Kingsley, where grinning ex-Brits are gathered around sausage sizzles, whinging about daylight saving and calling for graffiti vandals to be whipped in public.

Another handful of Voltarin and what the hell, let's wash it down with a slug of the Black Douglas the wife saves for Irish Coffee nights. It's going to be a long day and as I heard Shaun McManus say at a breakfast yesterday, 'that light at the end of the tunnel could well be the 7.35 to Fremantle.'

Time to head back to The Worst of Perth live election coverage...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perth's polling booths are a great place to hang - lots of cheap / free food and a real festival atmosphere!

David Cohen said...

apologies to WB Yeats…

Turning and turning in an early gyre
The Premier cannot hear the punters;
Things fall apart; Labor’s Right cannot hold;
A hung Parly is loosed upon the world,
The one-vote, one-value tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of bongs is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Put up sites about Troy Buswell.
Surely some revolution is at hand;
Surely the Farmer Coming is at hand.
The Farmer Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Boondi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the Wheatbelt
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A lisp blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant metro birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That seven years of Labor luvvies
Were vexed to nightmare by a Carping cradle,
And what yellowcaked beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards West Perth to be born?

Isaak said...

Mr Cookster,

Just wanted to thank you for your blog, I've been 'commuting' between South America, New York and London and have lost track with a strong passion of mine - Politics, and in particular within my home state of WA. Thanks for your insights!!! :)

Cheers, Isaak