The Blather

 Didyahavagoodone? 

  We
sure did — me, the partner and sprogs. Made all the right moves and
spent the preceding period stretched out like a lizard drinking. On a
beach no less. Happy little vegemites doing our all to catch the rays of the sun  through our 15+ slop  and all the slip and slap we could muster.

The world could have gone to the dogs as far as we were concerned.

03:17 mp3

Pray cast your eye across the street. Our mutual friend with the cap. Going down to lay a little something on the TAB unless I'm very much mistaken. I have often seen you chatting with him. And I'll bet you a dollar he talks about the government because there's nothing else he can talk about. Is he a personal friend? 

No. I would call him an acquaintance. 

Well, I am real glad to hear that, because I'd advise you to make it your business to be on the other side of the street whenever you see him approaching. 

 Is that so?

 

Why, yes. He's not the simple man he makes himself out to be. Not on your nelly, mate. That acquaintance of yours is a One Nation supporter! 

He's not, is he?

02:35  Mp3

There is a funny idea abroad (by which I mean, of course, in this dry brown land in which we all do dwell) that there exists a minor figure of such truthful grit that every attribute of ordinariness is congealed within their being.

This entity, I am led to believe, is now thought to be putting aside a characteristic reticence and a mug of tea, throwing the Akubra into the ring and stepping flat-footed into the political arena.

Their mission? To wake up Australia.

As soon as I heard that such a quintessential creature was out and  about, I went to great pains to locate it.

Duration: 03:55   mp3 

 

My first podcasting experiments were way back in the day. Like 2004! How time --and technology--flies.

Now that I'm back at the microphone my audio musings and such can now be embraced on your mobile phone via a podcast player on your phone or other mobile device.

Get it on and listen up.  
I'm also revived on iTunes  
As well as my old 'station'  
and on Podbeam itself.

So you can follow my voice -- aka 'The Blather' -- and I, no matter where your ears are.
If you want there's Twitter too and  on facebook

But hey! App players are great ...I will always be with you.
Lend me your ears!.

Alan Broughton is a biological agriculture researcher and organic farming teacher based in Eastern Victoria. He has had extensive experience in farm management and setup both here in Australia and overseas.
I had a chance to discuss with him some of the assumptions being made about livestock as climate change drivers and how a new approach to grazing animals can impact on the sustainable ecology of agriculture.

[This interview was recorded in March, 2016]

(Duration:29.01 — 31.1MB)  mp3.

For more information visit The Soil Alliance

Further Reading

Ruminants and methane: Not the fault of the animals by Alan Broughton
Veggie is the most low-carbon diet, right? Well, it depends where y...

It is a tragic irony of Australian existence that a country -- a continent -- the size of Europe can be so much the same shore to shining shore.
Among its 23 million peoples there is seemingly very little difference one person from the other.

We speak the same language  deploying the same accents. Follow the same sports. Watch the same TV channels.

We are Rupert Murdoch’s play things. Hell! he’s one of ours. Local boy makes good.

The most monopolized media networks in the western world make sure that the political debate doesn't drift too far to the left..

We may have a national broadcaster -- modeled on the BBC -- but that too is very much under threat today.

In this mix is the long standing national expectation that this is indeed ‘the lucky country’. Aside from a comparatively buoyant economy sustained by the boom in mining and mineral prices, we have not known civil war, famine, political cataclysm, invasion or relentlessly bad cricket scores.

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Studs Terkel 's great book of radio interviews -- Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do   --  has been around for 40 years.

Its  impact has been huge because it re-invented oral history by celebrating everyday labour and elevating everyone's working life to a shared collective experience we all must, in our own way, negotiate.

Inspired so many years ago by Terkel, The Blather -- instead of pursuing  celebrity chit chat (not that the big whigs would talk to us) -- will occasionally share interviews with folk talking about their lives or their workaday week.

'Vox Pop' refers to the  Latin proverb, Vox populi, vox Dei which translates as  "The voice of the people [is] the voice of God".

Since no one else listens to us peeps nowadays, maybe The Blather should.

The first Blather VOX POP is a chat with Kyle, a geriatric nurse.

(Duration: 11:41 — 12.6 MB) mp3

The Reserve Bank in conjunction with the federal Treasury is making arrangements for turning the whole country into a limited liability company. 

And lucky you:every Australian citizen will be offered shares in the float. The new enterprise will take over the country as a going concern, together with all available assets, pre-existing good will, gold reserves and debenture stocks.

This novel initiative is a logical consequence of the currently very popular trend towards privatisation. 

We're fast-tracking it, that's all. 

The formation of Terra Australis Proprietary Limited and its listing on the nation's stock exchanges is intended to shore up the local share market at a time when investors could do with an injection of confidence.

The present zigging and zagging of the All Ordinaries does no-one any good. Your everyday, run-of-the-mill Aussie battler-type person could do without such uncertainty.

Furthermore, the overbearing pressure of state debt will be a thing of the past. This way we settle up and wipe the slate clean in one swoop without having  to  put up with all this relentless  year in year out budget rigmarole.

Every year the same ole same ole…

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GOOD NEWS! I have survived another year. The smiling dial that marks me out has not changed one smidgin in yonks. I'm ageless, that's what I am. I'm still the same bloke I was way back when ; still my dear old mother's son, the crème de la crème of the Highett Rileys in the prime of his wonderful life.

How can this be, you may ask. Surely one day he must be touched by cruel time?

My resilience from the toll life levies rests on a little-known feature of my existence: I'm the second son of God.

(Duration: 2:45 — 3.0MB) mp3

Music: Hopeful Ambience -- Richard Culver September 9th, 2013 (FreeSound)