TSP's Top 50 of 2011

It's that time again, when we gather for TSP to hand out the most coveted prize in world music - the David Lee Roth Medal for Song of the Year. A shortlist was compliled from 5 December 2010 to today, and in a year when I struggled to find much new music of any interest just 98 songs were put up for consideration. Is your favourite track missing? Well serves you right for not alerting me to it earlier.

History fans can see the full surviving countdowns from 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Sadly the Wayback Machine is unable to find the full '05 count.

Here's how the Top 5 ended each year;

2005
1. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
2. Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure
3. Goldfrapp - Ooh La La
4. The Killers - Somebody Told Me
5. Bloc Party - Helicopter

2006
1. The Young Knives - Here Comes The Rumor Mill
2. Giant Drag - This Isn’t It
3. Silvia Night - Congratulations
4. Lily Allen - LDN
5. Joey Negro - Make A Move On Me

2007
1. The Hold Steady - Chips Ahoy!
2. New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream
3. The Teenagers - Homecoming
4. Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent
5. Jack Penate - Spit At Stars

2008
1. Lethal Bizzle - The Come Up
2. Neon Neon - Luxury Pool
3. MGMT - Electric Feel
4. Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream
5. Fryars - Olive Eyes

2009
1. N.A.S.A - Spacious Thoughts (featuring Tom Waits and Kool Keith)
2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll
3. Boy Crisis - The Fountain of Youth
4. Bat For Lashes - Daniel
5. Low Fidelity All Stars - The Good Times

2010
1. My Chemical Romance - Bulletproof Heart
2. Goldfrapp - Rocket
3. Lena - Satellite
4. Keane - Stop For A Minute (featuring K'naan)
5. Paul Heaton - Even A Palm Tree

2010 proved to be the most controversial year yet for the countdown. Federal Police agents are still combing the bushes outside of TSP Towers looking for explosive devices and I'm often forced to retreat into a panic room when somebody leaps the fence with a butcher's knife and tries to do me in. So, how may I disappoint you today? Let's find out as we introduce our host for the second consecutive year;


(As always we are legally obliged to point out that the countdown is not actually endorsed anybody called Pete Smith

Also I cbf making these videos open in a new window so right click > open new tab. Unless you're using IE7 then you can swivel).

50. Herzog - Silence
A feedback fest opened by the sample of a football coach yelling at the crowd. That'll do as a start.

49. Beastie Boys - Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win
Fight for your right to scrape into the top 50.

48. Miles Kane - Quicksand
Which is much better than any of the slop off this year's Arctic Monkeys album. 1-0 to the supposed lesser collaborator.

47. Aloe Blacc - Green Lights
Not the last we've heard from him I'd wager. But it is in this countdown. His other big song was already covered last year.
Previous Appearance - #41 in 2010 with I Need A Dollar

46. Mogwai - Mexican Grand Prix
Warning - Has absolutely nothing to do with the race held as a Formula One championship round between 1986 and 1992.

45. Stevie Nicks - Secret Love
Community Service Announcement - The inclusion of this song has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I scream GRILF! every time she comes on TV. But it's true. It's a power ballad, what could I do? And yes, yes I would.

44. Keren Ann - My Name Is Trouble
Every possible chance she is actually mental.

43. Wolf Gang - Where Are You Now
In about 1993 by the sounds of it.

42. Kasabian - La Fee Verte
Previous Appearance - #25 in 2009 with Underdog

41. Boots Electric - Boots Electric Theme
Apparently the bloke from Eagles Of Death Metal is involved. I would rather jam skewers into my eyeballs than ever listen to Eagles Of Death Metal.

40. Wu Tang Clan - Black Diamonds
Listener advisory: They may have done this song about 75 times in the last 20 years. Still works but.

39. The Decemberists - Calamity Song
All Panamanian children hanging off the waist of a dowager etc.. Just your typical Decemberists song really.
Previous Appearance - #9 in 2007 with Oh Valencia

38. Toro Y Moi - New Beat
As 80's as buggery. All hushed male voices over electronic bleeps and blangs. And the last 45 seconds is just some guys saying "Don't forget" while more electro wobbles on in the background. Somewhere Fischerspooner are yelling "OI! Give us our gimmick back".

37. Male Bonding - What's That Scene?
According to YouTube they're a "noise pop duo", which almost caused me to throw them out of the Top 50.

36. Sparrow and the Workshop - Snakes In The Grass

35. Sons & Daughters - Rose Red
I was briefly under the delusion that this lot were from New Zealand, which was going to be as close as you'd get to an Australian act turning up. Then they were from Glasgow so bad luck.

34. The Suzukis - Back At The Factory
Do you like songs that shout at you and end at exactly three minutes, presumably so that they're still eligible for the Eurovision Song Contest? If so you'll like this.

Must have been a loud factory but you'll have to take my word for it considering I can't find a video/audio copy anywhere.

33. Drive-By Truckers - Go Go Boots
The master Southern Rock storytellers tell another one. Nothing they've done since has been as good as the 2001 Southern Rock Opera double album (Release date - September 12. Oh dear, goodbye sales) but this tale of sleaze, infidelity and smalltown gossip comes close enough.

32. Spank Rock - Car Song

31. M83 - Midnight City

30. Bleeding Knees Club - Have Fun
Like that bit in a One Day International when nothing happens for a few overs this is the section of the countdown where I can't be arsed doing a write up for some of the songs...

29. Nero - Fugue State
Practically instrumental. Deal with it.

28. Hank Williams III - Gutter Town
Grandson of the original Hank in "country as buggery release" is hardly the biggest shock you'll ever hear in your life. Ticks the boxes for my shameful love of classic country. Video looks as if it were shot on a mobile and then edited in Windows Movie Maker.

27. A Plastic Rose - Kids Don't Behave Like This
Yes they do, they're all little shits. Alleged to have been released in 2009 but it was re-released this year so under the arcane rules of the David Lee Roth Medal this is still eligible.

26. Tinie Tempah - Written In The Stars
Massive chorus.

25. Database - Vice II
The sort of dance music that French people have a stroke over. Sounds like the soundtrack to a lost Sega Megadrive game.

24. YACHT - Paradise Engineering
Drips with hipsterism and loses the plot as it goes on but have I ever told you this year wasn't much chop for music?

23. Roxette - She's Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
Who doesn't love 80's pop revivalism for a new decade? About seventeen of us. And if this makes you want to garrot yourself you'll be shattered as to what just randomly happened to come up next in the list...

22. The Human League - Sky
Wouldn't have been out of place in their 80's pop heyday. Whether that's a good thing or not is up to you, personally I think it's marvellous. If you have a problem with this I'll meet you in the carpark of Port Melbourne Coles at midnight for a knife fight.

21. Housse De Racket - TGV
If I spoke French I'd probably like this even more.

20. Young Knives - Go To Ground

Former #1 TSP Top 50 act barely scrape into the top 20. We want another Here Comes The Rumor Mill and we want it NOW. One thing I will give them is that the ability to stream the album through YouTube by clicking the video like a menu is a killer concept.
Previous Appearances - #24 in 2006 with The Decision, #19 in 2006 with Loughborough Suicide, #1 in 2006 with Here Comes The Rumor Mill, #23 in 2007 with Terra Firma

19. The Decemberists - This Is Why We Fight

Touch of the Morrissey's about it. Well, if he's not going to do anything good ever again why shouldn't somebody else have a go?

18. Beastie Boys - Lee Majors Come Again

They did 'adult' ruminations, Buddhism and all that. Now this is a return to what they did best, sadly without the accompaniment of a 20 foot high penis on stage "for old times sake".

17. Beady Eye - Four Letter Word

If there were a fire and I could only save one Gallagher brother there's no doubt that I'd leave Liam to fry BUT unfortunately in year's first Brother vs Brother chart battle it's 1-0 to the prospective firewood. This is probably better than anything Oasis has done for years but that's not particularly hard. Sounds more than a bit like one of the lesser tracks off Definitely Maybe.

"Nothing ever lasts forever" he shouts over thrashing guitar. Was he referring to Noel? Do I look like a psychologist to you?

16. The Strokes - Under Cover of Darkness

It's generally accepted (around these parts anyway) that The Strokes disappeared up their own collective blurter somewhere shortly after the second album came out. It's been getting worse ever since, leading to this year's album which was decidedly ordinary in all parts other than this song.

Interviews show that they clearly dislike each other these days so might not be much longer for the world. Remember the good times, remember one of the great debut albums of all time and remember the odd cracking track like this one that came from their later work because in six months it'll all be noodling prog-rock solo stuff that nobody will have any interest in listening to. But.....

15. Kasabian - Turkish Acid Bath (Shelter From The Storm)

If the real Oasis are going to be all split up and shit then their understudies will just have to do. Even features the sort of orchestral flourish that Oasis didn't bother with in between Whatever and when we all stopped listening to them.

It's no Club Foot/Underdog/Fire mind you.

14. Justice - Civilization

Like dance music merged with Iron Maiden. Plenty of talk about beating of a million drums, firing of a million guns etc.. Thumping. Was it a success here? Should have been.

13. Luke Haines - We Are Unusual Men

Only one man could get away with making a concept album about the golden era of English professional wrestling. You or I could do it but it would be shit. In the hands of Haines it's magic. Contains the audio from the unmasking of Kendo Nagasaki. Fun fact - I have a picture of Kendo Nagasaki on my wall.
Previous Appearance - #19 in 2009 with 20th Century Man

12. Wu Tang Clan - Laced Cheeba

I think they did exactly the same thing 27 songs ago, just 27 spots not as good as this.

11. Twin Atlantic - Make A Beast of Myself

Ignore for a second that he has the most Scotch accent since Rab C Nesbitt and wait for it to really kick off. Magic stuff, more please.

10. Adele - Rolling In The Deep

Wait, don't start threatening to murder me yet. I would rather have boiling oil thrown over me than ever listening to any of the other gash songs that she put out this year AND would gladly take every copy of Someone Like You and throw it in the same giant sized landfill that now houses all the unwanted CD singles of Wise Men by James Blunt BUT I still can't help but feel that this was a cracker of a single.

As the first single off the album which would ultimately sell about 20 billion copies off the back of soppy, heartbreak singles it made me think "oh, this is actually quite good. Maybe she's not just the Cockney Duffy or Amy Winehouse without a .010 BAC". But then the rest of the singles came along and the only thing that differentiates here from the other two now is that a) she hasn't ruined her career by starring in a Diet Coke ad and b) she's still alive.

Just like how Lady Gaga has done nothing of interest to me since Poker Face I expect that now she's made millions with watery ballads that Adele will never doing anything that appeals to me ever again.

9. Luke Haines - Inside The Restless Mind Of Rollerball Rocco

It's no wonder that Haines can pull off a gimmick like this, afterall this is the man who got a whole album out of the Baader Meinhof gang. An album which, incidentally, is an absolute solid gold CORKER which you must listen to it night and day as I do.

8. Urge Overkill - Effigy

Mid 90's revivalism is sadly non-existent. Give it a few years. When it does come along and people start clamouring for the hits that they remember from that part of the decade it won't be Hootie & The Blowfish that they'll be calling it'll be Urge Overkill and I can't say I blame them.

This couldn't sound any more 1995 if it tried, and as somebody who owns an Urge Overkill single purchased in 1995 I'm comfortable with that. That this is their first single since that year says it all. It didn't chart, surely nobody expected to but it was a welcome comeback.

Trivia buffs will also be thrilled to learn that this was the first song I shortlisted for the countdown way back in late December 2010.

7. Portugal. The Man - Got It All (This Can't Be Living Now)

Like a non-disco, dance around your handbags, version of Scissor Sisters with some balls about it. They sound as if they're all off their chop. One of the great band names too you must admit, possibly connected to the general off chopness of the entire enterprise.

6. Yuck - Get Away

About as lo-fi as you can get but don't hold that against them. Or the fact that they were all about 15-years-old when it was released. If The Strokes had released this people would have whopped off over it.

5. Calvin Harris and Kelis - Bounce

How to get me to like a modern pop song.
a) Make it sound like 80's Italo Disco and/or the soundtrack to a long forgotten 80's arcade game.

And you're done. Also doesn't hurt that I've been hot for Kelis ever since she stomped down the street and yelled about how much she hated us right now all those years ago.
Previous Appearance - #24 in 2007 with Acceptable In The 80's

4. Dutch Uncles - The Ink

If I'd just seen the video without hearing this song I'd have succumbed to the 10% of my brain which says "I HATE THIS SONG" rather than the rest which has an irrational nature of it. In fact if you've never heard it before don't click on the above, download it, pretend it's a woman singing and enjoy it ten times more.

3. The Strokes - Taken For A Fool

... one last moment of greatness was on the agenda. Forget the dodgy video which seems to indicate that they briefly thought they were MGMT and was probably filmed with the band in separate rooms so they didn't kill each other. This is magic. Would still only just sneak onto Is This It but it tonks everything else they've done since then. If they removed head from clacker and made more tracks like this I'd be thrilled.

2. MEN - Credit Card Babies (Stereogamous Remix)

Usually I wouldn't have a bar of remixes but this is significantly better. Cracking track and political statement about gay couples having kids Key lyric "We got holes, places to stick our poles".

I expect if this was blared out across parliament during the vote on Same Sex Marriage then even Tony Abbott would rise to applaud and possibly crack a semi.

1. REM - Discoverer

It's not a going away present to one of the world's most popular bands (albeit one who were being thumped by the law of diminishing returns for the best part of 20 years) this is legitimately the best thing they've done in years.

Two of the songs off their last album were pretty good, and 2003/2004's Bad Day and Animal were fine songs but the balance of their output this century - and pretty much everything since they committed commercial suicide by releasing E-Bow The Letter as a single (top track but) - is well and truly tipped in negative balance. Ironically the rest of the Collapse Into Now album was a bit naff AND this wasn't even a single. Trust them to be wilfully uncommercial.

It makes absolutely no sense, but then again what REM song ever has? At least now you can understand what they're saying for what it's worth.

Ahh, the old "brief return to form then fold" manoeuvre. At least they'll always have the 2011 David Lee Roth Medal to comfort them. And millions of dollars.
Previous Appearances - #40 in 2008 with Accelerate, #10 in 2008 with Supernatural Superserious

Photobucket Shenanigans part four

It's the series that has slowly been captivating all of Melbourne since April 2010. Where we trawl the archives of my Photobucket account and show the bizarre and downright disturbing images which were saved for future consumption before Facebook, Twitpic, Yfrog etc... came along and ruined it for everybody.

Today we're starting in early 2006. When the world of blogging was taking the world by storm and we were all trying to famewhore ourselves out for that inevitable moment when, as promised, blogging replaced real journalism. If we had been smart we'd have been in a shed somewhere designing YouTube but as the following images will prove we were anything but smart.

This will be the last edition of Photobucket Shenanigans as the use of the system died in the proverbial around 2007 when Facebook gave us a new place to pool photos that nobody else had half an interest in. Vale.

Many of these photos will require a right click > view image to get the full effect. Given that it's taken me 18 months to finish this series it shouldn't come as a surprise that I couldn't be bothered resizing anything. It is all delivered as it was originally uploaded.

2006

Sound advice for all potential employees. Later outlawed in Fair Work Australia.


Quality filth by sub-editors in the days when such things existed.


Almost certainly the greatest album ever made.


Still waiting for Rusty to deliver vengeance


Hard hitting opinions on local football from when I still cared.


Best defecating cat ever

2007

The bathrooms. A Bar Called Barry. Probably the worst restroom in Australia.


My attempt to trademark Supermercado which only failed when they asked for $500. For some reason not posted until three years later.


Somebody else's magic Wikipedia vandalism


One of the great supermarket classified ads. Good luck Jeremy, hope it ended well.


Turns out he was actually quite a prick.


Wither Bell and Biv?


Unfortunate casting moments


The man they called Harismidis. Famed for showing up at half time of local soccer games once it was free to get in then running up and down the touchline shouting instructions at all and sundry.


Quality messag from the local candidate


My poor car, broken into. The fuzz nicked the guy who did it about 20 minutes later and recovered every single piece of stolen property he'd lifted except for the camera pinched from my car. Theory is that it was so shit he just piffed it over a fence somewhere.


The Age make a desperate attempt to sell more than five copies a day by promoting Australia's least amusing comedy character.


I think we can all relate to the ACK man

2008

What everybody needs on Xmas Day.


The frankly baffling graffiti on the bridge outside my then home on Egan Street, Richmond


Maybe the best sports photo ever. Maybe not.


The first recorded plum gag


Cock and Ball Torture Holidays


Nobody ever successfully explained to me why this news story about wine wankers featured a topless woman.


Foul and offensive content slips through the censors at Kardinia Park.


Impossible to explain


A silent protest at them taking my colour printer at work. Got nothing.


The joys of living in Richmond


Grand Final bets that didn't go particularly well


Didn't we all want to make an exception to the Domestic Violence: Australia Says No campaign just for this woman?


Get up for the 1957 Olympics

2009

Kew Junction Dancing Man makes life worthwhile


Poorly thought out promotion


The most contentious name for a greyhound ever


Farce


Drunken bogans are arrested at the races. Still one of the great news shots of all time just for the nork angle.


Sound advice from American Psycho


Jubiliation at beating Freo. It had been a long year.

2010

Newspapers: where sex crimes can be funny.


Alleged bushfire starter and child pornographer in "no mates" shock.


Outright lies by the AFL website

Another contender for greatest sports photo ever.


The Fan Footy tombstone. The icon that means so much to so many.


One of history's great individuals


Nice rack

2011

Even I don't understand this. Art house.


The best banner ever waved at a footy match

Live from Occupy Melbourne (five days late)

It was quite the slow morning last Friday, so when the word went around that the cops were about to steam in and liberate Green Square.. err the City Square.. I went down for a spot of rubbernecking. It's not often you get to see something in person that will be talked about for years, and to be entirely fair I've missed standing on the outskirts of a horse charge since they shut down the National Soccer League.

You try not to take sides, but I was probably going for plod. It was a safe bet, they started red hot favourites against occupiers who'd had a good run while achieving nothing towards altering the global order. They could have stayed until December 2015 and it wouldn't have helped a dot, best head back to the steps of Flinders Street with petitions and street theatre.

There are things worth pinging a tent pole around a major city thoroughfare about but I'm a fairly contented member of the supposed 'other' 99%. I could use easily available credit to buy a motorbike then fall off due to my own stupidity and have the government pay for my rehabilitation plus most of my lost earnings. But I don't want to. I can go to a hospital emergency room with the most frivolous of perceived illnesses and somebody will eventually see me and send me on my way without a $10,000 bill. I somehow managed to score a decent job despite dropping out of Uni the day after enrolling and even if I get sacked through my own incompetence the government will give me scraps until I find something else to do. Pretty good country this.

It's not without flaws but call me when the budget is being taken to with a machete like Greece. When workers are being subject to vicious pay cuts, losing pensions, seeing taxes rise and having their collective bargaining agreements changed on them. That's worth at least yelling about. Maybe even waving about a placard for. Nothing is ever worth sleeping in a tent for. 

I've got sympathy with some of the baffling range of causes on show. $5m a year for CEOs that are simultaneously shuffling half their workforce off to another country is undoubtedly scandalous, but what are you going to do to change it? Sitting in a tent yelling into a megaphone isn't going to make Alan Joyce suddenly shout "Wait! You're right! I'm going to give up $4.9m a year and spend every third Monday helping passengers recover their lost luggage". 

It's not Minsk 1918, we've come too far to turn around and go back to everyone working on the farm. You could nationalise major companies left, right and centre and pay CEOs what you think they're worth, but not via waving pamphlets above your head outside the State Library. Any thought to perhaps mobbing up and making a decent fist at getting into parliament? Would be a fair test of whether the other 99% are even halfway interested or whether it's really about 3% after preferences. 

Here's a free idea, if you hate the Liberal Party then join up en masse and fuck with them from the inside. Imagine the comedy value when their AGM passes a motion to smash the capitalist state? Would be a small price to pay for high comedy. And it's not like you're really funding them either, all the money raised from people joining up en masse would be blown in one TV commercial which they're going to show whether you like them or not. 

Obviously there's no legitimate interest in joining the proper political process other than a few token efforts spearheaded by parties with names so ridiculous that only a handful of people will ever vote for them. You may be quite keen on a socialist alternative, and good luck to you sir or madam, but if you want anyone to vote for you maybe don't be so open about it. Try diversifying and offering some actual solutions instead of anguished wailing and beating of drums. 

As much as they'd throw themselves out of a window to hear it this lot remind me a lot of the distant black sheep cousins of the grey power anti-carbon tax brigade. They're both convinced that somehow we're living in a dictatorship despite that small matter of a parliamentary democracy going around. Forget 99%, I'd like to give them each their own 1%, so they can sit with the rich on the fringes and the other 97% who don't give a toss can put their feet up.

You can't say there wasn't diversity amongst the groups protesting, and no doubt there were some issues on offer than can be dealt with via the existing system. Same sex marriage and improved treatment of asylum seekers are noble causes (from my perspective anyway) so why not turn your attention to lobbying on their behalf? Write letters to the papers, stack the Herald Sun comments section (try not to call them filthy scum even if you sincerely believe it and if in many cases it's true), calling talkback radio etc.. They might not print the first one, they might not print the first hundred but they're going to give in eventually and you'll hit more people through the much hated 'mainstream media' than you will in a million protest marches. 

So, as you can tell I'm not a great believer that protesting solves anything. Maybe if you're planning on overthrowing the government of Tunisia but don't go the 'poor old me' route in a country which is so far from a properly repressive dictatorship that it's almost offensive to go around yelling about it. But sure, have your marches if it works for you. Do your own version of Ray's Tent City in the middle of Melbourne if it makes you feel like you're contributing, but you're not really. Neither are a lot of other people (including yours truly) but we're not pretending to be. 

On that note, back to the Square itself. For a start, the process of clearing it was hardly the freewheeling, swing for the fences, batons 'n gas bonanza that some would like you to think. By the time I arrived they'd put a fence around the square itself so nobody could get in, and pretty soon after they moved the perimeter (which is incidentally also the measurement that Nandos use for their sauces) back so that you couldn't stand on the footpath nearest the square. 

With the crash helmeted fuzz showing up at exactly the same time as the second level of the demilitarized zone went up it was clear that the final countdown had begun and people were about to get moved whether they liked it or not. If that didn't give it away, the deployment of rubber gloves and anti-gob goggles certainly did. 

I thought the police tactics were initially pretty good. Put the fences up so there's only one way to get out, slowly advance on either side (and they were very slow) and force people out the middle. Is that what they call 'kettling'? Either way it was effective in thinning out the numbers inside the square. The only problem was that the people who left under their own steam didn't throw their hands in the air and go home, they just stepped outside and started rucking with rozzers there instead. 

A few were forcibly removed, including the guy who later appeared in a bath on Q&A whining about brutality, but the majority were 'encouraged' out by the full court press and wound up on the other side of the fences. Not that they were well pleased about it though. The first group out decided to sit down in Swanston Street and block the trams. Stick it to the man, those 1% commuters must have been gutted. That didn't last long because the moment a horsey ran at them they were back to the pavement, launching a lengthy standoff and abuse session against a line of officers. 

Eventually, the more and more people who were squeezed out of the square wound up standing around Collins/Swanston along with the bandwagoners who'd shown up late, the abusive chorus watching from the elevated ground just up Collins St, schoolkids having the time of their life and slack-jawed yokels like me who had just come to see a bit of tension. 

By this point so many onlookers had turned up that hard to tell who was there to protest and who was there just to take action footage on their phone. As the numbers inside the square thinned to just a handful, a second attempt by the displaced masses at taking the Collins/Swanston intersection was repelled by a cop baton charge. Didn't really help as by now there were too many of them and it only temporarily moved them back. Just as they were regrouping for another shot at it the Battle of Outside Starbucks kicked off inside the square and everyone's focus turned there instead. 

According to the record of my tweets from the scene it was almost two hours between the start of the kettle and the real wild scenes kicked off. More than enough time to leave if you felt that it was going to get dangerous, and if you didn't you were either in denial or dying for it to go off so that the cops came out of it looking bad. There was certainly ample opportunity to remove children, so if the pictures of the mother having a nervous breakdown shielding her kid from the cops was taken during the final battle then she's clearly a muppet who needs her head examined. 

By the time the cops moved in properly the numbers inside the square were down to about five deep between the two lines of coppers. If you were still there then there's no doubt that you knew what was coming. Some of them were loving it, as much as they'd claim otherwise. If the police turned up at 3am and tear gassed the place I'd grant you it was an over the top response. I'll also concede that the action outside wouldn't have happened if they'd left the people inside alone but that's chicken and the egg stuff. No doubt too that some of the cops did go over the top, the guy who leant over the front row of protesters to biff somebody in the face amongst them, but the good news is that every man and their dog was taking footage of it so I'm sure we'll all get a good look at the shocking scenes eventually. 

But let's draw a line between 'brutality' and brutality. Jumping across a line of people to punch them in the face is brutality, smacking shit out of somebody with a baton when they're trying to get away is brutality. Dragging somebody along the ground because they've dropped to the floor sandbagging is not brutality. That's self-inflicted. Stand up and walk out and you'll be fine, fall to the fall like a wailing banshee and you'll get dragged. Quite simple. Run at or spit towards a cop holding a baton and there's a fair chance you'll get belted with it. 

From there it was quite your good old fashioned Pyrrhic victory, the square was cleared and the cleaners moved in to mop it up but Swanston Street was necked for the rest of the day, much of Saturday and the cops have had to occupy the square themselves since to make sure people don't roll straight back in. And it gave people who didn't give a toss days earlier the chance to indulge in their "we hate the cops, we hate government, we hate everything" whinging. 

With the square unoccupied and then reoccupied straight away again the battle shifted to a three front smackdown with action in the intersection, outside EB Games and outside the square itself. Eventually after both sides pushed and shoved each other a bit it settled into a stalemate and I finally gave up. To be honest it was starting to get a bit sad watching obviously desperate people tearing into lines of cops, walking up and down shouting their little hearts out for no effect. 

Did they really need to move people on? Of course not, they could have left them there forever if they'd really wanted to. "Why didn't they just leave them alone? They would have gone home eventually" has had a few runs since Friday's debacle. Really? You don't think that with only a couple of hundred people needed to man to the square at any given time that they wouldn't have gotten smart and started working in shifts? They'd be there in six months at that rate. "What's wrong with that?" you may scream - although chances are if you've read this far you'd probably rather the fuzz had opened up on them with AK-47's. Apart from the directly affected businesses there wasn't really any harm being done, but we're all given instructions that we're not keen on in this life and most of us find it fairly easy to follow them. 

They were given fair warning instead of suffering a surprise attack, the tactics initially adopted gave them almost two hours to clear off it they didn't want to risk the chance of being on the end of some of their beloved brutality and once dispersed they took the decision to hang around and risk being charged by horses, batons, etc... So, tactical win (in the square at least) for the cops, propaganda win for the Occupy Melbourne organisers and let the good times roll when the Queen turns up tomorrow. Good luck getting within three suburbs of her if you're intending to have a crack at throwing yourself in front of the Royal Tram.

Photobucket Shenanigans - Part Three

The longest running saga in blogging history continues. Every single post from now that isn't a countdown of some variety will be a continuing trawl through the eight years of my Photobucket account. We're somewhere around early 2005 at the moment.


The Fabulous Rougueu Brothers and Jimmy Hart in "greatest photo ever"


Remember when "blogging" was the next big thing? Before the Herald Sun adopted the title for their grubby live chats with shit journalists? It was a great era rich with hope of a new world. I offered to let rabid fans come and live in TSP Towers - Docklands edition and pay for the glory of living my lifestyle. Surprisingly nobody took the offer up.


Disgraceful but apt scenes after the final siren. Round 20, 2005.


The random flash of South Korea beating Italy from the middle of the music video for Someday by The Strokes.


Great moments in letter writing the day after Australia qualified for the '06 World Cup.


Die scum.


I'm not sure why I created this t-shirt design. Buy it anyway.


Unfortunately the image had to be taken from microfilm as the payoff to a long running joke, but here's Rachel McQuillan sticking her racquet where the sun don't shine.


The product that does what it says on the can


See, there was this ad in England where the annoying child would bounce out as somebody was about to get on the gear and start questioning them. I couldn't find a copy of it anywhere - nor can I now - but here's one of their other classics.



How appropriate, you fight like a cow


MS Paint tells the story of another Telstra failure


Greatest graffiti ever. Altona Beach - 3.30am.


Heather Mills-McCartney makes her advertising debut.


Incredibly retrospectively wrong ad from the early 1990's


FUCKING COP THAT. One of the great moments of my life.


I guess Beazley said something about drugs? Maybe something about what his colleagues were on for re-electing him so many times.

See you for another installment of this the next time I have to open Photobucket to look for an old picture.