Tossed from the Horns of a Dilemma

Melissa, glammed up for publicity shot?

I love a bit of pedantry. Older now, I love to muss with language, many do.

Melissa Craddick mussed with her friends, erstwhile investors. As we say Down Under, “Crikey, I reckon they’ve done their dough.”

Melissas’s friends. or investors, or marks

Looks like Melissa went for a dip off of the beaches round her home at Dover Heights.

Darn nice spot!

Gorgeous Dover Heights, a decent swan dive to get a refreshing swim!

In The Horns of a Dilemma! – The Hobart Chinaman (wordpress.com) the distressing tale of the missing Melissa Craddick was retold.

Breathlessly we read an update : More human remains wash ashore near where Melissa Caddick’s foot found (msn.com)

Holy Moley, thehobartchinaman has admitted to a prurient unhealthy obsession with this case, but more remains NEAR where Melissa’s ‘foot in boot’ was found, sends me into a frenzy.

Best read the article. I’m imagining remains being found some couple of hundred metres up the beach, maybe a kilometre away, after all they’re reported to have “wash[ed] ashore near where…”

I look at the map of coastal New South Wales. The foot was found about three hundred kilometres south of Sydney,

The other remains 150 kilometres north of the foot.

What? 150 km away? In which universe is that near? Perhaps on a scale of here to the moon, or Mars.

And it’s reported that the remains were a large piece of stomach flesh which included a belly button.”

A nice shot of fresh stomach flesh, with belly button.

The pedantic, hobartchinaman categorises this “as being a little bit too much information.”

On the good/bad taste margin, this reporting has swerved severely across into bad taste territory.

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The Horns of a Dilemma!

Harry worked in the Colonial Sugar Refineries in Fiji as an engineer. He lost his left index and middle fingers in an accident.

As young engineers, at the Concord Plaster Mill, yearly we made Christmas plaster casts of for our colleagues. Bill Hart, the Safety Officer, a cast and painted safety boot, Greg Neil, a plaster Heart Ice Cream, bagged, with a bite taken out.

We wrestled and debated, but not for long, whether a cast index and middle finger would make a suitable tie pin for Harry.

It did.

But those tortured few minutes, some forty years ago came back to mind as I sat to write today.

Where is the boundary between good and bad taste?

After forty years clarity dawns. So here goes!

Locally in Oz last October, Melissa Caddick allegedly ‘co-mingled’ investors’ funds with her own to buy luxury goods and then falsified financial documents – ABC News

Friends, this has been a nice little hit down under.

This month, a severed foot in a trainer, washes ashore a few hundred kilometres away at a balmy seaside resort?

Was it a Nike?

Identified by decomposed foot DNA, compared to Melissas’s toothbrush, a positive ID was made.

Frankly, I cant remember the last time I cleaned my feet with my toothbrush!

Since her disappearance, nobody had a clue of her whereabouts! Cops reckon she was still alive, hiding from the wrath of the law.

Mournful cops, with pips on their epaulettes, appealing for her to come on home, face the music and fess up.

Mysterious as her disappearance was, had Melissa gone running around to her local orthopod, to have surgery for foot removal, so as to be less identifiable in the able bodied community?

I reckon the jury is still out on her disappearance. Seems unlikely to me that Melissa would be suffering regret for her alleged financial misdeeds. Misappropriated funds/assets were held in her personal name and not in the name of the investment company she told her mates she was putting their funds into.

I found the mix of malfeasance, brand names and pathos, too rich not to mine.

And had cause to reflect on what I’d learnt all those years ago about the good/bad taste boundary.

Always veer just on the side of bad

The Letter

I imagined the letter. More thoughtful than the email.
Things I wanted to say that can best be conveyed in a letter.
When written, I tri folded the page, to fit neatly the prestamped envelope. The edges weren’t squarely aligned.
I refolded, making unsightly double creases.
I missed the helpful tick marks on the edges of public service A4 to ensure precise presentation of letters to complainants.
However, I don’t miss the public service.

Sorry?

I read a blog ’bout ‘saying sorry,’

and being older, began to worry.

The premise seemed to be just that,

More dire than if I’d killed your cat.

But no, the objection was being made

To inadvertently bumping, elbow raised.

When getting out of elevator,

As casual as “I’ll see ya later.”

The bumper began to question why,

They should seek forgiveness for passing by.

Wondering why this should be so,

Being humbled by an inadvertent blow.

Monkey’s can’t, I’m sure you’ve guessed

Though many tried to pass sorry test.

But I demur, its not that I see,

Simply put, it’s common courtesy.

Deny, Discredit, Disinform, Diffuse and Defray – a reprise from 2014

The following post was written almost seven years ago, before the former president walked down the escalator to announce his candidacy. He showed how to manipulate these five D’s, but his albatross was he could not control the one guy at the toggle. So, he often gets in his own way and the way of […]

Deny, Discredit, Disinform, Diffuse and Defray – a reprise from 2014