Clarke and Dawe

The empty hospital

How to run a hospital

Yes Sir Humphrey

People do have funny ideas about the civil service. We’re just here to help formulate and implement your policies.

— Sir Humphrey Appleby (@YesSirHumphrey) January 7, 2021

Yes Sir Humphrey

Yes, it was our policy not to have a policy.

— Sir Humphrey Appleby (@YesSirHumphrey) January 10, 2021

Yes Sir Humphrey

The first rule of politics: never believe anything until it's been officially denied.

— Sir Humphrey Appleby (@YesSirHumphrey) January 9, 2021

Yes Sir Humphrey

Politicians like to panic. They need activity. It's their substitute for achievement.

— Sir Humphrey Appleby (@YesSirHumphrey) January 8, 2021

Yes Sir Humphrey

In my experience Ministers don't think. They never stopped to think, even if they possessed the basic intelligence necessary for thought – which several of them did not.

— Sir Humphrey Appleby (@YesSirHumphrey) January 7, 2021

Yes Sir Humphrey

If there had been investigations, which there haven't, or not necessarily, or I'm not at liberty to say whether there have, there would have been a project team which, had it existed, on which I cannot comment, would now have been disbanded, if it had existed.

— Sir Humphrey Appleby (@YesSirHumphrey) January 3, 2021

Yes Sir Humphrey

The public doesn’t know anything about wasting government money. We're the experts!

— Sir Humphrey Appleby (@YesSirHumphrey) January 2, 2021

Dog thoughts

we are approaching the time of year. when humans look back. and think about. what they could have done better. not me though. i was perfect

— Thoughts of Dog® (@dog_feelings) December 17, 2020

Great Little Blue Penguin race

Andrew Cotter of Olive and Mabel fame, commentates Phillip Island’s little blue pneguin’s homecoming race:

Olive and Mabel sporting archives

Olive and Mabel company meeting

Olive and Mabel walk of shame

Game of Bones

Eleven days before Christmas

Twelve days before Christmas my farmer said to me, “If the wind keeps up the lucerne should be fit by mid-afternoon and we’ll start making hay so there could be a few extra men for tea.”

Eleven days before Christmas my farmer said to me, “I have to go through to a sale in Central today. I haven’t forgotten the school concert and I should be back in time, but if I’m late you’ll have to go without me.”

12 days before Christmas

Twelve days before Christmas my farmer said to me, “If the wind keeps up the lucerne should be fit by mid-afternoon and we’ll start making hay so there could be a few extra men for tea.”

(Yes you might have read this before, either in the ODT where it first appeared many Christmases ago, or here at least once in the past. Why post it again? A friend who came to the Rotary Christmas dinner on Wednesday said someone had read this out at a lunch a few days earlier and most people hadn’t heard it before. It’s probable a lot of readers are in that position too so I decided to post it again).

The most courageous thing

Dame Edna Everage on Parkinson