Hello and welcome Ukraine, The Netherlands, the Phillipines, and France...and to all other availees of this 'ere blog...today was going to be the ALDI/Show Grounds Sale stuff...(finally-Ed)...absolutely...but instead we're doing this More Mental Stuff...(noooooo-Ed)...settle, just after a short trip to the Dead Joke Zoneonononone...and it's straight into the DJZ because I realise that, due to some recent circumstance beyond my control, some recent posts might possibly have potentially perhaps not lived up to my usual lofty standards, may have lost a bit of their usual biting wit and sparkling reparteé...(everything you say 'bites' as far as I'm concerned...hang on, 'reparteé'?...is that me you mean?-Ed)...no, I'm talking to the other confected literary device standing next to you...(who me?-IB)...ooo, no no, sorry Inner Bastard, I was being sarcastic to Ed...(sarcastic this dickhead...(insert here the sound of a booted boney thing on the end of a leg connecting to a collection of soft dangly objects in one's trousers)...do not waste my time again-IB)...wheez, thank you sir, wheez...(ahahaaa-Ed)...
The DJZ: has in many ways been forced on me by my channel-surfing habits and thusly includes a Very Rude Joke Zone because all I did was hear it as said...you have been warned...and you will be warned again...but first, another still quite rude example, and why the shreck not? they constantly drop the f-bomb on mainstream TV shizzle like Mad As Hell (ABC TV)...channel-surfing has exposed me to the series of movies where Hairy Pothead the Stoned Philosopher and his little pals Hermange Groiner and Bong Wheezily cut crook all over the shop whilst that creepy old wizard Elvis Fumblewhore leers at them...(and why does that dude keep gettin' them up to his room at night?-Ed)...dude, and of course not forgetting the house elves Wranglesnatch and Krumpledskroteskin...
And the wizardy wunderkind's latest efforts have included suffering the Shame of Secretions, then taking on the Gobbler of Fur...(is that some evil Lesbian witch or one of those rabid, flea-bitten, rabbit-eating, flying Hippogriff thingies that their half-giant mate Antrid keeps as pets-Ed)...errr, I dunno'...and most recently, dealin' with The Ass-Grabbin' Pensioner...(and back to the DJZ, where these are all of course intellectually hilarious manipulations of some popular book/film titles, intellectually hilarious material carefully masked as purile schoolboy 'punning' very much in homage of the mighty Monty Python-Ed)...um, yeah, that's what it is, homaging MP.......do you think they bought that?...(no, not really-Ed)...
Very Rude Joke Zone: is very much in the same vein...(snigger-Ed)...wait for it, wait for it...(sorry-Ed)...in the same 'ball park' as the famous footage of the USofA TV anchorwoman whom was cheerfully berating the weatherman about the no-show of the snowy blizzard...(most are, snowy, blizzards that is-Ed)...that he had apparently predicted/forecast the evening before...she turns to him and politely asks re the snow, "where's that 8 inches you promised me last night?"...(classic-Ed)...which caused appropriate sniggering chaos amongst the several people (3 + her?) on screen...check this out on the Interweb...and so it came to pass...
Second Rudity Warning: so it came to pass that I was recently channel-surfing and happened upon an Aussie woman's golf tournament (ABC/SBS/?) where-upon a young lady was jumping up and down gently as only metres away her ball hung right on the edge of the hole, defying gravity...(as they do, the bastards!-Ed)...indeed, but she was joking around and I'm sure we've all been there, etc, but it gave me reason to pause on that channel...and then it happened...from the silence came the male commentators observation that, and you have been warned, "...she's shaved the hole repeatedly during this tournament...", followed by an extended embarrassed silence.........(kind of like now?-Ed).........indeed........but it's what the dude said...deadset, not a word of a lie, clicked onto silence and a jumpy putterer, to be literally floored by the depilatory innuendo of the commentary...(I gotta' admit, that's bloody funny-Ed)...
OK, enough poor attempts at humour and into some news...had been going to make copious witty quips about what a beautiful day it has been here, and then there was some shooting away over yonder over at the Gun Club, and I was going to make further hilarity about the beauty of the day and the soothing sound of gunfire, etc, but it immediately occurred to me the several reports/interviews I've seen/heard recently coming from Ukraine, where-in people are being interviewed in suburbia whilst in the distance can be heard occasional sounds of artillery and small arms fire...and that's a war and people are being killed and that reality just sucked the humour straight outta' me...
As did hearing Foreign Minister Julie Bishop bemoaning the destruction of priceless historical artifacts in Iraq...whilst it's undoubtedly a terrible loss, I couldn't help wondering about some of the Cultural sites and/or artifacts that have been destroyed in Australia in the last 200 years of Euro/Asian occupation, and whether Ms Bishop considers the appalling treatment of Aboriginal heritage to be as "barbaric"...whatevs, whether you look at the Iraq destruction or the local losses, it just defies humour...as did the following interview re a recent report from Monash University that has found, shock horror, that Mental Health Services are few and far between in Rural/Remote/Regional Australia, especially compared to city-based services...
Mental Health Coalition of SA's Paul Senior (formerly of Community MH Australia) was asked 'what SA does what well/', and the response was 'we're stepping-up in the last few years...reforming for 10-15 years', and it's apparently all about 'support to stay well in the community'...(bollocks, that sounds like Public Service Speak for 'Mental Health services have been systematically closed or underfunded under a decade of this Rann/Weatherill Labor government'...forcing people to remain in their homes when they should be getting medical assistance and/or supervision, whatevs-Ed)...exactly...and we've pretty much run outta' stuff to close or cut, so anything we do now can be considered 'stepping-up'...(nice-Ed)...
Mental Health Services head honcho for Country Health SA Nicole Jones made the stunning observations that 1) service provision is more expensive in Regional areas, and 2) that some treatment options are expensive and some not so much...(oo look out, we've got a live one 'ere...some treatments more expensive than others you say?-Ed)...deadset, and then the same stuff about 'keep people close to where they live', etc...she referred repeatedly to the 'Integrated Mental Health Units' that apparently are 'opening' somewhere around the state and have 'never been in country before' and 'Community counselling in supported housing' and '160 video conferencing units available at 8 sites', and 'improvements in transport' and 'Closing the Gap', etc, etc. all the usual rhetoric...
Ms Jones also identified specific improvements in acute care...sure that means getting a GP appointment first, which can take days even weeks, and then gettin' referred to appropriate services, if they're available...(perhaps one of these 'New IMH Units'? like the one at Mt Gambier Hospital-Ed)...I'm sure...and I must admit that I haven't heard anything recently about the staffing of the new IMH Unit here, and staffing is always the issue...and apart from a brief mention of Mt Gambier, Ms Jones seemed to be referring constantly to Northern SA, saying things like 'within country' and 'coming down to Adelaide''...whatevs, I struggle to see any of it it as anything other than professional double-talk for going around the unpleasant realities of MH services, namely 'best part of sweet bugger all'...
There was also discussion of 'accessing psychiatrists where available' which in Mt Gambier means an occasional appointment with the part-time, fly-in/out service...I don't know what services Ms Jones was referring to when saying 'there are more options for country areas', and then listing them...most concerning about the Monash Uni study, as covered extensively
across the media last evening, was that it noted the extreme disparity
of MH service access by patients in lower socio-economic suburbs of
major cities, let alone in Rural/Regional/Remote areas...(and Monash's observation that this better access to services in more affluent suburbs/areas is the main driver in the 3 patient visits to 1 ratio that they identified-Ed)...
Sorry, I digress...just lettin' off a bitta' steam about what I've experienced as being a gaping chasm in Mental Health Service provision, and the effective privatisation of what little does exist...and what little services do exist are simply nowhere near equipped/qualified/whatevs to provide an appropriate level of service...and this means that people stop trying to get help because it's such a traumatic experience...beyond that, there have been several accounts recently of complete failures re access/help for young people suffering 'Ice' addiction related psychosis, and even deaths as a result of these service provision failures...
Again I direct availees to the many personal Mental Health issues that I've covered here in the blog, and that have had such a dramatic affect on my life, and the personal experience I have had of being bounced around the Social Security network for a decade before being effectively 'parked' in the too-hard basket via the Disability Support Pension...crazy people like me are still people and need to be treated with respect and compassion, not as self-chosen deliberately inconvenient drains on the public purse...
Apologies to not get to the promised Show Grounds stuff...(again-Ed)...again...and for the lame attempts at humour...(well at least you're still trying-Ed)...cheers...but apart from that, these Mental Health issues are so important, and it really punches my buttons to hear vacuous public officials spewing forth about the wonders of SA Health/Country Health SA, especially re Mental Health, and basically in direct contradiction of the reality on the ground...
Tomorrow: Show Grounds Sale
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog,...cheers and laters...
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