Kyle’s Rant

“ALL welcome, no judgement” is the sign above the doors and in the social media of a few local businesses in the Central Highlands.

LAST week I hired a post hole digger from the blokes at Kyneton Hire. The reason for the post hole digger procurement was as an easy way to plant a few plants that have grown too big for their pots. The cost was $90 for a 24-hour hire and when you are looking down the barrel of a dozen or so big tree holes, a bargain by anyone’s calculation.

WHAT a whirlwind time it’s been with paracetamol falling down the medical stairs of trust to be branded a placebo, and now the federal government declaring that AstraZeneca be not administered for under 50 year olds, due to blood clot concerns.

HOW often have you heard “We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes right now” or “all of our team are busy, please hold and we will answer your call as soon as possible”? All while patiently waiting on the phone listening to music from the 1980s that is designed to take you back to a simpler time and calm you down.

SO, ARE we on Team Markle or Team Queen or Team “don’t give a toss”?

THE other day I went on a photoshoot - I know, no big deal but bear in mind during the pandemic the old camera bag sat in the corner and collected dust.

THIS year I find myself dragging my feet. I am technically challenged once again and feel like my cobwebbed brain is just not keeping up.

AS YOU are probably aware, unless you have been under a rock somewhere, we have had another couple of recent slip-ups from the hotel quarantine.

THE few people I know, know I have a boating lineage. I like a sailor’s life and feel most at home aboard a vessel plying the brine.

I WROTE a rant a couple of editions ago that declared I was done for the year and asked if, for one edition of our free reading offering, you (the readers) wouldn’t mind popping your own rant in the allotted space.

I DON'T have a lot to add to these Christmas festivities except “we don’t know how lucky we are mate” - that is, us living in the land down under compared to the Northern Hemisphere.

RECENTLY we visited the city (it was a Monday and dead) and once we had checked into our hotel room, a ritzy two-bedroom apartment on the 22nd floor for under $200 (cheap as, bro), we were off for lunch.

CRUISING around the world on giant cruise ships is my idea of luxe. I am not talking about those boats that have a maze of slides running over the top of them for the kiddies to enjoy or the craft that have a giant ball on the top for the best view.

ANOTHER year is ending, the hint of Christmas is in the air. I can tell by all the sales emails that are pinging into my inbox. What is this Black Friday rubbish that keeps hitting my spam account?

AS WE come out the other side of the lockdowns and the sheer terror that formed our Winter in terms of the pandemic, I wonder what we have learnt as a race.

TOURISTS: A species of humans not in their home habitat, usually identified by the wonderment on their faces as they amble around the streets, brains in neutral, on the hunt for coffee and nourishment.

RECENTLY I invested in a new iPhone, after all, the old one was five years old and according to one taxi driver it made my hands look big. Wrong. And yes, it was an old iPhone 5.

WOW, I have hit the dizzying heights of being an influencer. Well not just me, The Local. Well not actually just The Local. We intercepted a general media shout-out by a media campaign company to do with organic natural chicken jerky.

I HAVE never been one for settling down. The fact I went to 13 schools in my childhood as my father chased the fish might have something to do with that, but I find myself having lived in the Central Highlands for 15 years now.

WHEN making rules such as mask wearing, the various layers of government must have to apply a “slippage” rate. That is a rate for the 15 per cent of society who are colloquially known as “dipshits”.

LIKE a lot of people, over my life I have suffered with body image issues. I reckon it started in the 70s, trying to figure out my mother’s diet fads. There was the grapefruit diet, the F-plan and lots of cottage cheese and rice cakes stuffed into the fridge and pantry.

A FEW months ago, a TV advertisement popped up with a little girl who shrieked at her mother for using excess water to pre-wash the dishes before they went into the dishwasher.

WHEN I was growing up, we had TV One - and that about describes the choice of entertainment as we only had one channel up the top of the North Island of New Zealand.

GEE, I am starting to miss my family and that feeling has been doubled down by the border closures. I guess I am lucky to still have a mother and a father but I now realise that I haven’t given them enough attention over the years with distance being the tyranny.

SOMETIMES I wonder what sort of new phrase paradigm we have dropped into? Stay with me here.

A SOVEREIGN citizen is someone who believes that he or she is above all laws and a member of a political movement of people who oppose taxation, question the legitimacy of government and believe that they are not subject to the law.

WHAT a weird world we live in. It seems like during the middle of last year I am planning out 2020, then the bushfires hit and then we land straight into a pandemic.

SO FAR 2020 has been a tough year for not only Australia but the world.

IT'S been a scary few months with the bushfires wreaking havoc across the country.