Tetherd Cow Ahead

Well, Faithful Acowlytes, the season is upon us, and as the Herald Angels sing and the chestnuts smoulder away on open fires from here* to Chocowinity, it behooves† me to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a Cool Yule and the finest things for the season. I’d like to thank you all for your companionship, zest and humour over the last year, and I look forward to you joining me in continued moosings in 2008.

But enough of that! I know why you’re really hanging around, so on to the winner of the Christmas Competition!

I have to say at the outset that it wasn’t as well contested as I’d hoped, especially when I promised a very special prize… But having said that, the four contenders who did participate didn’t hold back, and all showed the kind of plucky spirit that makes the Cow Comments the kind of feisty tête-à-tête that we all know and love. I am certain that RadioShack will be plagiarizing us for ideas next year. Maybe they’ll even pay us to come smarten up their dumb asses.‡

All the entries showed verve and flair, and disconcertingly high levels of technical competence. Casey’s Destruct-O-Matic Shock Tank was so terrifying that I think it might be better served up at Halloween, and Jedimacfan’s Virtual Sled is a promise to fat kids everywhere that their position in front of the XBox is eternally safe & warm. The Colonel’s aerial Christmas lights were an inspiration to Book Elves of all nations (perhaps to the detriment of some) and hewhohears‘ Aussie Snow Shredder was as fine an example of innovative uselessness as I’ve ever encountered. A generous piece of Christmas Cake for you all!

But after all was said and done, I kept coming back to Casey’s first offering – The Reindeer-Spooking Whirlygig Death Contraption. Casey promises that after the implementation of this device, you need never need worry again about clattering hooves and messy reindeer droppings all over your roof on Christmas Eve. Casey, the Very Special Christmas Prize is yours! Mail me at [reverend-at-tetherdcow.com] with a postal address and I’ll set Santa on a special delivery mission for the New Year.

Anyways, there’s tinsel to be hung and stockings to be filled so glad tidings of comfort and joy to one and all! Don’t eat too much holly, and remember that reindeer poop and raisins look fairly similar.

The Reverend

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*Seriously – I was in Melbourne CBD yesterday and there were guys roasting chestnuts. Thankfully the weather has been a mite cooler these last few days than the 35° (95°F) of last week, but even so, that’s just plain weird.

†Cow Joke…

‡Speaking in a Christmas manner, of course.

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Violet Towne and I were in inner city Melbourne this week when we were accosted by person who might be these days termed ‘height-challenged’ but in the time of my less politically correct childhood would gave been called a dwarf.

Personally, I can’t see much of a problem with the term ‘dwarf’. Before Lord of the Rings the logical cultural link anyone was likely to make with that term was with the happy chaps that whistled while they worked, made squillions from their diamond mine and were shacked up with a spunky chick. When I was a teenager hanging out in the theatre, we had a chap who fit that image perfectly. Well, if you included a fondness for sherry and imagined the local newspaper packing room was a diamond mine. In any event, he certainly hit it off well with the young ladies…

But I digress.

The short fellow who confronted us in town seemed a little agitated and with little preamble reeled off a story about his wallet having been stolen and how he was going to have to make phone calls to cancel all his credit cards and how he needed some money to get a train to his home in the Dandenong Ranges (an area just on the outskirts of Melbourne).

Now, as cynical as you all know me to be, I am still inclined at first flush to cut people the benefit of the doubt. I gave the guy a bill. Not enough for his train fare all the way, but I thought it would help him out. It has to be said: he snaffled the cash without so much as a backward glance and was on his way.

Violet Towne, who is possibly a little more street savvy than I am, wasn’t about to part with any of her hard-earned change for someone she pegged pretty quickly as a pan-handler (I noticed that she kept a tight grip on her purse as the exchange took place). Reflecting on it as the little man zipped off into the crowd, I couldn’t help but agree with her; it did seem fairly likely that Shorty had peddled that particular story more than once.

“Oh well,” I said, “I guess if he feels compelled to ask people for a handout he’s somewhat worse off than we are.”

The following morning this text conversation takes place between me & VT:

VT (on her way to work on the train): Hey! The dwarf just got on the train! He’s dressed in a suit!

Reverend: See! I was right!

VT: But he got on at Heatherdale. That’s a long way from Dandenongs.

Reverend: Whaddya expect? You were too mean to give him the extra he needed to get home.

The jury will probably remain forever out on the truth of the matter, but I figure that this is a Christmas Parable that can be read in whichever way you are inclined to view the Season.

Where they keep the Good Books.

(Spotted by jmf in his local book store.)

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Hey CowPokes!! Don’t Forget: the Christmas Competition is still running! Be sure to get yer entry in!

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Longtime readers will remember the story of The Prowler and how illustrator Kevin Cornell realised him in frightening watercolour on his great site over at Bearskin Rug (go there now and be amused).

Kevin was kind enough to send me an artist’s proof of his Prowler watercolour which I recently had framed in an appropriate manner. I am now awaiting the refurbishment of the crypt so that I may hang this wonderful rendering on the wall, flanked, of course, by two sputtering candles.

This is how the finished piece came out!

It has been noted that to make The Reverend a very happy man, all one has to do is sit him down with a good cup of hot tea and a slice of fruitcake. Of course, as Christmas approaches, the opportunities to offer fruitcake (in the form of Christmas cake) proliferate and the Reverend is continually on the lookout for the very best offerings.

It probably doesn’t need to be said that the highest calibre Christmas cake is always homemade. This does not mean that just because Christmas cake is homemade it is necessarily exceptional of course.

What is true is that I have yet to taste a commercially manufactured cake that is anything other than merely mediocre. Unfortunately, and in spite of numerous examples to the contrary, I continue to be ever-hopeful.

Consider the label on this nicely presented tinned Christmas cake I bought yesterday. Pay particular attention to that phrase: Authentic homemade recipe. Now it’s quite plain what the Woolworth’s people intend to convey with this, but seriously, it’s just one GREAT BIG LIE!

First of all, before we go into the semantics, who are they kidding with the basic pitch here? There were, by my rough count, around three hundred cakes in the stack that this one came from, and I think we can assume that this wasn’t the only Woolworths’ supermarket to feature this product. So at around 800 Australian Woolworth’s stores x 300 cakes, we’re looking at display stock of 240,000 Christmas cakes.

Whose home did they make these in?!! Donald Trump’s?!!

The idea that this cake was homemade, then, is plainly preposterous. So there must be some trickery in that phrase authentic homemade recipe. You can see where I’m going here, I know. Yes, when the lawyers go before the judge in the Tetherd Cow vs Woolworth’s Christmas Cake Action of ’08 they are going to say this:

But Your Honour, it is an authentic homemade recipe. Old Mrs Woolworth did really scribble down this recipe at home. Sure, we make the cakes themselves in a fifty floor stainless-steel factory full of conveyor belts and robots and digital cherry glazers, but the recipe was authentically made at home. That’s all we claim on our product.

The defense rests.

And the cake? Well, it wasn’t bad. Desperately in need of a good dosing of brandy, and a little wimpy as far as Christmas cakes go, but passable. Not even close though, not even remotely, to the delights I used to sample every year as the judge for Kate & Annie’s annual Christmas bakeoff.

After all, homemade is where the heart is.

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Hey CowPokes!! Don’t Forget: the Christmas Competition is still running! Be sure to get yer entry in!

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You will remember that in recent times I wrote a letter to my buddy Prophet Peter Popoff in an effort to make the discourse between us more of an actual discourse and less of a him-just-crapping-on-and-on-and-on-and-on-and-on-and-on with the baffling and profuse garblings I have come to expect.

My epistle has not, it appears, even halted him in his tracks, and this week he sent me another five foolscap pages of claptrap.

Except… wait… what have we here..? A questionnaire..?

OMG! Maybe I’ve been too hasty in dismissing Prophet Pete’s Predictive Powers. Why would he ask a question like that unless…

Oh Holy Crap! And what’s this:

Yes Prophet Pete! Oh yes, you’re right, you’re right!!! I managed to trick it outside this morning but – Jesus, Mary and Joseph! – it’s trying to get in again!!!.

Prophet Pete! I’m sorry I ever doubted your magnificent powers! Please come ’round with your Holy Water and Golden Braid as quick as you can! I can hear the mournful keening of the creature even now as I sit quaking under a table in the corner farthest from the window.

I know it can only be a matter of time before my soul is beyond salvation…

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Hey CowPokes!! Don’t Forget: the Christmas Competition is still running! Be sure to get yer entry in!

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