harry heidelberg

australia: let's start an inter-generational war

Here's some news for you. Did you know that Generation X, is actually marginally bigger than the Baby Boomer generation? It's true. Go and ask Bernard Salt, Australia's celebrity demographer. He will confirm that what I am saying is true. Salt defines Gen X as those being born between 1961 and 1976. Our values and our take on the world in which we live is not the same as the Baby Boomers.

All our lives we have been pushed around by the Baby Boomers and I say it is time to declare war on them. They are only strong because of the age they are right now and because they managed to organise themselves in the sixties. They are a leach on Australia. They leach our land and stifle our debate. As they get older, they will then start to directly leach on us, Generation X. If you think we are stifled now, it can only get worse as their whining becomes ear-piercing.

Make no mistake about them. They are conceited and arrogant. Worst of all they honestly believe they are superior. As we all know they rebelled against their parents and their elders in general. What few Gen Xer's focus on is how the Baby Boomers similarly view us with disdain. They only care about themselves.

They are the least flexible generation Australia has ever had. They are the nostalgia junkies who constantly want today's world to be as their mythical world once was. They think everything about their generation is virtuous and they feel hell bent on lecturing and hectoring us. Baby Boomers do this to us and to the older generation. It's a reverse pincer thing so stand back and beware.

Next time you see a Baby Boomer, do not, I repeat do NOT engage with them. Walk away and say "yeah whatever". It is asymmetrical warfare. Walking away is the best thing you can do.

neutral bay nsw: woolworths

Woolworths at Neutral Bay is somehow timeless. An eternal purgatory. It's the highest grossing Woolworths in Australia and I'd like to end that right now.

Years ago they used to say that the fruit and vege department was somehow a pick up area. There was a story that if you placed your bananas in the baby carry area, you had certain things in mind. Place the broccoli somewhere else and you particularly stood out. Carrots and cucumber did not mean the same as zucchini and so on. Even the most obscure fruits had meanings according to some.

You want to know something? That was crap. It never was true and never will be true. Woolworths at Neutral Bay always was and always will be a living hell.

The people who shop there are offensive as are the staff. You get pushed around and after only five minutes in the store you feel like a rag-doll.

Everything is picked-over with e-coli laced hands and there is absolutely no parking. You drive around and around and around. There are in excess of 800 people in the store but only 80 parking spaces underneath.

There's a tiny stairway from the parking area and people with shopping in hand are unable to pass each other without inflicting minor to less than minor abrasions on each other.

The trees in the car park never grow. They look as they did 15 years ago. Stunted, deformed and sick. The surface of the car park itself is greasy and gum spattered.

ooooh shudder!