But I was talking about asexuals, and they're almost my own tribe. You're allowed to, well, poke gentle fun at your own tribe, aintcha?

Currently non-existent, but very promising in the long term. This is because the hills are steep. Once the meltwater from the Greenland glaciers shuts down the Gulf Stream - which could happen any time soon - and the British archipelago gets the Labrador/Sakhalin climate its latitude might expect - then I expect to have to learn to ski.

I guess *all* breeding is kinda special, in a gloopy restricted sense. But I prefer to avoid it nonetheless.

(a) Here, have mine.

(b) Yeah, me too.

Here is how I have introduced a statistics question for an upcoming exam:

<You have an odd view of how the world should be divided up into categories. You think that there are stray dogs, those that have just broken a flower vase, innumerable ones, and others.>

Presented for your amusement (and mine).

Futurology exam, circa 1978:

Q1: Which domestic appliance will in future become the dominant platform for computing?

(a) the television set

(b) the washing machine

(c) the telephone

Answers and scores:

(a) Yeah, obviously ... 9/10

(b) Imaginative. And those acid trippers like to watch the swirling colours ... 3/10

(c) Don't be stupid ... 0/10.

a) it's hard to make predictions, in particular about the future.

b) we're not anticipating the future, we're creating it!

And at the next stall, carny artist Doc Spooner is selling <shocks and stares>. No derivatives - Isaac hasn't invented calculus yet - but if you want <fluxion futures>, he's your man.

Meanwhile, in the traditional wooden stocks, a suspected usurer is pelted with lumps of cow dung and broken prisms.

There are people somewhere on the autistic spectrum who behave quite differently to the stereotype: very good at networking, socializing, playing the human bean game (noes and toes the same way goes) ... but they don't for a moment believe that anyone else matters a toss. They're solipsists minus the philosophical depth.

Most such people enter politics, the military or showbiz, and devote themselves to killing or preening. Some even become evil dictators.

But I reckon Julian -- even if he shares a name with Julian the Apostate, the last guy who stood a real chance of finishing off christianity -- shares these disturbing traits. And found himself, somewhat unexpectedly, in a strange place. So he looked around to see who he could use, and for what.

At least Gillard's smile is human. Not something one can say about Rudd or Assange.

I guess I'm old fashioned in believing that personality shouldn't be a capital crime, but we're in a brave new world of personality politics so who am I to opine?

At least he tried the revolution unlike that unsavoury ex-side kick whose breakaway site has yet to leak anything except ill intent toward Assange and the revolution.

Still, has Julian of the Winning Personality done something for which every newspaper editor in the world isn't guilty?

If everyone who lacks a winning personality and engages in activities that have centuries of mainstream and reasonably honourable tradition (even if it's not been in such concentrated form) and endorsement gets thrown under a bus or into a deep hole guarded by the legions of Fracking Bleeding Idiots...we should abolish buses, shovels and spades.

And probably holes.

Did you see Gillard threw Rudd under a Carr?