Education is ruly impotent, LOL. You’re futures invested in it. Ladys’ Pajama’s $2.99 while stock’s “last”.

Sorry, can’t keep that up any longer, it just hurts too much.

Which begs the question, why doesn’t it hurt the people who do it? Because they didn’t get a decent education, or they at least didn’t take the one that was offered. Now, there are a lot of jobs out there where decent grammar doesn’t matter, and a grasp of history or current affairs will get you bullied out of the lunch room.

But (yes, we know, one should never commence a sentence with “but”, however this isn’t the Times Literary Supplement, and we do this on our couch, for almost nothing, so shut up) there are jobs where a command of English is important. Like, editing a newspaper, or writing the subs for the TV news and things like that.

The front page of The Age Good Weekend ran a cover story a couple of weeks ago about prominent Australians turning 70. The cover was a caricatured birthday party for Greer, Adams, and the usual suspects. There were balloons. The balloons said “Happy 70th Birthaday”.

The person who drew that, and the person who proof-read it, get paid more than us, and crap like that makes it onto the front page. Okay, we got a phone number wrong in an ad once (Hi, Tony!!), but at least we can put correctly-spelled words into sentences most of the time.

So education is the thing this month, dear readers. Justin has a vaguely comprehensible rant about funding, and a vaguely disturbing tale from his days at an elite all-boys private school. Jane continues frothing at the mouth about the media treatment of the recent bushfires, relates some jolly hockey sticks japery from her own school days, and all our regulars have stepped bravely up to the plate, as usual.

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As far as we’re concerned, “writer” isn’t something you call yourself, it’s a name you earn. It’s a painful process, and you suffer years of rejection and non-interest, until you find your way, and people don’t just look at your name, they look for it. To put large chunks of yourself onto the page and have it rejected time and again is gut-wrenching, but you keep doing it because it’s what you have to do.

So a HUGE pat on the back to young Fred, who’s thrown himself on the wire and sent us a quality 500 words on school days. Fred, when you finish school, give us a call, we could probably use some writing slaves by then. Or a pilot for our Gulfstream, or hopefully you’ll be running the media company that wants to buy the Tribune for a gazillion dollars…

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As our empire expands, we keep hunting for the perfect way to dominate the world’s media. Our boffins have been working on a few things, (when they’re not building an invisible bullet-proof flying suit with rockin’ lasers on it for Justin), and we need your help.

As well as our outstanding new website, we’re on Facebook now (search for “King’s Tribune” and join as a Fan), and you’ll find our page, our discussion threads, and photos of us, which we know everybody wants.

Please tell us how you’d prefer to get involved with us on a virtual plane. Would you subscribe to a regular email service? If there’s a topic you want to discuss, would you rather log in to our website, or do it on Facebook? Would you like to give us lots of money? Do you know where the mother-ship is stored, and is there enough tyrillium to get it started again? That kind of thing.

Check the website for the polling button thingo, and let us know what works for you.

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So, next month…. Hmmm…. Since we’re only just getting over the Christmas holidays, and Justin had a couple of weeks off work with some simply maaaarvellous headaches, we’ve been spending a fair bit of time with our wonderful whippets, and the thought occurred to us, “Hey, lots of people have pets, and even if they don’t they’d love to hear about ours!”

So, there you go, pets, next month is all about Pets. Of all kinds. Teacher’s pets, pet rocks, petting zoos, cats, dogs, goldfish (what’s the point?), pet shop boys, heavy petting, whatever! Go for it.

Love to those who love us, and off to the salt mines for those who don’t.

Justin & Jane.

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