I was tuned into INSIDE WEST COAST CUSTOMS last week because I have lost my remote control and therefore can only receive 7MATE on the Panasonic Viera.   For those not acquainted with Australian television, 7Mate is one of the free-to-air channels aimed specifically at men. I watch it quite a bit, especially those History channel shows like AMERICAN RESTORATION, PAWN STARS and AMERICAN PICKERS, but I tend to stay away from shows involving toothless swamp dwellers or excessive modding of internal combustion engines. My previous knowledge of West Coast Customs was based on their participation in MTV’s PIMP MY RIDE. Over four glorious seasons (2005-2008) West Coast Customs was the Californian car remodelling business vouchsafed with the task of ride pimping. In practice this meant some young student or minimum wage worker offered up their decrepit vehicle for a makeover. Some poor shmo whose Ford Focus was held together with epoxy and duct tape would be selected t...

Today I was at the Post Office at Dianella Plaza, which some of you know, incorrectly, as Dianella Centro when I espied SWAN DIAL 71! This mighty municipal sculpture is the work of Elwyn Hawthorn and Dr Guy Hamilton. Sadly, it sits unnoticed on what is more or less a traffic island, but according to the plaque it used to be the world's biggest sundial. In Dianella. In Perth's Northern Corridor. The heyday of SWAN DIAL 71 was, unsurprisingly in 1971 and we even have the pics to prove it. The State Library of WA has some great photographs of the opening of Dianella Plaza back in August 1971. Here is SWAN DIAL in its former glory.  When you're on the SLWA site hit the back button at the top left of the pic and suss out some of the other photographs. Among the delights you'll discover–a happenin' place for men's fashion called Shirt Inn International and roasting pork at a mere 55c per pound. Mr Trivia

No, Virginia, The He Man and She-Ra  Christmas Special (1985) is not on this year Hail Zeitgeisters, Obviously today is a day for family etc. what would you be doing watching the telly, eh?  However if you do wish to cast your eye over what’s on the free-to-air digital, you’ll find slim pickings. We’ve had a quick look and chosen some highlights also some “highlights” This selection is based on the Perth guide which will be similar to the guide in many capital cities, but there may be some regional differences. NATIVITY (2010) 9.16 AM-11.00 AM (ABC 1) Mr Maddens, a primary school teacher, is charged with producing the school's nativity play and competing against the posh rival school for the honour of 'best show in town'. Martin Freeman from THE OFFICE (UK) is the lead in what is a well-regarded family movie according to many on-line, although I thought this was awful when I saw it on Christmas Eve. Suss it out yourselves though when it is repeated today....

The Iced Vovo brand was registered in 1906. According to the Wikipedia stub, it’s “a wheat flour biscuit topped with a strip of pink fondant either side of a strip of raspberry jam and sprinkled with coconut. It is a product of the American-owned Australian-based biscuit company Arnott's. When I was a kid, before your fancy Melting Moments and Triple Choc Chip cookies became de rigeur ; before we developed the American habit of buying cookie dough; before you could purchase a dozen huge, soft cookies for a couple of bucks at Coles, we had a thing called the biscuit. Fancy biscuits were in short supply. You could always find a Nice or a Granita or a Milk Arrowroot. These were okay. They were the solid mainstay of the bikkie tin; the Chips Rafferty, the EH Holden, the rotary Hills Hoist of Australian biscuitry. Their ready availability was the result of your canny mother's foresight. She would supply the average ones and only bring out the good ones when absolutely necessa...

Apparently Pope Benedict XVI has just got himself a Twitter account and he will begin tweeting on December 12th. Lapsed Twitterers are almost as numerous as lapsed Catholics, so the Pontiff will be on familiar ground. I've done the Twitter thing and I worry that within a week Pope Benedict will be reduced to commenting on the "awesome latte" he just had. His Holiness will be known as @pontifex. If you're really interested in getting in on the social media wisdom of Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, then his people have thoughtfully arranged a hashtag #askpontifex for your convenience.  If you do a Twitter search to see how this is working out (and I recommend you do) you'll see the types of questions are either from those angry at the Church and who see Twitter as a forum for confrontation or from ironists like @Judes_Dickey who asked: "Is Theology the study of Malcolm-Jamal Warner's work on The Cosby Show? # askpontifex."  Why not ask Benedict XVI ...

I was cruising the Internets this morning looking for a pair of portable headphones. And I discovered a couple of things. Apparently a common Google question is, "Can I use my headphones for a microphone?" Apparently you can. You can also use pliers for a hammer and you can employ Microsoft Surface as a cutting board if you wish, but would you?  I then looked for "May I use my headpho nes for a microphon e?" a nd found nothing . The discourtesy of this younger generation continues to disturb . The second thing I discovered was even more ephemeral, but you're reading Mr Trivia's Tract, not Mr Crucial's Manifesto and this kind of nonsense is why we are here. I saw a pair of clip-on 'over-ear' headphones and wondered if they were any better than the last time I tried them about ten years ago. There followed the fairly nonsensical 3 am thought - I wonder if I can find a picture of someone using a pair of clip on headphones and looking as thoug...

  --> In the Man Booker prize winning LIFE OF PI (now made into a major motion picture by Ang Lee) there is a tiger in a lifeboat. The tiger is called Richard Parker. According to the Internets, in his book THE LIFE OF PI, author Yann Martel has the tiger misnamed Richard Parker as the result of a mix up. The hunter responsible for capturing the tiger is called Richard Parker. Sure, that may sound like sitcom nonsense to you and me, the sort of thing that might have happened on Gilligan’s Island, but it’s actually part of a Man Booker award-winning novel, dude, so it must be hell plausible and well written. Anyway, I find the name of the tiger instantaneously annoying, Neither Richard nor Parker is a good tiger name and when said jointly, the irritation factor is extremely high. If the tiger is referred to as Richard Parker every time, then this conceit has the quality of a small child saying a phrase over and over, just for the sound of it, all meaning having been...