The Chaser Report - Playground Politics | Andrew Hansen

Episode Date: March 12, 2023

This episode has nothing to do with the Sammy J television show. It does, however, have a lot to do with playground implements as well as politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigall Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. Dom Knight here with The Delightful Andrew Hanson, once again. It's been so pleasant having you for the past few days. Just very relaxed and I'd say I'm missing, Charles, but I'm just not. No, I don't miss him at all, Domit. I'm sorry to say that he'll be back at some point.

I don't want to turn people off the podcast. No, people want to encourage people to, yeah, no, don't click unsubscribe because I'm sure there'll be another interesting host, Bobby along soon. I wouldn't. I wouldn't be so sure of that at all. No, it's been good. It's you for now, thank goodness. Oh, yeah, no, it's been good here, Dommy. Now, today, just a teaser.

What are we going to look at today, Domney? I've brought in something about home renovations. Oh, how relatable. There's an interesting thing that people are doing to their homes, which is they're installing. playground equipment inside the house so we're going to look at that i mean at last and in a society where we can train artificial intelligence bots to write entire university essays you would think a society that could do that would have solved baby poo and yet we haven't i want to pray and storm some solutions a bit later good yes i'd like some um some tips on that myself actually because

i you know i have very young children and sometimes they have to change myself too sure Oh, that's always awkward when you both shake yourself, yeah. Big night out, so that would be good. But now, tell me about the renovation situation, Hanson. What are people doing? I haven't a home to renovate, really, but it's nice to dream, isn't it? This is, you know, if you ever get on the ladder, Dommy, I'm just reading this from the news. It's not something that I know anybody who's done this, but apparently people have been adding a certain type of playground equipment to their houses.

Really? On the inside, and it's particularly happening in Melbourne, according to the report I read. Now, I want you to guess, first of all, but I'll give you a few options of what you think maybe people are installing in their house. Oh, goodness. What do you think it is? I've got to adjust from Melbourne. I'm going to bear this in mind. Yep, tell me.

Oh, yeah, you do a bit of Melbourne adjusting, of course, this is a, because Melbourne's always at the forefront. I've mentally donned black for this conversation. That's right, and doing really creative, unusual things that are cool. So are they putting roundabouts in their houses or water play areas with spouts and fountains, rock climbing walls or slippery slides? Oh, goodness. I mean, I would have thought in Melbourne you'd put all the above. The thing that seems most obvious to me is waterplay areas, because given Melbourne's climate,

there'd only be about three months of the year when you can use out an outdoor waterplay area. Oh, three minutes. So having an indoor waterplay area would make a lot of sense in. in the bathroom or maybe even just the lounge room just have some spurting fountains one of those buckets that tips over I think that'll be very charming That's a very good guess

And I can see it I could certainly see the trend extending one day To that But I haven't According to the article That's not happening at the moment The correct answer is Rock climbing walls

Oh of course Now you've seen those things You know Some of them are at playgrounds They've got little handholds on them And little footholes and sometimes you see them in you see really tall ones

and I think it's a hobby called bouldering Right It's called bouldering apparently Just climbing up those walls It looks incredibly dangerous Because you don't wear protective gear Of course not

There is a padded floor But people are putting them in there Homes, there's very bizarre photos of You know like there's a place It looks like it's got a kitchen And in the kitchen

is this bloody multi-coloured rock climbing wall with protruding handholds. It'd be an interesting thing with the kitchen cupboards, because you wouldn't know which was the cupboard handle and which was the bouldering thing you're supposed to climb up. I'm just wondering how high the ceilings are in these houses. It would have to be a high city. It would only work presumably in a very high-ceilinged home, you would think.

And yet, looking at some of these pictures, there are some very cramped-looking little rooms. Where you're going sideways. Slightly off the, about six inches off the ground. Because I've seen these in gyms. They look enormously fun where you can climb up. It's like a double, it's like a two or three story wall they've got in between, sort of in an atrium area, and you climb up and you strap yourself onto a safety thing,

and I've never had the strength or the fitness to even attempt it. But I aspire one day to being able to kind of climb up and do that. But in the house, what is sensible I do? When you're old, save it for your old age. Yeah, that's right. But what a good idea if you just put, you know, the nice cutlery or something or put the coffee pods, whatever it is, on an upper shelf that you can only get to, with rock climbing, you'd make fitness part of your everyday routine?

You would, yeah, the treats. I mean, I think, you know, the chocolates you should probably put up high, and that would sort of deter you or at least force you to exercise on your way up. I mean, I think if the baby monitor was up on the top of a rock climbing, The baby's crying, you're not sure what's going on, quick, I'll just scramble up the rock wall, and you'd probably have an adrenaline burst. You'd probably zoom up there. I think it's a great idea. I mean, I don't think we should stop at a rock climbing wall either, Dommy. Is there another type of playground equipment that you'd like to install inside your home? I was hoping it was going to be slippery dips, to be honest, because that to me, it's just the best form of transportation yet devised. I've been to a few places over the years where they put in, Slippery slide indoors, and there was a trend for a while there of art galleries doing it. Did they?

I went to one in New York at a place called the New Museum. I know they did it in the Tate. The Tate modern in London has this giant turbine hall, a huge room, and they put a massive slide in there. And I love the genius that thought that something that was just an objectively fun idea from a playground, you could pass off as modern art, and get these galleries to build these giant sand and the steel. And the one New York, New York went down three stories.

You had to take the lift to the top of the building and go down by a slippery slide. And it was a great, it was much better than a lift. Well, that's fun. No, that is fun. See, that could work in a house or an apartment that has an internal staircase. I think, you know, to replace the staircase with slippery slide would be terrific, I think. It would. And you can climb.

My daughter could climb up a slippery slide when she was two or three. She was amazingly good at climbing up them, actually, in the right shoes. Yeah. I don't think it's probably, it might be a bit hard to take a cup of tea up, but other than that, it'd be brilliant, much, much better than a spiral staircase. Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing one of those, actually. Maybe a roundabout too, I think, could be quite fun just in the middle of the living room, especially if the TV show that you're watching isn't that interesting.

Oh, totally. You could just hop on the little roundabout and have a spin instead. That would be very enjoyable. I mean, flying fox, particularly in those old homes with a long corridor. Oh, yeah, yes. You could just imagine the doorbell goes. You need to get there quickly. You just jump on the flying fox.

The front door. And ideally, it would end, you'd burst through the window, an open window at the end. You could launch off like, like, just like one of those rope swings at the edge of a lake. Yes. Or a billabong. You could have one of those next to the front door. It's the fastest way to get from A to B. I think it's a...

I mean, why don't we have... have them in malls. Yeah, it would make more sense. And slippery. Slipidism. My local mall, you've got to walk. There's so many travelators to get from level three down to the ground floor. It takes several minutes.

Yeah. If they just had slides and flying foxes, it'd save so much time. Not just, I mean, not just malls, but I think serious places of business should have slippery slides too and flying foxes to get around, you know, inside a bank, for example, or government registry. Yes, yes. Yeah. I mean, if they had roundabouts.

in the queuing area, people wouldn't get bored and angry. They'd be having such a brilliant time on the roundabout. Their number would come up to get their licence renewed or whatever, and they'd be genuinely sad that they had to stop playing. It would vastly improve the place. So would a climbing wall, I reckon, I mean, if you know. That's true. And those nets, you know those, the kind of the rope nets that there are?

Yeah, yeah, those sort of rope climbing theory. You know, some of them look like spiderwebs. You've seen those sort of spider web-shaped rope climbing thing. Absolutely right. I think that'd be very useful in all kinds of work environments. One of those in a Centrelink. A Centrelink should have lots of those, I reckon. And I wouldn't be a most of it.

Well, I mean, they mire you in a metaphorical web of bureaucracy. Why not do it with a physical rope web? And the slide, as you can slide downhill again metaphorically after you visited the Centrelink. You can just slide down out of it. Well, it would cheer you up. It'd be the only way to enjoy visiting Centrelink would be on leaving the office. to do it via slide as your hopes and dreams plummeted along with you going down the slide. It would be a rich metaphor, I agree.

But, I mean, think at the Parliament House in Canberra. I mean, they've got that giant hill. Oh, it is. And they've recently fenced it off to stop people rolling down. Begging for a slide. That should have slides on it. It's outrageous. It's the people's house.

Give the people's slides on it. Yeah, yeah, that's true. The people's house, and yet it has no backyard fun stuff to speak of, does it? What about a slip and slide? I should have a pool. If it's a people's house, it should have a backyard pool. Imagine, we can slide into... Every year six group dragged along to Parliament House, you know,

to take an interest in the workings of democracy, could be visiting a giant slippery dip. Imagine if at the start of the parliamentary proceedings, when the speaker entered, and, you know, they all had to rise that was the start of the day, what if the speaker entered via Flying Fox? Well, exactly, exactly. I think it would be terrific, wouldn't it?

I mean, it certainly make people more and more interested. But also formal. We'd be more interested, I think, in the democratic process. If it was, you know, largely run on playground equipment, I'd put them all in there. I think if you had to climb up a rope to get to ask a question in question time, no one would do a Dixir. Oh, yeah, it would definitely save that. She had to ascend a climbing wall in order to ask a question. You would definitely save that.

Yes, and I think so. And if you were, you know, if you had proposing a point of order that you had to do it on a round of about while spinning about, I think you'd command a lot more respect. Yes, and I'll tell you what, if the speaker was evicting people, you know how the section 10 they kicked people out for poor behaviour. They had to go out of a slide. There was a little hole in the corner at the chamber, and you just had to, you were maybe dragged to it and just evicted out the hole.

On the slide. That would make for fantastic television. On the slide. On the slide, the honourable member will repair to the slide and it would not come back for 24 hours. Much better. Thank you very much better. The Chaser Report.

Now with extra whispers. Well, as ever Melbourne leads the way on this, maybe you as a Melbourneian can help with my problem because the other day I was, I don't know how many poo-nappies I've changed. It's probably in the thousands by now. And it just struck me that surely there's a better solution than just using the wipes and just,

I'm sorry to say, we haven't done the cloth-nappie thing. I know we probably should have, but we didn't bother with that. So that's a problem. Surely we need a more eco-friendly but also convenient way. Why are we still wiping our baby's bottoms? It makes absolutely no sense in 2023. Why aren't there robots to do it? Yeah.

Or some other more efficient way of figuring it out. I'm all for that, Domney. I mean, we have automated car washes for our cars. We do. So why not for babies? We should have. With the little brushes. With those rotating brushes and sponges and you can just put sort of, you know, plot the baby on the entrance to the little baby wash.

Let's call it a baby wash. And it's a sort of, you know, it's shaped like a car wash, but smaller, I guess. I guess it would just be smaller. And they sort of get conveyed through, you know, squirted with all sorts of soaps and whatever they need. That's right. A little rotating sponge for his little bum cheeks. Yeah. And then it automatically, you know, folds him into a nappy on his way out.

I mean, I've seen chocolate bar factories. They get wrapped automatically as well. So there's no reason, you know, that you couldn't wrap a baby in a nappy and a onesie. I mean, using a machine? The seamless transition from feces to chocolate bar factories is an interesting one. But it does make me think, actually now that you mention it, we once stayed. I think it was a French bulldog. We stayed with a friend of ours

Had a French Bulldog Who regularly consumed its own feces And it just occurs to me Would it be such a stretch For such a dog To instead Eat the child's feces A very diet's a good thing

Just bring the dog in It's just milk in there Come on little What are dogs called? Bailey, they're all called Bailey Dogs nowadays Bailey, come on in Come on in Bailey

It's not nice but it's in many ways just as, if they're going to eat their own poo anyway, give them a more varied diet. I don't see that happening, absolutely. I know chickens do the same thing, so maybe a flock of chooks in the nursery. It would also be helpful.

You wouldn't even need necessarily a whole custom car wash setup. I mean, that would be the stylish version. But if you've got one of those washing machines that's top loading, couldn't you put a little harness on it? You could clip them into the harness and just let, Let the washing machine do the rest. I mean, don't use a front load of that. It wouldn't be very safe.

But the twin tub with the door open, that'll be fine. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, even a dishwasher with the door open on the top rack. Oh, yes. Just on the top rack, because they have that spinning arm that goes and it squirts. It would be great. Give them a little breathing mask. Yeah.

You close the door. Well, actually, you could if you had a scuba, if you had a little scuba tank on him. A baby scuba. A little baby. Have you been, have you seen, there's a wonderful, um, pet store near us. We've got a dog. And there's a great sort of washing station where you put them in. It's kind of like a bath almost. And there's a spray. There are various

sprays. You spray them with different, there's soap and foam and all the kind of stuff. It's an amazing system. No, I haven't seen this. Why have we solved this for dogs and not babies? How interesting. I have not seen this one. No, that sounds very interesting. It's quite like a car wash. Okay. Okay, no. I'm not across that. But also having solved that problem and saved all that time and no more poo-y-nappies and no more poo. What about the feeding side of things? Why are we giving babies bottles?

It takes so much time. Bottles and little puree. Why can't we teach and defend for themselves? I'm thinking like a bird bath arrangement. Oh, I see. Yes, yes, absolutely. Yes, a bird. And exactly what would the baby do, Domney?

Well, they lap. They gently lap at the milk. I was going to say, I thought a bird bath might be a bit sort of tall for a baby to reach, but you... I don't know, it could be a low one. I mean, look, my dog is much stupid than my baby, and the dog can drink out of a bowl. Why can't the baby? Yeah, yeah, just come along a bit. Well, or a tube.

I mean, I thought, you know, if you could pre-blend all the... I mean, baby food is generally mushy in general, but I think you could extend this into late childhood and even teenage years. If you were able to just pre-blend all the food into a puree and, you know, whack it in a tank. with a tube and they could just, when they're feeling a bit peckish they can just sort of go past and suck it out. Absolutely. What a good idea. I mean, if you're thinking about

the bottles, they're trying to be like the human breast, right? That's the thing that we've invented that is most like the human breast clearly, it's not actually the baby bottle. It's the goon bag. How do we not have goon bags full of milk where they can just sort of go

and squirt a little bit of their in backyards, In backyards across Australia, people famously hang goon bags from hills hoists for parties. Why not use that for baby formula? If you did that for the baby, couldn't you? It would be fun for the baby, too, to sort of crawl around and around in a circle. Yeah. Getting the milk out of the goon bag while it spins around the hills hoist.

It would be blast. The other thing I was thinking of trying now that my baby's a little bit older, she still hasn't got teeth yet. But you can't tell me that those little milk bottle-shaped lollies wouldn't be just as nutritious from my daughter as. as the proper formula. Oh, they're made of milk. It looks like milk.

I think they're made of milk, Tommy. I think they're good. They would be. I think those little lollies are good for you. Yeah. I mean, and she doesn't have teeth. No. Just give her the teeth lollies.

You know those teeth lollies? Yeah, if she's wanting to have a chew, pop a couple of those in her, you know. What a good idea. I'm just thinking, setting these things up, letting my baby roam free with no nappy, just randomly drinking from bird baths or something. I think it teaches

resilience. We want free range. I don't want to be a helicopter parent. In fact, I don't want to pay any attention at all. She can defend for herself. No, I think you've done a good job there, Dom. I'm with you, with you every step. She'll grow up faster and she'll have more independence, I think. Good luck, darling. How curious from Road, we're part of the iconoclast podcast Network. We'll catch you next time.

Bye.