HAG has been Christmas partying.

She doesn’t know where she’s been.

She doesn’t know what she said.

She doesn’t know who she met.

She hasn’t a clue who she offended.

But she does have two vague memories of her meandering carousing. Lounging and talking in sign language (the power of speech had been lost to the last bottle of Green Fairy Absinthe) in some dark corner of some dark bar, somewhere, she heard a most astonishing story. Even more astonishing, she remembered it on picking herself up from the concrete she later met with some force.

To wit (1): Such is the accommodation crisis for the poor and dispossessed on the North West Coast that “clients” are being loaded aboard the Spirits and shipped across Bass Strait at monumental cost to be housed in crisis accommodation there. Because there’s no room in any inn in Tassie.

She simply doesn’t believe it.

Then again …

To wit (2): The Devil Facial Tumour Disease program is progressing “well”, the bureaucrats insist on telling us.

But Hag doesn’t need to remind avid devil watchers of the difficulties this program has gotten into over the months & years. Captive devils lost, then found dead in a hole under a tree. Mind you no bodies to examine apparently.

Then there was the very public fracas with wildlife park operators across the State over devil management. Made for great working relations.

Then there is the good news story: the devils for the new Prince of Denmark? Shades of Macbeth, a devil returns to Denmark, and the attendant horror in some circles at this bizarre photo-opportunity idea.

Next we have a letter to the editor from Minnesota academic Marco Restani (Saturday Mercury) which amounted to little more than a puff piece extolling the virtues of the management of the devil facial tumour disease by the Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment.

Well, in that dark corner of that dark bar, Hag heard two things: There may be personnel changes afoot at DPIWE. And there’s a job going at the uni for a top-notch devil researcher.

Hag, clueless at the best of times, hasn’t got a clue what it all means. Please help!