Life in General

RIP PJ – We’ll Miss You Mate

admin

I didn’t know Patrick Jake O’Rourke but I have been known to steal his middle name for various anonymous activities and correspondence (taps side of nose with index finger) like sending “secret admirer” valentines to the child bride. I haven’t done that yet but planned to a couple of days ago. Procrastination got the better of me. And this is the second time I’ve mentioned him recently as he figured in my most recent Christmas message

Like I said, I didn’t know him personally but after reading and still owning 18 of his books (I think he wrote 19), if we’d had an opportunity to have a drink which is something we have in common, we’d have had plenty to talk about….between drinks. Those books are now dog-eared and torn and the type has been read so many times it’s starting to fade. Unlike novels where once you know the ending there’s no point backtracking, his books overflow with one-liners and tragi-comedic but somehow appropriate expositions on politics and economics and life in general that you just wish you could remember so you could steal them and appear witty and politically erudite all at the same time. Of course there are very few “comedians” or like PJ, literary humourists, capable of this as most of them these days are from the Robert DeNiro “fuck Trump” school of applied hilarity.

He was born in Toledo, Ohio whose other famous resident was Max Klinger. The mashing together of their relative portrayals of the absurd somehow makes sense. PJ died today of lung cancer complications. I suspect cigars and whisky were all that remained of a youth that majored in practical chemistry while studying English Literature. He said this about suicide : “Guns are always the best method for a suicide. They are more stylish looking than single-edged razor blades and natural gas has gotten so expensive. Drugs are too chancy. You might mis-calculate the dosage and just have a good time.”

PJ has many claims to fame. He was editor-in-chief of National Lampoon magazine before the movies began to appear. Later and around the time when Hunter S Thompson was creating mayhem at the same publication, PJ was foreign correspondent for Rolling Stone magazine which mainly involved him reporting back from war zones. That makes about as much sense as being the tobacco correspondent for Men’s Health. He has contributed mirth and scorn to the lexicon ever since those heady days.

I first encountered PJ in 1977. The CB and I were on our way to Tasmania and I needed something to read on the ferry from Melbourne to Devonport. I spied a magazine I had never heard of called National Lampoon and that edition’s theme was Sex. A no-brainer really in an innocent age of no internet and therefore no internet porn. But thanks to the internet you can pull National Lampoon out of archive and see the humungously famous magazine cover – Buy This Magazine or We’ll Kill This Dog. I’ve even provided the link for you.

https://ia800706.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/8/items/NationalLampoon_201812/National-Lampoon.iso

 Most recently he wrote A Cry From the Far Middle which contained the usual quota of quotables, one of which was the rules he taught his kids to live by – keep your hands to your self and mind your own business – or as he calls them, the Clinton rules. Bill, keep your hands to yourself and Hillary, mind your own business.

Even though you’re no longer with us PJ, you’ll be making me laugh for as long as I am still capable of doing it.

Merry Christmas

admin

Some Christmas thoughts especially for you:

One of my favorite laugh-out-loud authors is P.J.O’Rourke, an American humorist who writes about politics and economics amongst other things. I know it’s difficult to believe that anyone can write anything humorous about politics or economics which was appropriately coined “the dismal science” by, again appropriately it would seem, a Scotsman – Thomas Carlyle. Incidentally, and to tediously continue this digression, he called it that because writing poetry was, at the time (mid 19th century) called “the gay science”. The linkage is somewhat opaque so go figure.

Anyway, back to PJ. He said (I love quotes – less for me to write) “It’s customarily said that Christmas is done ‘for the kids’. Considering how awful Christmas is and how little our society likes children, this must be true.” The guy is obviously hilarious and full of the joys of spring and I thoroughly recommend his books. Actually, he said this before he had kids of his own – he has three – so I’m assuming his attitude has changed if only to not upset the kids (and his wife).

Which brings us neatly and efficiently(ish) to Little D, the second smartest person in this family. Some grinches would suggest that the only good thing about Christmas in summer is not having a stupid sweater competition. But it’s not and contrary to PJ’s now rather ancient assertion, hot or cold it’s about families and especially the kids.

Little D has successfully negotiated prep and is now leaning into the daunting headwinds of Grade 1 but that unimaginable level of stress will not dampen the boundless joy associated with this Saturday’s ripping paper off plastic stuff which is invariably made in China. And I’m sure my baby brothers will be equally thrilled. A box of lego and a few dozen icy sherbets (that’s Oz lingo for beer for the uninitiated) will take Bro 2’s mind off pushing bodies around in most of his waking hours. And whilst Bro 1 will find this Christmas a bigger pain in the arse than usual (that’s a family “in” joke although not as far “in” as a prostate examination), those beers and a New Year grandchild will keep a smile on his face.

The child bride is particularly looking forward to Christmas this year because it’s at Bro 2’s place and not ours. Actually that’s not true. We love doing Christmas because I get to do mostly nothing and we like to drink a lot so don’t have to drive. That’s why we love it. I may be a bit presumptuous here but I’m assuming the CB is as one with my views.

After the last two years I guess we should be grateful our betters are allowing us to associate with our families, in our homes, unmasked at Christmas without fear of arrest and crippling fines. Fortunately our rather cautious political “leaders” are yet to convince a critical mass of the populace that you can catch covid over the internet or by answering your phone but you can bet the whiny socialists have had their communications staff onto it. And it’s only a matter of time – never forget that half of the population (any population) is below average intelligence.

As far as our kids are concerned it’s been a largely uneventful year. As long as you haven’t caught covid that’s a statement of the bleeding obvious because we are somewhat limited in our options what with border closures and lock downs. None of us caught it that we are aware of and we are all vaxed and there’s a danger I’ll go all libertarian here so in the interests of goodwill to all men (yes, “men” – call me traditional), and the fact that I’ve covered it in previous posts on this blog, I’ll leave it there.

The CB and I did get to Hamilton Island with daughter, son-in-law and Little D. The highlight was a family snorkelling expedition (with a couple of pros) with Little D all done up in her anti-jellyfish suit, snorkel, mask, flippers and life jacket. There is nothing quite as genuine as a five-year old’s shrieking joy at seeing numerous colourful Nemos flitting in and out of the Great Barrier Reef coral and through her legs.

My mother had very kindly offered to take a bunch of us on a cruise and we were all set to go in November. Unfortunately the longevity and validity of covid related decision making is currently completely unreliable, so today’s music festival is still potentially tomorrow’s complete lockdown and P&O weren’t prepared to operate under those circumstances. Many thanks anyway, Mum.

Christmas 2021 has elements of Christmas 2020 but not to the same extent although, to be fair, last Christmas was pretty restriction free for us. We managed to get together with family and friends and saw my father off in the respectable Irish way i.e. I only remember about half of the day. There will no doubt be an element of that again this year so Saturday will certainly be a celebration. We hope you get the opportunity to celebrate with loved ones wherever you are and whomever you are with.

Melissa’s Fight-Night

admin

My television viewing is fairly limited. I like the occasional movie or Netflix series but mostly it’s sport and politics. So at the moment it’s the first cricket test between Australia and England and opinion shows on Sky News Australia and Fox News from the USA. I know that last bit will get me branded a racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic, climate denying, white supremacist by the socialist doctors’ wives collective but such are the burdens we who espouse common sense and human nature as our fundamental political tenets, are made to carry. For the child bride it’s who-dunnits, real estate, food and politics. She hated cricket until she met me.

Anyway, to the point of all of this. Last night in the early evening, we had exhausted the TV options so put on some music. If one is going to drink, one is much happier with accompaniment. When I say we put on some music I don’t mean we downloaded onto my phone some stuff from the iTunes Store and bluetoothed my phone to a stand alone speaker. I mean we physically took one of hundreds of CD’s from our CD cabinet, put it into a CD slot in our stereo player and turned up the volume. Call me old-fashioned.

The CB chose Melissa Etheridge, someone who would have no truck with my TV viewing choices, I’m sure. But then her sexual preferences don’t particularly appeal to me and her choice of father for two of her children (carried by someone else incidentally) – David Crosby – implies some potential genetic foibles down the track. Notwithstanding, we like her music. In fact we like it to the extent that we’ve seen her in concert, twice.

The first time was December 1995 when she accompanied The Eagles on their Hell Freezes Over Tour. The second time was in April 1996 when she toured on her own. And that, in a very roundabout way, is the subject of this very digressionary missive.

The concert was performed at an office building site which was then occupied by Festival Hall. That same office building now houses our financial advisor. Considerably more fun was had there when it was Festival Hall until it was demolished in 2003. Great concerts in a cosy environment included Yes, The Eagles (on their 1976 tour), Status Quo and, of course Melissa. Plus there was boxing and cheering for the bad guys while being showered with blood at World Championship Wrestling (RIP legends like Skull Murphy and Killer Kowalski). And the wrestling was legit back then – really. But not as legit as what we saw after the Melissa Etheridge concert – I’ll get to that. We even went to the Roller Game once – LA Thunderbirds v New York Bombers. I’ll never forget my father on his feet yelling “come on Ronnie” as Ronnie Rains literally ran round the track wearing roller skates and flung himself over a collapsed pack to win the game with seconds to go. That was legit too.

So, back to Melissa. On entering Festival Hall with the CB and her sister, I was somewhat perturbed to notice a paucity of males. In fact there was me and another bloke a couple of rows away. We exchanged nervous glances and girded our loins for the oestrogen express that was about to shirt-front us. We were seated in an elevated spot on the side. There was a seating area on the floor in front of us and a large block of seats was unoccupied until a few minutes before the concert when an army of buzz-cut flaunting, overall wearing, brickies labourers arrived. I think it was a busload of the Gold Coast chapter of Muffs Anonymous. And they were all pissed so you can imagine the hijinks….and the noise. To their credit though, they did confine the raucosity to between songs.

Melissa was thrilled she had such a devoted cheer squad which was basically everyone there except me and the other bloke (and the CB and her sister). And she played up to them by at one point commenting on how hot it was and how “moist” she was. The sisterhood swooned with orgasmic delight. Two people rolled their eyes. At that point I started to feel really sorry for her backing band – all males. After a rock concert usually the band (and the roadies) can look forward to the star’s cast-offs at the after-concert party but there would be no nooky for these poor bastards unless they were gay and played with each other both on and off the stage.

An ablution solution was also problematic for the girls (the straight ones). Neither of the two sitting with me had the courage to relieve themselves either alone or collectively for the duration of our time there. For me and the other bloke – not a problem apart from running the gauntlet of what could potentially be a resentful and hostile clutch. I’d have rather invaded a Hells Angels clubhouse dressed as the Village People policeman.

To give Melissa her due, she put on a good show and no doubt incited all manner of goings on afterwards. The Gold Coast bus driver would have seen some shenanigans through his rear-view mirror on the way back to broad beach, sorry Broadbeach.

However not everyone was happy. As the throng made its way down Albert Street towards the carpark a hullabaloo started somewhere close by. There was a lot of shouting as a red faced, ball fisted, hellcat stormed through the crowd, obviously looking for someone. That someone had attended the concert without her now apoplectic “friend” and she was cowering only a few metres away from us.

“Where’ve you been, you cunt” screamed the hellcat. And before the poor girl had a chance to open her mouth, HC smacked her with a right hook that wouldn’t have been out of place inside Festival Hall when Hector Thompson was on the card (you’ll have to look him up). She went down like the proverbial bag of shit and as the obviously alpha member of that partnership glowered over her beta’s shaking, crumpled body, we made our way to the carpark lest she make eye contact with one of us. You can’t beat a bout of brutal lesbian violence to round-off a pleasant evening.

It’s Her Birthday…..Again

admin

It’s the child bride’s birthday tomorrow when she catches up with me again. For four months of the year, I sleep with a younger woman. It’s a curious euphemism, “sleep with” because unless it’s followed by “his security blanket” (which could also be a euphemism, come to think of it) or “the fishes” or such like, it actually means “have sex with”. So that phrase is the absolute epitome of prudery except in my case as related above, when it actually means what it says (mostly).

It’s not a particularly momentous birthday unless you’re into bingo. I just checked as I am not a bingo expert and it seems there is some form of rhyming slang for every one of the ninety number bingo alphabet. So it’s not even momentous in that regard. But we’re of an age where birthdays don’t carry the same amount of gravitas as they did when we were eight. The prospect of gifts from relatives was enough to get you looking forward to your next birthday from the day after your last one so didn’t time pass depressingly slowly. That plus looking forward to school holidays had years lasting for decades during our childhoods. Now they last weeks. It’s almost Christmas and the last one was only a month or so ago.

And we’re of an age when we tend to disregard birthdays or pretend they didn’t happen whereas in our twenties and thirties (and forties and fifties periodically) they were excuses to cut loose. Now, the brain is still more than capable of functioning like it’s 20 years old. The body on the other hand is fond of saying to the brain “not so fast mate” when one of those “hold my beer and watch this” moments comes along. The CB is the adult in the relationship so isn’t quite as reckless as me. She hasn’t moved faster than a brisk walk since about 1976 other than with mechanical assistance. So to induce frivolity I have to ply her with drink which is about as difficult as getting Madonna to flash her tits. And even then there’s rarely ever dancing on a table or preferably (that’d be my preference) table dancing.

So we acknowledge birthdays more often than appearances of Halley’s Comet but a bit less frequently than tours by your favourite bands. The Rolling Stones were last here in 2014. That’s about right.

Twanging the Wires

admin

I’ve been promising myself to do this for ages and finally bit the bullet – I started guitar lessons this year. Actually “started” isn’t precisely the right word as my first guitar lesson was last century when I was 15 years old and it was conducted at my high school. The first turned out to be the only one with this teacher because, I can’t remember how but the professional musician father of a friend of my brother’s, offered to teach me around about the same time. I had one lesson with him before he left his family and buggered off with a woman other than his wife so that was the end of that. To complete this family’s story, my brother’s now ex-friend is wanted in connection with the murder of his wife and three kids. There’s a $1,000,000 reward for information leading to the solving of that case. I could make a joke about the Jackson family and the Osmond family and the Manson family but won’t. So I decided to teach myself, as you do.

I’ve had a guitar since I was 15 (I now have seven) and I pulled it out occasionally over the years and ever so gradually gained a modicum of proficiency although, to be fair, my guitar playing is to Eric Clapton what my mother’s driving is to Lewis Hamilton.

But I needed some incentive to focus more time and effort if I was to improve and my Brazilian employers from some years back managed to do that, bless them. The Brazilian people I worked with in the world’s second largest resources company were mostly (there are always exceptions, right) the nicest people imaginable – friendly, pleasant and smart. How the corporate culture got so poisonous I am yet to fathom. I left this company in 2009 after three tumultuous years during which I spent more time with lawyers than customers and I was the marketing general manager. Litigation with a smile. And with persistent and acrimonious litigation comes stress. And what’s a great way to relieve stress? There are many obvious ways including the Jeffrey Toobin method (look it up – he hilariously still works for CNN) or the way I chose – playing the guitar.

I’ve mentioned this previously but the finish to my Brazilian corporate experience was bitter/sweet – rather frustrating but a blessing in disguise. The poisonous culture got me. Admittedly, I provoked it and it was a bit bigger than me but they claimed I jumped the shark. Unlike The Fonz there would be no more repeats for me.

Taking a step back, when I play (the guitar) I can’t concentrate on anything else thereby alleviating stress – that’s how this works. I guess anything that requires the use of two hands and a brain fits that bill. But I’m a shit carpenter so making furniture was out so I took up lessons again. One term later with a teacher who wanted to eliminate all of the bad habits I had picked up over decades of playing with myself (errr), I realised this wasn’t working but I had found the work ethic again and dedicated myself to improvement.

I’ve read a lot of music biographies and auto (laugh out loud) biographies and most of them are forgettable even those describing the most fabulous and depraved careers – I guess you had to be there. It was the Guns ‘N Roses boys who did it for me. The best book I read in this genre was Duff McKagan’s (he’s the Gunners’ bass player) although that is irrelevant to this story. More relevant is his band-mate Slash who told me (via his book) that he practiced 12 hours a day. That point stuck in my mind and inspired me to do nothing remotely like this. Which is why I will never be as good as Slash. That and a decided gap in our respective natural abilities.

Slash and Duff doing their thing

What I did discover is that you can only carry yourself so far. A combination of indolence and red wine was conspiring to carry me even shorter distances. I had plateaued and needed a mountaineer. So I found a teacher and the first things he said to me were “show me what you can do” and “what else do you want to be able to do”. That was all I needed to hear. So in another year or two of intense practice I’ll be able to finger pick Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and there won’t be a bar chord that I haven’t heard of. The child bride is getting heartily sick of hearing mangled versions of Streets of London and Landslide as I try to train my right thumb and three of the four fingers to at least appear to be cooperating.

It works for me to the extent that I’ve even written a few songs. Just in time for the revival of vinyl records which is just as well because how else do you get a song into the Top 40?

Covid – Despite What You’re Told, Doesn’t Travel Well

admin1 Comment

It’s a truism that if you want something organized efficiently, don’t get a bureaucracy to do it.

I was recently asked to travel from the city I live in in Australia to another city in Australia, in another state, have a meeting then fly back the same day. Pretty straight forward you would have to agree and not an unusual occurrence. In my full-time working days I did it regularly. But do you think I could decipher the reams of instructions and descriptions polluting numerous government websites in order to understand what freedoms I would have to forego to do this. Because this whole episode, world-wide has been an exercise in restrictions of “freedoms”

I use the inverted commas round the word freedom because freedoms, by definition, are free and not to be tampered with by busy body politicians and their cadaverous health bureaucrats. Unfortunately, that’s not what the word means anymore. Once inalienable freedoms are glibly given and taken and rationed. They are rewards for good behaviour given to inmates who have behaved themselves.

Our premier is a whiny socialist, typical of many politicians around the democratic world (there’s a major contradiction in terms in that last sentence). Listening to these people try to explain what we can and can’t do on a daily basis is something I have given up doing – life’s too short. They live for it, I know. I don’t. Notwithstanding, it makes the libertarian portion of my blood boil.

So back to my dilemma. After spending too many hours trying to understand whether I could take my day-trip without having to put my granddaughter up as collateral or leaving a few pints of my own blood (the non-libertarian part) for the inevitable transfusion I would need after returning from the home of the walking dead in the south of our country, I gave up. That is, I gave up trying to work it out for myself. The solution – ring your local member of parliament and get them to earn some of that salary they didn’t forego when most of the country was locked down and destitute. So I did. It’s been a couple of hours so even the people who wrote the manual don’t seem to be able to make any sense out of it. I found it easier to work-out the instructions regarding construction of an Ikea bookcase. And I haven’t got a degree in architecture.

Update

I have been advised by my local MP’s office that if I want to go to this particular state for a few hours then return, I have to be double vaccinated (I am) and while I am there, get Covid tested and return a negative then on my return, do two weeks in quarantine. This is for my protection because I am incapable of protecting myself. I need a whiny socialist to look after me apparently. And this brings us full-circle back to why you don’t want bureaucrats organising anything.

A Bevvy in the Boulders – Part 2

admin

Since the CB and I decided to do a reverse tree-change and move from a semi-rural acreage setting to a townhouse closer to the city one thing we have missed is the view or in our case, views. There’s the horizontal (or slightly elevated) view to the hills in the distance and the vertical view to the incomprehensible splendour of the Milky Way. We hadn’t seen the Southern Cross and its Pointers for four years because of the blocking effect of city lights but a few nights ago, there they were.

Stanthorpe only has around 5000 people and we were out of town anyway so if he’d been there, Darryl Kerrigan would have been in his element – how’s the serenity. This piece of trivia would not have registered with those of you who haven’t immersed yourselves in the Aussie cultural equivalent of the Renaissance, a movie called “The Castle”. Watch it. Here’s a taste.

And I mention the Southern Cross because it’s very much part of the Australian psyche (and flag). And it and Orion’s Belt are the only celestial constellations I can identify.

Day 2 was a wine tour – all day. Four wineries and the Queensland College of Wine Tourism for lunch. That was about 38 wines all up. For professional tasters, that’s all in a day’s work. For amateurs like us it’s a serious challenge which was approached with all of the grit and determination we could muster. There were four of us (plus the driver) on our tour, the CB and I and a honeymooning couple who spent their time on the back seat of the mini-bus while the CB and I admired the scenery.

For the pros, wine tasting is all about the five “s’s” (pronounced “esses”), as in swirl, sniff, sip, swoosh (round the mouth) and spit. For us amateurs there’s a variation on this theme that goes swirl, sniff, sip, swallow, serve (the next one). And by the end of the day you might find the real amateurs doing the sip, swirl, swallow, sip, swallow, sprint, spew.

In these wine growing and wine making areas with lots of cellar doors you’d have to assume that, especially on the weekends and in high season there will be at least a few half pissed tourists on the roads. Which could explain the signs near all of the main intersections which tell drivers to stay on the left because this is Australia. Apparently these signs are all over the country but this is the only place I’ve noticed them and also apparently it’s because of the proliferation (in non-covid times) of fruit picking backpackers. In these covid times some fruit rots on the vines because our entitled youth and unencumbered older types are too lazy to pick fruit for $25/hour. There’s a strawberry runner farm in the area which employs about 600 people at peak times but….despair.

The CB and I would have offered to help out but with my dodgy back and her bursitis ravaged shoulder the best we could do was make a financial contribution so we signed up for wine clubs and bought a car full of produce, mostly of the liquid variety. And as previously mentioned, the Ugg Boot Lady got a couple of sales (four if you count each boot). And we bought Christmas stuff (and chocolate) from the Christmas farm because it’s May already and we don’t want to leave it too late.

Back at the cabin, after a long day supporting the local vintners, it was time to relax in front of the fire and not go to the bar because it had closed at 5.00pm. Incidentally, we did attempt to grab a cleansing ale at about 4.55pm but the lady behind the bar assured me that they closed at 4.45pm. I pointed in the direction of the reception area and reminded her that there was a sign there that said it closed at 5.00pm but she assured me it said 4.45pm. It didn’t and when I went to take a picture of it the next morning for this blog, it had disappeared like so many conservative Twitter accounts.

We had plenty of wine and beer but there was a principle involved here. After dismally failing to invoke the principle it was back to the cabin and the fire. It was then that the CB and I discovered we would make useless arsonists. It only took about four goes and a box of fire starters to get a decent fire going. I should know better because fires burn oxygen and as the oxygen content in the room drops, sleep creeps up. And that was that.

A Bevvy in the Boulders – Part 1

admin

Well the xhild (her new pronoun – no, actually it’s a typo – the “x” is next to the “c”) bride and I have finally escaped, albeit for just a few days. Our travel plans were decimated last year for obvious reasons and this year hasn’t been any better. So we loaded up the car and hit the road. Of course any excursion that involves more than one night away from home rivals D-Day for logistical complexity because you never know when you might need…… (fill in name of appropriate item or inappropriate as the case may be, a truffle trowel, for example). We did however manage to leave enough space in the car for a few cases of wine and that space was duly filled because wine tasting was the primary motivation for visiting that particular part of the world.

We stayed at a rather rustic establishment that came with cabins and its own micro-brewery just outside Stanthorpe, a pretty little town (if rather rocky – it’s in an area called the Granite Belt) in south east Queensland once famous for apples and snow. It is just about the only place in sub-tropical Queensland where it does snow occasionally.

Incidentally the little town just outside Stanthorpe called Applethorpe has a school which they have self-titled “the coolest school in Queensland”. Applethorpe has the cold and the apples covered whereas (and here’s the geologist in me making a rare appearance), Stanthorpe is named after Stannum, the Latin word for tin which was mined in the area (in the late 1800’s) before they started growing apples. And those of you who remember any chemistry will know that the chemical symbol for tin is Sn.

Now onto more frivolous musings. Oh yes, I almost forgot. Stanthorpe is now known for apples, snow and wine.

Incidentally, back on the travel thing, just to show how out of touch the CB and I are, we went to a bottle shop in Stanthorpe on the first afternoon and as we browsed we separately asked the attendant if they had any local wines and he pointed us to the section which had a large sign over it which read “Local Wines”. Now as any regular traveler will know, it’s advisable to have your metaphorical antennae up when you’re out of your homely comfort zone. You need to be able to notice stuff. However this was Stanthorpe not Mogadishu but we have been out of practice so both claim immunity from accusations of stupidity. And why were we buying wine from a bottle shop when there were dozens of cellar doors within staggering distance? It was the first afternoon prior to visiting any local wineries so we needed supplies to get us through the next few hours.

But here’s the real reason we needed to stock-up. The place where we were staying had a very nice bar which shuts at 5.00pm. Let me say that again. The bar opens at 10.00am and shuts at 5.00pm. Not 5.00am but 5.00pm. The first day, we got there with enough time to order one drink. The bar lady asked me if I wanted a 10oz beer, a 15oz or a pint. Nice lady, stupid question. If she’d offered me a bucket after a day of driving and considerable stress, I’d have taken that.

Stress, you say. Yes, something happened between arriving in Stanthorpe and getting to our accommodation, apart from the mercy stop at the bottle shop. This was something I had never done or even contemplated in my many years of existence. I bought a pair of Ugg boots. These have long been considered, along with flanno’s and mullets as integral parts of bogan culture. And I wouldn’t or hadn’t ever contemplated such a flagrant act of cultural appropriation, apart from eating Indian (and Thai, Chinese, Japanese etc) food, driving German cars, drinking ….well any nationality actually….beer (apart from non-alcoholic Iranian beer which I tried once in Iran, funnily enough, and tastes like what I would assume camel’s piss tastes like) and on and on the list goes. Having said that, the inner bogan does emerge occasionally. My wife and daughter once scolded me for wearing jeans and thongs (the ones that go on your feet not in your arse). Who knew?

So a bridge too far, or in this case more like an elephant’s foot too far, had been crossed and I had succumbed to warm feet syndrome. I have never been a fashionista and I’m as likely to follow fashion trends as I am to go bungee jumping. And by buying Ugg boots, I broke the bungee.

More to follow.

Taking a Tumble

admin

If you lived in our townhouse complex you may have been privy to a quite ridiculous situation a few days ago. Let me set the scene.

The child bride has bursitis in her left shoulder and has recently had a cortisone injection so her left arm may as well be made of wood, such is its uselessness.

And yesterday, after lunch at the excellent Birches restaurant, it started to rain. Being the chivalrous knight that I am, I went down the ramp to the carpark first and towards the bottom, turned to tell Mum and the CB to wait out of the rain while I went to get the car. As I turned, I put my foot halfway onto a small step, twisted my ankle and went down like Monica Lewinsky. Unfortunately there was no Clinton of any persuasion to break my fall, only a concrete path and it was not happy to see my right shoulder, right elbow and right hip so took to them like Mike Tyson to anybody.

Consequently, today I feel like I’ve just played the All Blacks….at my age.

So, there are industrial bins for our household rubbish. The lids are at about nipple level for me and top hat level for the rather diminutive CB. With both of us being appendage challenged, as in being unable to lift our respective right and left arms more than about 10 degrees we each had to take one small bag of rubbish to the big bins. I lifted the lid with my left hand and the CB threw the bags in with her right.

In the mining game we call this double handling. In our townhouse complex it’s called pathetic if you don’t know the circumstances.

Fortunately I don’t watch football with my hip and shoulder although they do together comprise a rather brutal function in the uniquely Australian version of football (or “footy” as it’s colloquially called). You can google “hip and shoulder” to see what I mean.

And I don’t need them to drink beer either as I have a perfectly normal functioning mirror image pair on the left side of my body, not that I need my hip to get a glass to my mouth, but it does get me to the fridge.The next challenge is to see if I can slide a guitar into that 10 degree gap.

Your boundless sympathy is much appreciated.

Do You Remember When…

admin

Back on 9/11 (this year) I intended writing one of those “do you remember where you were when….” essays but I forgot so I’m writing it now. I finished the (paying) work I do each week yesterday and the (non-paying) garden work half an hour ago and it’s raining so I thought I’d impose a bit of cancel-culture on procrastination to fill in a few minutes until beer time. Incidentally, that’s the only time you’ll see the words “cancel-culture” here other than as a target of disdain and ridicule.

There are very few events in human history that warrant remembering what you were doing when they occur because most of those memorable moments are the reasons you remember as in, I remember what I was doing the day I got married – I was getting married.

No we’re talking about disconnected events fusing together into an unforgettable nuclear marriage of inconvenience. For me, only three immediately spring to mind.

The first was when Kennedy was assassinated on November 22nd 1963. I was a small boy getting on a ship in Southampton in the UK with my family to travel to Australia. A note was left on each table when we fronted for our first meal onboard advising us of what had happened. As master of ceremonies at one of my brothers’ wedding, also on November 22nd I was able to remind him that an event of earth-shattering infamy happened on that day, some 30 odd years before. Also, Kennedy got shot.

The second was the actual day of 9/11. I was in Seoul, Korea and had been out with a work colleague, our agent and some customers for dinner and drinks and on returning to our hotel our Korean agent received a phone call from his wife, advising him that a plane had flown into a building in New York – no other details. After a suitably shocked exchange of comments we retired to the bar. On returning to my room and turning on the TV, the full horror of the events that day were revealed.

Seoul is a garrison town for the US army and the hotel I was staying in is next door to the imposing Seoul World Trade Centre. It’s not uncommon to see military activity in Seoul both in the air and on the ground at the best of times. At the worst of times it was chaos. Organized chaos I’m sure but you can imagine the traffic when all but one entrance to the very large army base are shut. And there were more than the usual number of choppers in the air, many buzzing around the building next door, not to mention the troops on the ground. Seoul is after all, only about 50km from North Korea.

Incidentally, I’ve been to Korea over 60 times (I used to keep count) and have never been to the DMZ. The Child Bride has been to Korea once and when she went to the DMZ she brought me back a hat.

After doing what we had to do that day we made our way to the airport to catch our flight to Osaka to connect with our Ansett International flight to Brisbane. Ansett was doing it really tough right then and rumours were swirling that they were about to go under. As we flew into Kansai airport, I saw the big bird with the “A” on the tail – relief. After boarding (and getting upgraded to first class – some good things did happen on that trip) I was privy to a conversation between two flight attendants which filled me with, not so much dread considering what had happened the day before, but considerable disquiet. They weren’t sure whether the plane would actually leave Osaka. Fortunately, it did – relief.

Our flight was scheduled to fly from Kansai Airport to Brisbane and then on to Sydney. Bearing in mind that the airline was on its last legs (wings? wheels?), the announcements as we approached Brisbane went like this:

We’ll be landing in Brisbane soon. Please ensure your belongings are stowed….etc

A few minutes later…..

We’ll be landing in Brisbane soon. Would all connecting passengers please deplane and re-board when the announcement is made. We’ll be in Brisbane for approximately one hour.

A few minutes later…..

We’ll be landing in Brisbane soon. Would all connecting passengers deplane and wait for an announcement regarding your onward journey.

A few minutes later…..

This flight will now terminate in Brisbane. The ground staff will advise arrangements for your onward connection to Sydney.

A few minutes later…..

Please be advised that all of the passengers heading to Sydney will have to make your own onward arrangements. We don’t know how we’re getting there either.

The airline had expired while we were travelling between Japan and Australia.

And the third time was only recently so only time will tell whether it sticks with me but I’m betting it will. It was one of those occasions that will only happen once in your life – my father died.

My mother and one of my brothers and I had been to see Dad in the morning and it was not a pretty sight. He was in stage 7 of Alzheimer’s which means an inability to swallow, amongst other things. Mum struggled to even look at the handsome athletic man of her youth now a shriveled shell of a man struggling to breathe. We left after a few minutes and returned to her home about 10 minutes drive away from the nursing home Dad had resided in for the past few years.

We had been there for about twenty minutes when Mum’s phone rang. Now those of you who have frequented nursing homes will know that a lot of the staff are Asian, in this case many were from the Philippines. My Mum still speaks with a distinct Manchester accent but, ironically struggles with other accents. She hates ringing the phone company or the electricity company because she will generally find herself talking to someone in Manila or Bangalore. Anyway she could not understand what the lady who rang was saying. If I hadn’t been there to take the call maybe she still wouldn’t be aware that Dad died just after we left.

I cheated a bit with the third example. It wasn’t a disconnected (from my life) event that imposed  itself on me to the extent that it never leaves but, what can I say other than I won’t forget that day.

I just thought of another. The day Gough Whitlam was sacked as Australia’s Prime Minister on November 11th 1975, I was at university. There was a great rending of garments, wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the communist student union types. My lot, we did what we normally did – went to the pub.