Australia

Guns N’ Roses

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I bought tickets for Guns N’ Roses for myself, son, daughter and son-in-law on February 10th 2021. We finally got to use them last night, November 22nd 2022, after a covid inspired year-long delay. And I’m pleased to say there wasn’t a mask in sight. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any of course, because the concert was at the local football stadium so it was somewhat difficult to tell whether the amorphous mass on the other side of the field actually comprised people, let alone people with bandannas on their faces.

Congratulations Brisbane! The Gunners managed to get more people into the stadium than most of our sporting teams although, to be fair, you can’t actually take a chair out into the middle of the field during a game. I’ve had enough of sitting (or mostly standing) in front of the stage so we go for seats on the side, looking down on the stage from a 30-45 degree angle. The promoters don’t miss you when it comes to the cost of these seats and I paid top dollar to be able to see not much on the stage to be honest. But the big screens either side of the stage were BIG so my initial reluctance to go to a stadium concert (this was my first) and my disquiet when I saw how far away we were (despite, as I may have just mentioned, the price of the tickets) was assuaged when the gig got underway and the visual and sound and fury hit us full-on.

I just read a review of the concert and the reviewer made the point that there aren’t many stadium fillers in the music world these days including the Gunners – there were a lot of empty seats. If you’d asked my opinion on this when the music started I’d have agreed but a couple of songs in, when the lights scanned the arena it was clear that many people in the stadium bars were not throwing that last beer down for anyone. Twenty minutes in, the only areas not filled were those behind light towers and other impediments. So the reviewer obviously didn’t turn round after the first few songs. And I can tell you this for nothing, this little black duck won’t be attending concerts by those remaining few noted stadium fillers like Cold Play and Ed Sheeran.

Actually the people who finished their beers rather than catch the first couple of songs did themselves a favour because it took that long for Axl to get his mojo. Initially he looked and sounded like me doing “It’s So Easy” in a Ginza karaoke bar. By the time we got to “Welcome to the Jungle” he was sweating and snarling and looking mildly deranged and it was game-on. Speaking of how he looked, minus the bandanna, long hair and beard I couldn’t decide whether he was morphing into Kiefer Sutherland, impersonating Shane Warne or auditioning for Derek Jakobi’s “I Claudius” (you have to be able to remember back to 1976/77 for that one).

Axl’s always had a reputation for being somewhat unreliable. The sound curfew may have had something to do with them kicking off a 7.00pm scheduled start at a respectable 7.10pm but he also seemed to be making an extra effort to stay onside (that’s two football references in one sentence) by having Aussie badges sewn into the parts of his jeans that weren’t holes. And he must have spent the afternoon in a souvenir shop because he changed his t-shirt about eight times and each one had something antipodean on it except the one that said “Satan is a Lesbian”. Alright!

Much as the sound i.e. the actual music, is vital to the whole, if the singer isn’t on song, so to speak, the performance lacks something. The concert went for bang-on three hours and the time flew by, I have to admit. But it could have been shortened and improved (IMHO) by cutting a few songs that Axl struggled with. His once incredible range came out to play occasionally but sometimes he seemed uncertain as to whether to bang it up an octave to banshee or remain in the safe baritone range. Sometimes that decision was taken mid-sentence and occasionally mid-word. But let’s not quibble – to churn out that volume for that long is seriously impressive.

The musicians and musicianship were as you would expect. Duff’s base is still making my organs vibrate and did anyone ever tell him he looks like a dishevelled David Bowie. They have a Ronnie Wood lookalike guitarist (while we’re doing appearance comparisons) called Richard Fortus and there’s not much of him which is emphasised by his playing a huge Gretsch White Falcon guitar. And he can really play it. They let him off the leash a few times and his lead work was very good even if the weight of the guitar seemed to be dragging him closer and closer to the floor. But no matter how good he is, he or anyone for that matter, playing in a band that has Slash in it, will always be the rhythm guitarist. The songs are always the stars of these shows but Slash’s playing was not far behind. We got the full range from finger picking acoustic to rip-roaring, fire-breathing electric 12 string on a twin necked Gibson and everything in between.

There were three other musicians who were stuck up the back – the drummer and two keyboardists – who rarely figured on the big screen. One of them is a rather attractive young blonde lady who we saw about three times on the big screen and not at all on the stage because there was a light tower right in front of her from where we were sitting. My unmarried son was most disappointed.

And here’s the set list:

It’s So Easy
Mr. Brownstone
Chinese Democracy
Slither (Velvet Revolver cover)
Welcome to the Jungle (Link Wray’s ‘Rumble’ intro)
Reckless Life
Double Talkin’ Jive
Live and Let Die (Wings cover)
Shadow of Your Love
Estranged
Rocket Queen
You’re Crazy
You Could Be Mine
I Wanna Be Your Dog (The Stooges cover) (Duff on lead vocals)
Absurd
Hard Skool
Better
Civil War (Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” outro)
Sorry
(followed by band introductions)
Slash Guitar Solo
Sweet Child o’ Mine
November Rain
Wichita Lineman (Jimmy Webb cover)
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan cover)
Nightrain
Encore:
Coma
Patience (The Beatles’ “Blackbird” intro)
Don’t Cry
Paradise City

I know, I know. Witchita Lineman?? I guess if they can have a Paul McCartney song they can have a Glen Campbell song.

A Political Rant

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A while ago I was thinking about the state of play her in Queensland and in western democracies generally and came to what I thought was a very profound conclusion. Actually, and I digress, “very profound” isn’t correct grammar is it, whether I thought it or not. Like “very brilliant” or “very devastating”. The word “profound” is non-gradable so doesn’t need an adverb of degree. This lesson is the first of today’s contributions to the preservation of Western Civilisation. The second one follows so I’ll start again.

A while ago I was thinking about the state of play her in Queensland and in western democracies generally and came to what I thought was a profound conclusion. There are many problems in the world ranging from the specific, like the war in Ukraine and the covid virus which Joe Biden has just declared has lost its pandemic status much to the chagrin of his medical bureaucracy and many authoritarian politicians, to the more nebulous like stupidity and “racism”. The inverted commas round “racism” are there because generally, it isn’t. It’s mostly just a cover-all insult these days.

But the biggest problem facing mankind (I know, I know, and I don’t care) in my humble opinion is people who don’t pay attention. The inexorable creeping sludge of the many tides of leftism (remember the long march through the institutions?) is allowed to proceed because most don’t notice it until it slaps them in the face – looking at you Venezuela. Remember, you voted for Chavez and now the only way to get rid of him is if he died. Oh that’s right, he did and look what replaced him. Your most recent election was the last one before the next blood-bath. It was probably pretty crappy before Chavez but you weren’t paying enough attention when he offered something that was too good to be true, were you? Now a large proportion of you are on your way to the US. On foot.

Let me clarify. There are well-meaning people who vote Green because they think the Greens are for a cleaner environment. I guess in amongst the wealth-redistributing Marxists there may still be one or two who are, but it’s doubtful. So Greens voters (who aren’t Marxists) are just useful idiots. The vast majority of blacks still vote Democrat in the US. This is despite the fact that the inner city areas of most Democrat jurisdictions (like Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia….the list goes on) where a lot of black people live are, as described by POTUS 45, crime-ridden “shitholes”. And they’re getting worse not better but the residents continue to vote for Democrats for some reason lost in the mists of time. If you don’t realise you are being taken for granted, you are a useful idiot (and you’re not paying attention!).

I just re-read the rest of this diatribe and decided it’s too big a topic for a couple of pages on a blog. More like a book or series of books. So if you don’t want to read on, remember, if someone is seeking and wanting to hold absolute power, as far as they are concerned, the ends justify the means. That’s all you need to know.

Let’s go back the riots in the US in 2020. There are city’s (including those mentioned above) across that country that haven’t had conservative local government for decades. You know the ones. They’re defined by defunding the police, cashless bail, not prosecuting shoplifting if the swag is less than $1000 (has anyone seen a looter waiting at a cash-register?), emptying the jails, providing sanctuary from the feds for criminal illegals, skyrocketing homelessness, crime and drug problems etc etc. Now consider the poor bastards whose businesses and livelihoods were and are still being destroyed by the absolutely predictable mayhem caused by these policies. Many of them would have voted for the scum-bags who allowed these things to happen and are doing nothing to stop them happening now. If these victims of the BLM and Antifa riots and the ongoing lawlessness vote these same people back into power at the next election then (1) they are not paying attention and (2) all sympathy evaporates.

The key words in this rant so far are “inexorable creeping”. I mentioned the long march through the institutions which is eating education, the arts, legal systems and bureaucracies from the inside and is even worming its way into sport like bamboo up your fingernails. There are examples across the world illustrating the various stages in the authoritarian progression (or inexorable creep, if you like) from benign (ha!) smiling (smirking, more like) old socialists like the newly minted Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese all the way through to deranged tyrants like Kim Jong Un. Bear with me here.

If you leave these people alone (because you’re not paying attention) eventually the metastasizing is complete. So we have the currently relatively benign governments like the aforementioned Australian Government (although they are already making very disturbing noises). When we take a further step to the left we find leftist governments in Australia like that in Victoria which has implemented elements of the police state and Queensland where stupidity still trumps evil but give them time (and we will because too many people aren’t paying attention). Further along this highway to hell are New Zealand and Canada. If you don’t know what Ardern and Trudeau are getting up to (not with each other, that I’m aware of), then yes, you are not …. you know the rest.

The next stop is various state governments in the US like California, New York, Illinois, Washington, Minnesota and Oregon where BLM and Antifa do as they please with apparent impunity as outlined above. The US Government is proving to be particularly evil as it harasses its political opponents and cows its population with its covid mandates and declarations around domestic terrorism, white supremacy and MAGA voters as well as its joint venture with the media and big-tech. And whilst the US and Iran are ostensibly poles apart, I bet the people who run the Biden administration (not Biden himself, obviously) look lovingly towards Tehran and their complete control over all institutions including deciding who gets to run in their “elections”.

Talking of theocracies like Iran (and Saudi Arabia) some would consider them rightists rather than leftists because they are supposedly religious conservatives or whatever. These are arguments for political scholars. It’s a debatable point but remember the left is about one thing alone – getting power and holding it by whatever means available because the ends justify the means. So the Ayatollahs, the Saudi Royal Family, the US Democrat Party and its subsidiary the Biden administration and socialist political parties everywhere have that in common.

Then we have countries like the old Soviet republics including Ukraine. Yes, Zelenskyy has replaced Paddington Bear (now that he’s left the building with Queen Elizabeth) as everyone’s favourite cuddly toy but he ran a regime (before the war) with all of the trappings of a leftist dictatorship – restricted press freedoms, corruption, jailing of political opponents and banning of opposition political parties. And there are others like Uzbekistan and Belarus.

And Africa’s another book entirely. The word “Zimbabwe” should cover it for now.

Moving on we have the big five – Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, China and North Korea. Whether or not the people in these countries are paying attention is irrelevant because without massive upheaval, they are already lost. The rest of us, however need to observe these places and take notes.

I used to believe the left and the right were heading towards the same destination, it was just the road being taken which was up for debate. How naive. I don’t believe that anymore.

So there are examples everywhere of what can happen if you vote for socialists but more significantly, leave them in power too long. Inevitably it will all go to shit and uncontrollable debt will be the least of your problems.

And if you don’t believe that the “civilized” left believes the ends justify the means, check out this Sam Harris interview.

https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1560061984699064320

Merry Christmas

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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

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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

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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

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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?

A Bevvy in the Boulders – Part 2

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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

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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

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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.