Family

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rule 1 – No Dick Heads

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We’ve all started new positions during our working life. Admittedly some people do it only once and these are generally public servants or Japanese although the job-for-life the previous generation of Japanese workers expected is not quite as ubiquitous these days.

Before you start a new position you generally have to negotiate your way through an application to get an interview, then fill in some questionnaires to make sure you’re not a psychopath or a sociopath. And here’s the rub.

Did you ever wonder, once you’ve got to know your workmates, how some of them jumped those hurdles. Some of them wouldn’t be able to jump rope if it was lying limp on the ground. How did these thoroughly unlikeable individuals slip through the fuck-wit filter? Were they interviewed by like minded people? Are they put there as a management challenge for everyone else? Do they know someone or have photos. Or are they simply the beneficiaries of the only job generating programme left-leaning governments throughout the world know – employing more and more bureaucrats. Because let’s face it, many of these people work in government. One of the few privileges private enterprise enjoys compared with government is the ability to fire someone. That person has to have committed an atrocity three times or three different atrocities before human resources will stop wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth long enough to risk a trip to the unfair dismissal tribunal. But such are the “rights” of employees over management these days.

Back to our work-place wankers. You know the type. They work to rule absolutely when it advantages them. Breaks are taken at exactly the time they are meant to be taken. This doesn’t necessarily mean one returns to work at the allotted time. One has to finish one’s cigarette, doesn’t one. They are the ones who loudly assert their rights at work. If there’s a union presence they will utilise it as often as my mother calls her local member of parliament. They will leave their workplace exactly at knock-off time even if it means leaving a nail half banged into a piece of wood. And they will gossip, maliciously.

There is an Australian Football club that famously implemented a “no-dickheads” rule which is a bit like the fuck-wit filter mentioned above. This meant that if you were up yourself to the extent that you disrupted the team’s cohesion, it didn’t matter how good you were, you weren’t welcome and you weren’t selected. And it worked because the club enjoyed considerable success.

This doesn’t necessarily mean it will work everywhere. Imagine applying it to an NBA franchise. Overnight you’d be down to about three players. And NFL teams would lose whole defensive lines – you know the ones who carry on like they’ve cured cancer after making one tackle. Unfortunately when you see an eight year old soccer player put on a Hugh Jackman routine when they score a goal, to the raucous cheers of Mum and Dad, you know the future supply of dickheads is secure.

When the no-dickheads rule is rolled out to all work places in the country we will have platoons of embittered ex-administration officers roaming central business districts all over the country, stopping outside their previous places of work, sucking on fags and abusing passers-by. In the US they will occasionally (rarely thankfully) return to their old workplaces with guns. Stringent application of the no-dickheads rule at the appropriate time could have nipped a tragedy in the bud. Or more likely simply shifted it to another location.

Unfortunately it seems we are stuck with these people and now that political correctness has sunk it’s cold dead claws into every facet of life, especially the fun bits, they can claim victim hood status as well. Best to just ignore them.

Excuse Me While I Run And Hide

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The CB retired from teaching recently. I’ve been running my own business from home for a few years so this was the first time we had been thrust together all day every day, well most days, for……ever. As a consequence I felt it incumbent on me to give her (and females generally) some advice as to how this might work and what my future expectations would be……ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Men know why I am bent double laughing hysterically.

To try to disguise the fact it’s me speaking, I occasionally lapse into the third person. This isn’t me being pretentious, it’s my instinctive defence mechanism kicking in. Notwithstanding, here goes:

1. Working – Now that you’ve retired you will only be expected to undertake paid employment for two days a week. Beer doesn’t grow on trees you know.

2. House Work – That house ain’t going to clean itself my dear. Whilst your husband may be able to fly the space shuttle (in theory) don’t for a second expect him to understand the intricacies of a clothes cleaning implement unless it comprises a rock and a river. The same applies for that crushed wine glass shard sucking machine and the “hose in a box” that blasts shrivelled mushrooms out of pizza boxes but makes the boxes very soggy in the process. Remember your life-long aversion to lawn mowers? Chickens are on their way home to sleep as we speak.

3. Clothing – My expectations as to what you wear around the house are few. As has been the case since the dawn of time, the outside layer is irrelevant to all people except other women. And here’s a secret – no one cares if your arse looks big in it. Men are infinitely more concerned with whether other bits look big in it but you i.e. women generally, never ask that question, do you.

4. Underclothing – Now we’re talking. We know the transition from frilly and filmy to industrial strength has been happening by stealth for years but this need not happen. He does still have a pulse you know.

5. Sport – Now that you have more time on your hands you’ll be required to indulge your partner with feigned interest in pretty much every sport imaginable. The indifference of previous years, excused through pressures of work will no longer be tolerated. But keep the questions to a bare minimum. You may even learn to love the UFC. What’s not to like about two cute, diminutive, young ladies beating ten types of tripe out of each other. You could be sitting with your man right now (in between fetching the beers, sandwiches etc) watching two very average West Australian batsmen break every record in the book against the Worst Indies at the spiritual home of world cricket – Blundstone Arena, Hobart, as happened a couple of years ago.

6. Drinking – You’re still allowed to drink. This was going to be at number 1 but I wanted to make you sweat.

7. Children – You’ll like this one (and what’s not to like about the others so far). Now’s the time when your cash hoovers are replaced by a second generation of cash hoovers. The best part is that they now live somewhere else so you can hide when you see them coming up the driveway.

8. Food Preparation – Your devotion to the kitchen is very much appreciated. No, really. Now if you could only look a bit more like Nigella when you do it. But forget about the accompanying commentary.

9. Music – We know the transition from Barry Manilow to Celtic Punk has been problematic but rest assured, you’ll be humming Kiss Me I’m Shitfaced in the car before you know it. Despite the dominance of the airwaves by wimpy trousers like One Deflection and Taylor’s Wiffed (whoever they are), there is still a vast underground world of hard partying, mysoginistic, drug fuelled thrashers for your viewing and participatory pleasure. Accompanying Not Garfunkel’s next world tour should give you a taste of this enchanting world.

10. Retirement – Enjoy it. You’ve earned it.

Thus endeth my suicide note.

Marriage Musings

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The child bride and I and assorted friends and relatives went to a local courthouse yesterday to watch one of my brothers get married…..again. Now I always thought the marriage ceremony ended with “I now pronounce you husband and wife”. I guess it was because we were in a courthouse that the celebrant turned to my brother and said “I hereby sentence you to life in marriage”. And it’s the only sentence in the civil or criminal code from which you can earn early release for bad behaviour.

His first marriage lasted 30 years and his second 98 days. Based on that trajectory his third would have lasted about 12 minutes. Fortunately a genie granted him three wishes and he got the third one right.

Not everyone deserves “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the immortal words of the American Declaration of Independence – I’m looking at you Billy Ray Cyrus for inflicting “Achy Breaky Heart” on an unwitting populace. But my brother does having survived imprisonment for longer than your average murderer with sanity relatively intact.

Marriage is a wonderful institution it has to be said and everyone deserves a piece of it. But at the end of the day, it is still an institution and some people are quite reasonably reluctant to enter its enticing portals. I’ve been married for centuries and love it and I’m going to leave it there because the child bride reads this blog occasionally. Any sort of innocent commentary on a social compact that comes with reams of fine print is bound to attract conflicting views and generate a range of emotions so all I’ll say to everyone is “happy families”.

I can’t resist finishing on a note which links the name of this blog and the subject at hand. A woman and a man are sitting together sipping drinks when the wife says “I love you.” The husband says “Is that you or the wine talking?” She says “It’s me talking….to the wine.”

A Cautionary Christmas Tale

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My Facebook page was hacked yesterday. I have no idea why anyone would want to do such a thing although they did manage to imply that I recommended a certain type of face moisturiser. It wasn’t even my favourite brand sweetie. Anyway, since I was on FB and had a few minutes to spare, I went looking for something from the past to put here, having just reminisced about our blockbusting, stadium filling (if Coldplay can do it, anyone can) musical combo. I found this Christmas story from a few years back and here it is for your reading pleasure.

So that’s the Christmas Eve job list done and dusted.
– Two dead trees near the dam chain-sawed and disposed of. Ahead of the Season of Goodwill, all latent aggression dispersed.
– New plants and herbs watered – a stinking hot day today so they need it. Who’d be a lettuce in Queensland in summer.
– Vine infesting one of our hedges chopped and poisoned. Not funny climbing into a hedge of grevilleas. Arms look like I’ve been sparring with the cats.
– BBQ moved from the shed to the deck in preparation for tomorrow. Managed to prevent it escaping down the driveway and finishing up in the next post code.
– Full gas bottle attached to same.
– Additional tables moved from shed to deck (after checking for red-back spiders, hiding snakes etc).
– Fridges stocked to the gunwales – experience tells us that when this family has a “do” the gunwales aren’t high enough.
– Tinselly stuff hung round the deck. Tinselly stuff picked up and re-hung after breeze proved too strong for blue-tack. Tinselly stuff picked up again, screwed up and shoved back in box to be re-hung when the breeze dies down a bit.
And the final chore:
Step 1 – remove beer from fridge
Step 2 – take beer to pool and put next to edge of pool
Step 3 – dive into pool, swim to other end then return
Step 4 – drink beer
Step 5 – repeat steps 3 and 4 ad nauseum
Note – Step 3 not compulsory.

A few hours later……..

Well, what an eventful Christmas Eve. Completed the beer ritual mentioned above then escorted the child bride round the estate while partaking of a glass of bubbles (origin New Zealand, but not to worry). Koalas successfully located and all well with the world. Graduated from bubbles to red (and in the CB’s case white) wine and settled down to watch the Royal Variety Performance. Recognized Dame Edna, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jimmy Carr. The rest were plastic people presumably from some talent show. Then it was time for bed – we didn’t want Santa to turn up and here’s us still awake. So hit the shower at 11.00pm.

We have a small foot rest in our shower which, as the name suggests, you rest your foot on when washing it. So I put my foot on it as I have done most days of the 7 years we’ve been here. It takes a little weight but obviously you don’t transfer the whole ponderous bulk to this one small foot rest or you are inviting trouble. Anyway, it collapsed and I hit the floor of the shower. As I lay there mentally reviewing the potential damage from top to bottom, I realised that the absence of bones protruding through skin was due to the fact I was quite relaxed. So I gingerly stood up and realised I’d been lying on a bed of ceramic shrapnel.

All was okay though except for my red left arm. It hadn’t been red that I’d noticed when I got in the shower but there it was leaking vital bodily fluids onto the floor of the shower. Bummer. Anyway, the CB did a wonderful job patching up my arm (too pissed to drive to hospital and not serious enough to bother the ambulance) which has a number of rather nasty gashes in it. Nothing she can do for the shoulder which feels like it hit the ground first but even though it’s on the right side, won’t prevent the important events of the day. So first port of call this morning is the emergency room at Prince Charles Hospital to get stitched up then back here prior to the commencement of festivities which I might add, will not be affected by this unfortunate occurrence.

12 stitches from a babe of a doctor who looks like she is on her way home from a Christmas Eve party and a tetanus shot later and normal programming is resumed. Liquid painkillers beckon.

Rheinube River Ramble Part 12 – Random Observations

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After a month in Europe, long flights home and a decent night’s sleep, the CB and I are back in the land of the living. Here are a few final thoughts, in no particular order, to wrap things up.

In Nuremberg we had a look at the place where Hitler conducted his rallies and made those infamous fist waving speeches to the then adoring masses. It’s been preserved so we never forget what went on there. As a music lover I like the idea that it’s now used for rock concerts. I don’t know if Iron Maiden have performed there but seeing Bruce Dickinson in his redcoat tunic waving the Union Jack while singing The Trooper and leaping about in the spot where Hitler once stood appeals to my irony gene.

We saw numerous castles on our travels. I love castles. Inverlochy Castle in Scotland was used for protection back in the 13th century. This involves fighting. I am photographing the defensive capabilities of the castle – the moat, the battlements, the walls, the ingenious ways they had in those days to trap or kill attackers. The CB is photographing bluebells growing out of the walls.

I’ve previously reported in Widows and Walking Sticks and other previous posts that we have been travelling with a bunch who are about a generation removed from us – up, not down. And there are a lot of single ladies amongst them. So while Cuz1 and I have been focussed on getting the next round in, Cuz2 and the CB have been more concerned with who’s doing what to whom. A bit crude I know but when we are talking about an average age of about 80 it takes on a whole new dimension. They had the male and female tour guides sorted on day one despite a left-field intervention from another of my cousins in Vienna which I won’t outline here but some of the other “connections” were ……… I don’t know why I’m talking about this and will stop immediately.

We’ve encountered many, many famous people on our travels this past month ranging from Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome and philosopher extraordinaire to Ferenc Puskas, Hungary’s and one of the world’s most famous footballers who was given a cathedral burial. We saw Oscar Schindler and Ralph Wallenberg, Gothe and Richard the Lionheart. There was Zsa Zsa Gabor and Conrad Hilton and various Habsburg kings and queens. We caught up with Mozart, Beethoven, the various Strausses, Haydn and Schubert in Vienna and Richard Wagner in Germany. It seemed like every town, big or small, had a claim to fame usually involving a figure from the history books. And that’s a big reason why the CB and I love visiting Europe.

Of course getting from Aus to Europe can be a pain and readers of one of the earlier Rheinube episodes will be aware that British Airways fell rather dramatically in my estimation when they put the CB and I in the middle two seats of the four in a 2-4-2 configuration. They redeemed themselves by giving us an aisle seat and a middle seat with no one in the other middle seat coming back the other way. It was looking dodgy there for a while BA.

Then when we showed our boarding passes at the Qantas lounge in Singapore the nice Qantas gentleman said they had different boarding passes for us and went to consult with a colleague. They were different but not in the way I hoped and at this point expected. Rather than an upgrade, they were switched from paper to cardboard and the seat numbers didn’t change. Hoo-bloody-ray. Maybe Alan Joyce knows I think he’s a social justice warrior wanker who should confine himself to running an airline when wearing his Qantas hat. I’m a Qantas shareholder and he doesn’t speak for me when he says Qantas believes this or Qantas believes that (insert favourite lefty cause).

And finally we were very fortunate to have travelled with such fun loving, and booze loving companions in Cuz1 and Cuz2. When intentions (having a good time mainly) are perfectly aligned you can’t go wrong. Any hint of disunity prior to departure however will be magnified especially in the close confines of a boat or a coach as someone I know recently discovered. Not us. We had a blast and intend doing it again and if you hang around long enough and I don’t get sick of doing this you’ll read about it here first.

The Rheinube River Ramble Part 11

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Well Budapest, what can I say? What a wonderful place. You are now my official favourite city. Take an insomnia pill New York. Wipe that sanctimonious smirk off your face Paris. Turn off that phone Hong Kong. There’s a new kid in town.

Vienna was inspiring with its beautiful palaces and it’s magical, musical past. But it’s flat and organised. A touch of dishevelment and hints of a more “colourful” past plus a few hills make for greater interest. Vienna certainly has interesting history being front and centre with Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire followed not long after by it’s capitulation to nazism. And it’s suburbs are as graffitied as any other city. But Budapest is coming out of something no city, no country, no people should be made to suffer and the transition is incomplete but the potential is obvious. Maybe the same can be said for Bucharest and Sofia and any number of places which experienced the same cold, dead-hand of totalitarianism, but today we are focussing on Budapest.

Budapest has the Danube. Many places have the Danube as it’s Europe’s second longest river behind the Volga which is entirely in Russia so doesn’t really count. And the best place to showcase a city from, in my humble opinion, is a river and if that river happens to be the Danube then all the better. Many of Budapest’s most outstanding landmarks are visible in all of their glory from the river. And there are plenty of them which you can read about in any number of books and blogs, but not this one.

Our tour guide advised us that the happiest day in Budapest’s long history (they celebrated 1000 years in 1896) was the day in 1991 when the Soviet army left. Then the hard work began because what hadn’t been trashed had been neglected to a criminal extent. Restoration work is proceeding apace but unfortunately the economy hasn’t progressed since the communists were kicked out, to the extent that sufficient funds are available to restore everything. So you get this strange phenomenon of a street of beautifully restored palaces and five story town houses interspersed with potentially and previously beautiful buildings sporting crumbling masonry, exposed bricks and collapsing facades. And they are filthy.

Now, the majority of restoration work is done as a condition of sale of the particular building. So if a hotel chain or a bank or any other business buys a run-down building, they are required to do the restoration themselves, in some cases it would appear, simply to make them habitable. How’s that, you millennial, socialist weenies? Capitalism is cleaning up the mess your communist fellow-travellers left when they scuttled back to their mythical land of fairness and equality where everyone lives happily ever after.

Meanwhile back in the real world you can still see bullet holes from World War 2 and more recently from the uprising of 1956 when the plucky Magyars tried to toss out the Soviets only to be crushed. A small part of this was reenacted in the pool at the Melbourne Olympics when Hungary played the Soviet Union in water polo – the “Blood in the Water” match won by Hungary 4-0.

These are the reasons why Budapest is such a wonderful place. It has a magnificent smorgasbord of attractions, it has reminders of its tragic past and it is demonstrating its determination to eradicate, but not forget that past.