Monthly Archives: February 2010

Montymilliganisms – The Mothers – Our Sons are on TV

28 Sunday Feb 2010

Posted by in Entertainment Upstairs

≈ 8 Comments

Scene One: The Mothers all sit watching TV.

Script and Stills bu Neville Cole
MOTHER 1: Ssshhh! Quiet everyone! The show’s about to start. 
MOTHER 2: I always knew my boy would be on tv! 
MOTHER 3: I always knew my boy was a boy…you know, because of his thing.
MOTHER 4: Yes, that’s a dead give away. 
MOTHER 1: Ssshhh! Something’s about to happen. (PAUSE) It looked like something was about to happen. 
MOTHER 2: I certainly hope they don’t embarrass us… 
MOTHER 1: Oh no! I told my boy. No jokes about mothers and no jokes about debilitating diseases. People just don’t find those things funny. 
MOTHER 2: Tourette’s Syndrome is not funny. 
MOTHER 3: Dirty ass wipe snot bugger! 
MOTHER 2: What? 
MOTHER 3: No. Not funny at all…and neither is narcolepsy. 
MOTHER 2: What? 
MOTHER 3 HAS FALLEN ASLEEP. 
MOTHER 4: I’m sure they won’t have any of that in the show. 

'Em some do have mothers

MOTHER 1: I told my boy, no jokes about farting or constipation… 
MOTHER 2: …and don’t poke fun at god or religious people… 
MOTHER 3: Except the Jews… 
MOTHER 1: Oh yes! …and the Muslims, of course, and Southern Baptists, bloody Born-Agains, Mormons, Jehovahs, Pentacosts… 
MOTHER 4: …and Luthernans… 
MOTHER 2: Lutherans aren’t funny… 
MOTHER 3: No but, Hindus are hilarious! 
MOTHER 2: (laughing) Even the word is funny! 
THEY ALL LAUGH. 

Hare today, goon tomorrow.

MOTHER 4: I think they should do some jokes about those people in the airports. 
MOTHER 2: …with the shaved heads and nose rings and tambourines? 
MOTHER 4: No. those people who put your luggage in the airplane. What are they called? 
MOTHER 1: Oh, they better not make fun of baggage handlers. Those people are fanatics! 
MOTHER 2: Cysts! 
MOTHER 1: What?    
MOTHER 2: Cysts and tumors! Cysts and tumors are not funny! 
MOTHER 1: We’re finished with diseases. 
MOTHER 2: Oh. Sorry. 
MOTHER 3: Puke. 
MOTHER 2: What? 
MOTHER 3: Puke is a very unfunny word. 
MOTHER 2: Oh, no… Not funny at all and neither is nipple. 
MOTHER 4: …nor scrotum, bulbous, buttcheek, nor knockers… 
MOTHER 3: …nor bedpan, booger, bog, nor fisherman…  
MOTHER 2: Fisherman isn’t a funny word at all.  
MOTHER 3: Exactly my point! 
MOTHER 1: Our sons are all good boys. I don’t think we have a thing to worry about.  
MOTHER 2:  Just as long as they never, ever, ever, ever, ever do anything involving full frontal nudity. 
CUT TO: TV SCREEN. SON 2 WALKS ONSCREEN COMPLETELY NAKED AND TRIES DESPERATELY TO TURN FULL FRONTAL TO THE CAMERA WHICH ALWAYS MOVES AT THE LAST MOMENT TO AN ANGLE WHICH OBSCURES THE OBJECT OF MOST INTEREST. 
CUT TO: LIVING ROOM. 
MOTHER 2: Phew! That was close. Oh! Look some thing is finally about to happen! 
CUT TO: THE SONS, AS MOTHERS, PUTTING ON MAKE-UP IN DRESSING ROOM. Son 1 is fluffing hair. Son 2 is applying lipstick. Son 3 is plucking nose hairs. Son 4 hammers a nail into her head – she starts to bleed. 
MOTHER 4: Oh no! I don’t like the looks of this! 
MOTHER 1: I told my son… no jokes about mothers! 
CUT TO: SON 4 notices blood and faints. 
MOTHER 1: This is a terrible show. What else is on? 
MOTHER 2 CHANGES CHANNEL. 
CUT TO: THREE SONS, AS MOTHERS, DRAGGING SON 4/MOTHER 4 OUT OF HOUSE AND STUFFING HIM/HER INTO AN LITTLE OLD CAR. 
CUT TO: DRIVING OFF DOWN THE STREET ALL TALKING AND LAUGHING. SON 4 IS SLUMPED BY WINDOW. 
CUT TO: DRIVING INTO A MEDICAL CENTER TRYING TO FIND OFFICE. ALL YELLING AND POINTING. 
CUT TO DOCTORS OFFICE. DOCTOR LOOKS AT PATIENT. TAKES HER PULSE. TURNS PATIENT OVER. BLOWS ON A RECTAL THERMOMETER. WE HEAR A SQUEAKING SOUND AS THE THERMOMETER IS INSERTED. 
CUT TO SHOTS OF ALL SONS, AS MOTHERS, WAITING ANXIOUSLY… TRYING NOT TO LOOK. 

CUT TO DOCTOR LOOKING AT WATCH. A BEEPING SOUND. WE HEAR A POPPING SOUND AS THE THERMOMETER IS REMOVED. DOCTOR SAYS “AH HA!” PASSES AROUND THERMOMETER WHICH EACH HOLDS GINGERLY AND PASSES ON CONFUSED. DOCTOR GOES TO BAG, PULLS OUT VARIOUS TOOLS OF THE TRADE – FOLLOWED BY A HAMMER. HE TRIES TO PULL OUT THE NAIL UNSUCCESSFULLY. PUTS KNEE ON PATIENT. STILL NO SUCCESS. ENLISTS HELP OF CAST. THEY ALL PUSH, PULL AND STRAIN – SQUEAKING SOUND THEN POP. PATIENT SITS UP QUICKLY.
 
SON 4: (DRESSED AS MOTHER 4) Oh my…I feel like a million bucks 
DOCTOR: That’s good, because you now owe me a million bucks! 
CUT TO: LIVING ROOM.  MOTHERS ALL LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY. 
MOTHER 1: That’s what people want. Good, clean, fun. 
MOTHER 4: …and sing-alongs. 
MOTHER 3: Ooohhh… Sing-alongs are lovely… snatchcrapcrackfartspew! (SHE FALLS ASLEEP AGAIN) 
MOTHER 1: I think I need to go and powder my nose. 

CUT TO MOTHER 1 entering bathroom. She looks around at the various Knick-Knacks, soaps, potpourris, etc. She inspects them intently with great disdain. She opens the medicine cabinet and starts peeking at labels on the jars. We hear her muttering tsk-tsk, etc. and randomly sampling pills. She starts rifling through the vanity and draws inspecting everything. 
MOTHER 2: Are you alright in there, dear? 
CUT TO BATHROOM DOOR FROM OUTSIDE – WE HEAR A TOILET FLUSHING FOLLOWED BY AIR FRESHENER SPRAYING. 
MOTHER 1: Oh yes, I’m fine. Don’t you worry about me. 
CUT TO: INSIDE BATHROOM. MORE AND MORE AND MORE AIR FRESHENER SPRAYED INTO EVERY CONCIEVABLE NOOK AND CRANNY. 
CUT TO: OUTSIDE. MORE SPRAYING. DOOR OPENS MOTHER 1 WALKS OUT SURROUNDED BY A HUGE PLUME OF AIR FRESHIONER. 
CUT TO: MOTHER 1 REENTERING LIVING ROOM. 
MOTHER 1: Have I missed anything? 
MOTHER 2: No. They’re just sitting there again.. 
MOTHER 4: I just hope they don’t stoop to toilet humor… 
MOTHER 1: No. Or dress up in women’s clothing… 
MOTHER 2: Oh, they would do that! That’s disgusting! Is Laurence Welk on, by any chance? 
MOTHER 3: Oh, I do love Laurence Welk. 
MOTHER 4: He can park his accordion under my bed anytime… 
MOTHER 1: I do believe he’s dead, dear. 
MOTHER 4: Oh, I don’t mind about all that! 
MOTHER 2: Ssshhh! I think something is happening. 
MOTHER 3: dirtywipesnot 

The End

The Adventures of Mongrel and The Runt – Part 04

25 Thursday Feb 2010

Posted by in Warrigal Mirriyuula

≈ 29 Comments

Doc's Humber and Rooms

Story and Digital Digital by Warrigal Mirriyuula

Porky was up at sparrow fart, boiling water for his tea before the sun had even topped the hills in the east. The Sunday sky was clear but the westerly breeze, brisker than yesterday, was beginning to turn to the North East. There might be rain later but the prospect didn’t dampen Porky’s enthusiasm. You see, Porky had a plan, and today was the first day of that plan.

He’d eaten a hearty breakfast; eggs, sausages and fat fried tomatoes from his own patch; gulped down the last of his sweet black tea, took a final bight out of a slab of Vegemite toast and headed out the door, down the steps and out to the little shed in the garden that his landlady let him use. Unlocking the padlock he swung the door open and dragged out a hundredweight bag of spuds he’d bought from Mrs. Hatter yesterday. Carefully relocking the padlock, Porky then hefted the bag of spuds up onto his shoulders and took off into the street at a trot. For a couple of hours, as the people of Molong awoke, had their breakfasts, nursed their hangovers, got ready for church or read the papers on their front verandah, a few of them would notice Porky and his bag of spuds still getting along at a trot. Jack Enderby, the retired principal of the Central School was just walking down Edward Street to St John’s for the early service when he came upon Porky and his spuds heading down Bank Street. Porky smiled and winked an acknowledgement of Old Jack’s “G’day” but didn’t stop, his breath coming in hard rasps as he kept up the pace.

Enderby crossed the street, smiling as he came upon the Reverend Gamsby standing in the gateway of St John’s.

“Morning Reuben. Big night last night.” said Enderby. “A fine morning Mister Enderby, and yes, it sure was.” the Reverend replied as they both turned to watch Porky and his potatoes’ puzzling progress down the street. Old Jack had taught both Porky and Reuben at The Central School. Both bright, inquisitive, quick. Both really quite sensitive boys. Of course Porky, like most of the Fairbridge kids over the years, had had to leave The Central School when he was 15. He would have to find himself some other way than education. Reuben, with the love and support of his family, had gone on to University and the Thomas Moore College before returning to Molong, a freshly ensoutaned junior Anglican reverend.

The start of early service was a flexible sort of affair.  With a 7 o’clock kick off, the young Reverend was never certain how many might turn up. Old Enderby was a regular and so far this morning, the only parishioner to show. 7 o’clock had come and passed a few minutes ago but still both men stayed at the gate exchanging small talk, the low early morning sun throwing a bright yellow brilliance over the little town, the bitumen down Bank Street glowing like a golden highway. Though both were devout in their respective ways, both believers with their duty of prayer this Sunday morning, none the less they tarried at the gate enjoying the gift of this wonderful morning.

“The world is surely charged with the grandeur of God”, said the reverend with sincere piety. Old Enderby looked wryly at the young reverend and said somewhat didactically, “You don’t want the Bishop hearing you quote Catholic poets Reuben, no matter how apt the quote”. This brief reprise of their old schoolmaster and student roles gladdened and amused Reuben. He was right. The Bishop wouldn’t like it. For him the reformation was still in progress. He often bitterly called Catholics “papists” and swore in his darker moments that they weren’t to be trusted, that they engaged in irregular religious practises. The Bishop was getting old. It was nonsense of course. Reuben sometimes played cards with the brothers at St Laurence’s. They were fond of a dram and enjoyed their Rugby enormously, but they were good men. They just had a different way of looking at the same thing. In fact the brothers had invited the reverend to join them as they feasted St Laurence O’Toole on November 14. That was only tomorrow week. For Reuben Laurence was a bit too “Irish” as Catholic Saints go, but he’d join the brothers in the ecumenical spirit of the invitation. Besides, Mrs. Delahunty, their cook, was blessed with an uncanny culinary skill. No one refused an invitation to the brother’s table.

Old Jack and Reuben stood side by side not saying much and by a quarter past seven about a dozen or so parishioners had arrived and were milling around the church door. Not quite so many as usual but then it had been a big night in town last night.

“Well I suppose we’d better get in and get started.” said Reuben.

Old Enderby just nodded, “The sooner we get praying the better it’ll be.”

The small flock entered the little brick church and a few minutes later the pump organ could be heard belting out the first hymn. It wasn’t St George’s Day but Reuben did like “Jerusalem” and included it as often as he could.

Down at The Telegraph Mongrel and The Runt had taken off at dawn. Abandoning the sugar bag for a quick belt down to the creek and then over to MacCafferty’s for breakfast out the back door of the butchery. Back at The Telegraph Clarrie and Beryl were getting the guest’s breakfasts ready, checking the kegs in the cellar, cleaning up and wiping down, getting the big linen wash going; all the tasks that usually got left until Sunday. There was no day of rest for a busy publican even if the pub wasn’t open, but he and Beryl and the children always tried to get to the 9 o’clock service at St John’s. Beryl enjoyed the sermons and Clarrie told himself that it was for the kids, Jenny and little Bill. They needed to learn right from wrong.

The truth was that Clarrie’d had a pretty tough war in New Guinea and was a little uncertain about God’s great plan when he got home. He’d been blessed though, and that was how he thought of it, as a blessing; his wonderful loving, hard working wife, mother of his two happy, healthy children. He might have felt uneasy about his faith but he felt at ease siting amongst the people he knew and liked, knowing that they too like him where all hoping for the best and promising in their various prayers to do all they could to make it happen. God might be distant but the genuine sentiments of good people would do Clarrie ‘til God and he worked out their differences.

By the time Clarrie, Beryl, Jenny and little Bill, all in their Sunday best, were making their way up Bank Street to St John’s, Mongrel and The Runt had arrived at the back of MacCafferty’s Butchery. Mongrel gave a scrape on the screen door and barked a few times but there was no reply. MacCafferty was always up and doing by this time. It was odd that he wasn’t here. Mongrel made a quick round of the area between the back door and the small slaughterhouse at the back of the block. MacCafferty was everywhere and Mongrel loved the smell of dried blood. Even though the butcher thoroughly hosed and cleaned the slaughterhouse after each session, the traces were enough for Mongrel’s discriminating nose. It was intoxicating and made him even hungrier. The Runt was taking a drink from a muddy pool in a clay depression by the back door, his eye out for the arrival of MacCafferty with breakfast. A flurry in the breeze kicked up a little dust and brought a new scent to both Mongrel and The Runt. Only feint now, maybe from yesterday, but they both smelled sickness. It was the smell of the building on the hill where humans went when they weren’t right. Where they’d gone with the injured human yesterday. It wasn’t so much a bad place. It was just that sometimes humans who went there came out different or sometimes, didn’t come out at all. They just disappeared. That building fell into a very small category of places that only included one other locale. The fenced field where the humans sometimes buried their own in boxes. Mongrel didn’t like boxes. He’d been put in one when he’d been taken from his mother. If MacCafferty had been taken to that place he could be in trouble. Mongrel barked an urgent call to The Runt. The Runt yapped back and they both set off up the hill towards the Hospital, curiosity just overcoming their uncertainty about the place.

Doc Wardell pulled his dusty Humber into the doctor’s spot out the front of the Hospital. He’d called Gruber at home last evening and arranged for him to come out first thing on Monday morning to check the young patient for more serious head trauma. Wardell didn’t think there was anything to worry about but it had been a severe knock and it was always better to get a second opinion, particularly from an expert; besides it meant an opportunity for a bight of lunch with Gruber who was always intelligent company and offered a more complex and sophisticated world view than was usually on offer in Molong.

Gruber was an Austrian from an established commercial family. He had qualified at Vienna before the war and, being in a reserved occupation, had avoided military service in the Wehrmacht, something that made both him and his family mightily happy. His research work at the clinic in Dresden had been enormously satisfying and as the stories of the early German victories in Europe held the volks in their uplifting grip, Gruber had begun to see a path into his future that involved the seriously psychiatrically ill, particularly those suffering psychosis after significant somatic head trauma. There were a lot of them as the war grinded on. All of that, and the rest of Gruber’s life had been reduced to ashes in February 1945. On that dreadful night of the14th, Gruber’s home and family were incinerated by the allied fire bombing, along with the clinic and most of the rest of the city centre including nearly everyone Gruber had known as he grew up. Gruber had only survived as a result of being called out to assist in the treatment of a wounded soldier at The Albertstadt. This large military garrison had curiously not been on the target list that night and remained largely intact after the bombing. Whenever Gruber mentioned pre-war Dresden, Wardell would feel a twinge of guilt; a small knot would form in his stomach, the cost of victory exacting its price. Dresden, morally, had been a pyrrhic victory. Gruber’s home had been a beautiful medieval city; an historical and architectural gem until Harris and Bomber Command had unleashed that morally ambivalent attack. Almost a decade had gone by and the city was still mostly rubble and cheap concrete. The communists had no interest in restoring its former glory.

After a year or so in a DP transit camp Gruber had escaped to West Germany and finally emigrated to Australia. He was, he said, a new man, having had both his family and the physical presence of the city he grew up in taken from him, he said his slate was wiped and ready for him to write his own story. Gruber was sincere; he was genuinely interested in Australia. It wasn’t central Europe flirting with fascism, with its ossified social and cultural norms, now blown to bits. There were no shadows, no ghosts on the bright sunlit western slopes and plains of New South Wales. Its rawness, newness appealed to him. One of the few places left where a man could make an equitable life for himself he would often say, and in the years he’d been living in Orange and working at Bloomfield he’d become something of an expert on the local volcanic geology and had a far better understanding of the local aboriginal people than just about any other white person west of the Blue Mountains. He affected a kind of “country casual” in his dress and he never wore a tie. He dismissed the hidebound social conventions of his upbringing as an unnecessary impediment to meaningful personal contact, he drove a Holden and he really liked a beer. If it weren’t for his cultured central European accent and the monumental extent of his English vocabulary he might very well pass as an Aussie in any company. As it was he was an amusing confusion to most people he met. Highly respected, albeit from a distance, his enthusiasms and his personal drive marked him out as “not quite like the rest of us”. He was that very rare thing in country Australia, a driven intellectual with the common touch.

Wardell was looking forward to seeing him again tomorrow; but for now he grabbed up his bag and entered the hospital.

There was no one in reception as the doctor turned into the general ward. There by the window was young Algernon; the left side of his head looked like some overgrown eggplant was trying to escape the bandages, all purple shiny bruise under the dressing. As the doctor got a little closer he could see that the young Inspector’s eye was still closed. The inflammation and swelling were still quite severe. He might have to do something about that. Algernon was asleep and the doctor didn’t disturb him.

Instead he went to the next bed where the snowy haired old boy was studiously working his way through the cricket scores and fixtures in yesterday’s Central Western Daily.

“How are ya today Harry? Had any more pain? Doc Wardell said, sitting down on the side of the bed and taking the old boy’s pulse. He checked the flow from the catheter into the bottle hanging from the side of the bed. The urine was slightly discoloured with blood but the malabsorption must have passed. The fluid was free of solids and quite clear. “Looks like we were right to try and dissolve those stones.”

“Yeah, I had a bit of a turn when they brought the young fella in. Bit of excitement for a few minutes but it passed.” Harry didn’t seem fussed.

“If the stones continue to dissolve nicely you can get back to work in a day or two, but you’ll have to stick to the diet I gave you.” Doc Wardell got his serious look on and fixed Harry with his eyes. “Stay away from spinach and no more lashings of rhubarb and custard. Too much oxalate and calcium.” Doc leant in closer and said somewhat conspiratorially, “and you’ll have to find some other tea that you like. That black Indian Char you drink forms stones the size of cricket balls. You won’t be able to piss that problem away!” The doctor quickly looked over his shoulder for Sister MacGillicuddie. She was a terror for bad language.

The old boy looked contrite. He loved his rhubarb and custard, and a good cuppa, but the pain in his “John Thomas” every time he tried to pass one of his stones had finally convinced him he’d have to let it all go. “I’ll be good this time Doc. Promise.” The old boy said.

“Well see that you are.” Said Doc firmly.

Algernon was in the Dandenongs walking down a mossy path, the birds in the trees were discussing rhubarb and custard and drinking tea. A koala was listening to the cricket on a portable radio. The sun came steaming through the trees and Algernon had to turn away it was so bright. Someone was calling his name. He couldn’t open his left eye. That was odd…

Sister gently shook the young inspector awake. “I’ve brought you some tea.” She said putting the cup and saucer on his bedside table. “How are you feeling this morning?

Algernon’s mouth tasted like he’d eaten a hundred miles of dirt road, including the road kill; dry as dust, tasting foul and metallic. The throbbing pounding in his head kicked in the moment he opened his one good eye. He awkwardly grabbed the teacup with both hands, spilling some, and greedily slurped down the tea. “I feel absolutely dreadful,” he said between slurps, “and I’m famished.” He just got the teacup back to the saucer before, “I feel feint, really queer. I’ll just lie down again.” He collapsed back onto his pillow, moaning a little.

Doc Wardell quickly came over from Harry’s bed and picked up the young blokes wrist. “Bit fast.” Said Wardell quietly, taking his ophthalmoscope from his top pocket and holding Algernon’s one good lid open to have a peer inside. “Mmmm. Retina’s alright this side. How’s his pressure Sister?” Sister had applied a BP cuff and was pumping it up. They both paused, looking intently at the sphygmomanometer. “Hundred and ten over sixty five. Astonishing!” Doc Wardell exclaimed looking back at Algernon. “You must be fit as a mallee bull! Take a knock like that, all that healing going on, and your blood pressure’s taking a break.”

Algernon was breathing easier now. Sister released the cuff and folded it together. “That’s clean living Doctor.” She said somewhat archly. “He probably doesn’t smoke, or drink. Keeps himself nice. You should look to his example Doctor, and you too Harry.” She concluded, adjusting her shoulders in a rather prim manner before looking from one man to the other. Harry cringed back in his bed a little, while Doctor Wardell considered himself once again chastised for his behaviour at the hospital Christmas party last year. He’d drunk too much punch and insisted on smoking a huge cigar to congratulate himself on a particularly tricky birth.

“Oh Alice, you know the circumstances. You can be such a prig,” he said gently, “when really you’re quite a generous person.” He smiled intimately at her. “It just doesn’t seem right on you.”

Sister flushed bright pink. She didn’t know what to do or where to put herself. She smiled nervously, just a hint at the corners of her mouth, then turned and briskly walked away.

“Alice”, is that ‘er name? said Harry. “I never knew that. I thought she woulda come with a model number from the Sister factory.” Harry adjusted his pillows and sat up. “Handsome woman though Doc, ay, don’t ya think? A good armful.” Harry raised his eyebrows then winked somewhat lasciviously at Doc Wardell as if to say, “We’re men of the world. We’d know what to do with a big buxom nurse.”

“You’re an evil old bugger Harry”, Doc laughed.

Sometimes though, when he was feeling particularly carefree he would daydream of Alice. She had the most beautiful smile and it melted his heart whenever she chose to show it.

Algernon had listened to all this like it was some radio serial that he’d come in on half way through, though “Blue Hills” didn’t come with head injuries. Maybe he was still a bit concussed.

Doctor Wardell turned to Algernon, “You’ll be fine. Just rest.” The doctor began to fidget with his stethoscope then covered it by saying “I called Gruber last night. He’ll be here tomorrow morning to take a look at you, though I’m pretty certain he won’t find anything wrong. Well, apart from the obvious.” The doctor looked distractedly down the length of the ward. “Look, I’d better go and make sure I haven’t blotted my copybook again with Sister. She’s a marvellous woman, and a, and a great nurse,” he added hurriedly, before rushing after Sister.

Harry watched the Doc depart with a knowing smile on his face. “Haven’t seen ‘im move that quick in a while.” then he leaned over in his bed and said, “We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Harry MacCafferty, the butcher.”

That delightful little building up there, which was Doc’s rooms way back when, is currently on the market for under $200,000.00. What’s more the sitting tenant and current owner is willing to lease back on a long term lease. Molong always was a town of opportunity.”

Cyrus: Chapter 16 Part 1

24 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Cyrus the Great: Chronicles

≈ 18 Comments

CYRUS

by

Theseustoo

Chapter 16 Part 1A:

Cyrus had of course occupied Croesus’ palace in the captured city of Sardis, but as he did not wish to cause the holy man any further distress he allowed Croesus to keep his own personal apartments.

But it was from the throne room of Croesus’ palace that Cyrus administered his new province; and it was in this throne room where he received two heralds; one from Ionia and another from Aeolia. The people of these Greek provinces, which had previously been tributaries to Croesus, had heard of the fall of Sardis and had sent these two messengers to try to forestall any desire for vengeance which Cyrus’ may feel tempted to exact for their earlier blunt refusal to join him and rebel against Croesus. Coldly, Cyrus addressed them both,

“So, you have been sent from Aeolia and Ionia to request alliances with me now that I have conquered your master, Croesus. Yet you refused to revolt against him when I offered you the same kind of liberation the Milesians now enjoy. And now that Sardis is conquered and Croesus is my servant, you come to offer me the same terms of fealty you used to have under him. Here is my answer:

There was a certain piper, who was walking one day by the seaside, when he espied some fish; so he began to pipe to them, imagining they would come out to dance for him upon the land. But as he found at last that his hope was vain, he took a net, and enclosing a great draught of fishes, drew them ashore. Then the fish began to leap and dance; but the piper said, ‘Cease your dancing now, as you did not choose to come and dance when I piped to you.’ Now go!”

The terrified ambassadors exchanged fearful glances and, still bowing and scraping, they backed out of the throne room 

***   *****   ***

 

Chapter 16 Part 1B:

The marketplace of Laconia, the bustling capital city of the Spartan province of Lacedaemonia, though it was always busy, was not usually quite so hectic. Spartans despised the whole process of marketing; buying and selling, they felt was demeaning and quite beneath a Spartan warrior. War was men’s business; marketing was for women and slaves. Thus, as a matter of course, this task was usually delegated to Helots, the Spartan slave class which was composed of defeated and captured enemies; or, more accurately, those of their defeated and captured enemies whose relatives and friends could not raise sufficient capital to pay their ransom.

But today even the Helots were surprised by the large number of Spartan warriors who were present. They had come because they’d heard ambassadors had been sent from the Greek countries of Aeolia and Ionia in Asia, and that they were intending to address the populace on an important matter regarding the fall of Sardis. They already knew, of course, of the fall of Sardis; and Spartan spies had reported Cyrus’ interview with the Ionian and Aeolian heralds who had been sent to Persia as suppliants.

It was unusual, thought Pythermus, for a suppliant to make his address in such a mundane situation as a marketplace, but unlike other Greek gods, the Spartan god of war, Ares, would accept no suppliants. In order to solicit the help of Sparta’s superb mercenaries it was necessary to directly address the men who would be required to fight and die in one’s cause. Strange though it may seem, although the Spartans earned their gold by fighting other countries’ wars for them, Sparta was often much more reluctant to go to war than those who desired the benefit of their martial skills.

Perhaps this was partly because they knew that as a result of their fearsome reputation, in any conflict they would inevitably be placed where the fighting would be most fierce, and the most dangerous; and even though they sought ‘euthanatos’, a ‘beautiful death’, yet no man actually wants to die; not even a Spartan.

However, Croesus’ downfall had upset the centuries-long stability the Heraclides had brought to that region; although Croesus was not of that dynasty, but rather of the one which had replaced it, which had put a ‘true’ Lydian on the throne for the first time in centuries. But Croesus’ own dynasty, the Mermnadae, had maintained cordial relations with what were now traditional allies, the Greeks; for eventually the dynastic change wrought by Croesus’ fifth ancestor, Gyges, had been ratified by the Delphic oracle, in spite of its outrageous nature. Thus even Gyges’ murdering his king had not caused any serious or lasting rift between the people of Lydia and those of Greece, and this was most particularly true of their Asian Greek neighbours in Aeolia and Ionia.

As a result of the unusual presence of the greater part of Laconia’s warrior class, the marketplace in Laconia on this particular morning was uncommonly full, despite the bitter winter cold and the effeminate nature of the market-place.

Even Lacrines, who was currently considered by his peers to be one of the most famous of Lacedaemonian noblemen and a genuinely heroic warrior, had deigned to visit the market for this event. Something important, he knew, was happening here and his instincts told him that it would pay Sparta to understand the situation well before allowing Lacedaemonia to commit herself to any particular course of action; regardless of any sympathy they may have for the Asian Greeks’ predicament.

The Aeolians and Ionians had chosen a spokesman by the name of Pythermus. To help focus the crowd’s attention on himself he had donned a purple robe, the colour of which was so bright and beautiful that all who caught a glimpse of it felt an immediate desire to crowd closer to its wearer so they could feast their eyes on the gorgeous garment and hear what its wearer had to say. Quite evidently he was a man of substance; for very few could afford the luxury of the exorbitantly expensive dye which was made with great difficulty from the sea-snails which naked divers risked their very lives to obtain.

Once the crowd had gathered round him, Pythermus held up his arms for silence and began to speak, “Men of Lacedaemonia! Spartans all! Hear me!” he began, “I have come at the bidding of the Ionians and Aeolians to ask for your aid! As you know, Cyrus the Persian has taken Sardis and made the Lydians his subjects. Their king, Croesus, is now his slave. Cyrus has refused our offer of allegiance and is even now threatening the Greek cities in Ionia and Aeolia!”

Lacrines understood very well what this meant; if the Greek cities in Aeolia and Ionia fell to the rising power of Persia, would the Persians be satisfied? Or would they continue to push on through Thrace and Thessaly to invade the Peloponnese? He pushed his way roughly to the front of the huge mob. Taking his place beside Pythermus, he addressed the crowd,

“Fellow Spartans!” he cried, “Pythermus is right! If Ionia and Aeolia fall, Cyrus will grow greedy for the rest of Hellas! Therefore I ask you to help defend these Hellenic countries and in doing so, defend yourselves and all Hellas against the barbarian invaders!”

One of the men in the crowd shouted his response,

“With what men Lacrines…? Half of our forces have been enslaved by the Tegeans after the unexpected defeat we suffered at their hands! Of the other half many are nursing grievous wounds. Better we wait until Cyrus attacks us here and in the meantime build up our forces as best we can! Our men will fight harder to defend their own homes than those of Asian Greeks!”

At this the crowd erupted with shouts of ‘Aye!’ and ‘He’s right!’ It was true; Lacrines knew only too well that Lacedaemonian forces had been considerably reduced by their recent and bloody conflict with Argos over the disputed territory of Tegea. After the disastrous pitched battle in which three hundred Lacedaemonians were killed, they had fought another, major battle and were astonished when they were soundly beaten.

Not only was such a complete defeat of a Spartan army virtually unheard of, but also it was not what they felt they had been led to expect. The oracle of Delphi had promised Sparta that the god would, “…give the Lacedaemonians to dance with heavy footfall in Tegea.”

The Spartans had interpreted this as meaning that they would be granted a great victory; but instead they had been defeated and to add humiliation to defeat, far too many had been enslaved by the Argives. The ‘heavy footfall’ mentioned by the oracle had evidently referred to the clumsy shuffling of their now-enslaved feet, weighed down as they were with heavy fetters and chains of iron as they now toiled in the Tegean fields for their new masters, the Argives.

“Fellow Spartans,” Lacrines said after Pythermus had finished, “you have all heard what Pythermus has said… And we already knew the fate of Sardis, for it fell even as we were preparing to send troops to help our good friend and benefactor, Croesus.” At this mention of Croesus’ name there were nods and murmurs of assent from the crowd, none of whom had forgotten his generosity to them in the past. Lacrines continued,

“There can be no doubt as to Cyrus’ ambitions!” he continued, “Sooner or later we must face him… But since we have heard the voice of dissent, let us put the issue to the vote… Those who say ‘aye’, raise your right hands!” Lacrines raised his own right hand as he said this, but very few among the crowd raised theirs in response.

Disappointed, he turned sadly to Pythermus and his fellow ambassadors as the crowd gradually began to disperse. With the vote cast and the decision made as to their chosen course of action there was no longer any need for them in this Helot-infested marketplace.

Lacrines heaved a heavy sigh, “I’m sorry my friends,” he said sympathetically, “…it looks like the ‘nays’ have it… But I will do what I can… I shall bring a penteconter to the coast of Asia to keep an eye on Cyrus and the Greek cities there; and if the Spartans have any reputation at all for valour perhaps we may at least persuade Cyrus to postpone his plans for Ionia and Aeolia… In the meantime you must do all you can to fortify your cities.”

***   *****   ***

7.1 The End of Zog, Part 2

23 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Mark

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Here we see the Nimmow III, proud successor to our flagship, which just happened to be in the area on patrol and witnessed the Death of Zog

Warrigal assured me this really happened.

Worms and Music by Hung One On

We’re heading for the teleport station as fast as we can go. The Zogarian officials herd us into an isolated cabin on the perimeter, probably they don’t want to see us get killed by the ICCB. See, Zog has an unsteady relationship with the ICCB, they pay their fees but that’s about it.

“We fight to the death and die heroes” says Helvi. “Helvi, can you cut the die bit, you know I’m a born coward” I reply meekly. “But Sandy, unless the defrag finishes soon the only thing we can do is fight” grins Helvi as she breaks out the laser cannons. “Yeah, let’s fight” says Belinda. Belinda has that look in her eye that says ‘Don’t zark with me man’. Wow, these women are scary stuff.

One side of the room has some windows looking out over the fence where our navcom has said that the troops will come from. The crew line out and occupy a window space just like you see in all of those war movies. I try to think of something stupid so I can use the farce to get us outta here but my mind is blank. I’m so scarred that I wanna shit myself.

Suddenly there is a big bang and all of the windows explode and we are all knocked to the ground. My ears are ringing and I throw up. That lobster salad I had for lunch with the cricket coaches tastes different on the way out I can tell ya.

Warrigal says “That’s the sonic boom they send in just to unsettle you, won’t kill you though, the troops like to do that personally.” Gee, thanks Dingo, I think to myself. We open fire as the troops approach and as usual Helvi is taking them out left right and centre. The fire fight escalates and chaos reigns around us.

Dave the guitar droid comes over to me “Sandy, I found a TIME machine, come and have a look.” Dave and I crawl over to the corner of the room on our hands and knees. “So we can travel in time Dave?” I ask naively. “No, not until the next book Sandy. See this is a Temporal Intermittent Music Emitter. You plug in music here and it will transmit it into the headsets that the ICCB troops wear. So you plug in something really awful and the troops will run for it. Only catch is, someone needs to take out the Field Unit Control Kapsule.” Acronyms, they will be the death of me.

Helvi bursts out the door firing laser cannons from each hand and races up to the ridge. Hey, there’s always a ridge in war movies. The crew are backing her with continuous rounds of fire. Helvi uses a rocket launcher from behind the ridge and as usual hits the Kapsule first shot. I sing out to Dave “Put on the Beatles, She Loves You that would scare the shit out of anyone.” Immediately the troops start wrestling with their headsets and start running away.

Michael grabs my arm “Sandy come quick, the Kipper’s been hit” I race over to the Kipper who has a large wound to his chest and is lying on the ground. “Don’t worry Kipper” I reassure “We’ll take back to the regen station” “Sorry Sandy, I can no longer be regenerated I’m finished” the Kipper relates as he struggles in immense pain. “But Kipper” I blurt nervously “You are part of the story. I mean I need to take the mickey out of a 60’s American sit-com.” “Well” suggests the Kipper “How about Petticoat Junction or Greenacres perhaps?” The Kipper stops moving. Jilligan closes the Kippers eyes. I cry, zark, this wasn’t supposed to happened, what would Mr Douglas do I wonder.

My phone rings, its Henry the navcom, “Hi guys defrags finished, beam on up”

[Authors Note: The End of Zog you ask? If we time travel into the future of Zog we find that the cricket teams start sledging each other which leads to conflicts of their culture. These conflicts lead to skirmishes then onto wars. Each regional cricket council tries to annihilate the other until one dark day a scientist arises called Say Tin. Say Tin is an evil nasty little creature with an attitude problem. Say Tin invents a bomb that kills everything on the plant, hence the end of Zog. Scary but true, well sort of.]

Cows and Annemarie

23 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman, The Other Side of the Carpark, Travels

≈ 33 Comments

Battered old brown leather suitcase against a white background

When I was told that ‘Dutchies’ were popular with the girls in Melbourne, I packed a small suitcase, kick-started the Lambretta and headed south. At age 17 the discovery of Ma paw and her five daughters some years before had grown a bit wearisome and needed reviving. The change from left to right hand did not quite satisfy the yearning. I longed for a real girl friend and tales of conquests from work mates at the factory of Spectacle Makers in Clarence Street  only egged me on to at least give Melbourne a go.

I packed a suit, recently bought from Reuben’s Scarf. The two suits for the price of one was the deciding factor. The coats were a bit big and would have looked better on a Paganini just before his burial where some claim he could be heard to play his final violin concert even underground afterwards. In those days, the wearing of a suit was somewhat superfluous but with the fragile state of my confidence, I thought it would stand me in good stead with those Melbournian girls in need of a Dutchman.

My father was most circumspect of this journey by a 150cc scooter and held grave fears. Never the less, at departure I shook hands and kissed my mother. Strange, thinking back of that shaking hands business. Back in 1958 travelling to Melbourne had been undertaken before. My dad made me feel as if I was Mawson on discovery of another polar region.

The suitcase had survived the Trans Atlantic and Indian Ocean trip a  couple of years before and even though battered, it did have locks on the lid with a key that fitted. It was made of leather looking carton and also had a handy strap with a buckle just to make sure it would not open un-expectantly. The rest of the suitcase included fresh singlets, shirts with ties and some Lambretta spares, contact points, spark plug and spanner, underpants. I still had the address of a Dutch family and a lovely daughter named ‘Annemarie’ whom I had met on the trip over a year before. The table tennis tournaments on board of The Johan Van OldenBarnevelt were made more interesting by the enthusiastic playing of Annemarie, she was fast and while bending over the tennis table I noticed her teen cleavage. I was lost already then!

‘Don’t forget the catechism Gerardus Antonius,’ mother urged me with some concern of my deeply soiled soul, no doubt worried about those nocturnal emissions on singlets. “Have you got your maps handy”, mum asked kindly? Yes, mum.” What about the spare spark plug?” ‘Yes dad.’ A final handshake and a kiss to mum, I kick-started the scooter and rode away like something out of ‘High Noon’. I looked in the mirror with mum still waving but dad had gone.

The beginning of the trip went past areas that I had been before, Bankstown, Liverpool and Ingleburn. Then new territory opened up and from then on it became the adventure that lasted about three weeks. Somewhere past Gundagai and Wagga Wagga I turned left and this is where the adventure became a bit more serious. Most of the roads became gravel or dirt tracks and through steeply mountainous terrain. After about travelling a hundred kilometres or so, a huge mob of cows blocked my way. I stopped and tried to look and behave as nonchalantly as possible. I was terrified they would trample all over me and my scooter and suitcase. ‘A rampaging herd of cattle trampled a lone traveller with scooter.’ ‘My dad would read in the afternoon edition of the Mirror, with an arrow pointing to my body and dead scooter.’

They were in their hundreds and did not want to budge. Their bovine manner got to me and I thought it best to pretend to be one of them. I started mooing and instantly became one of them, disguised my scooter with branches and just waited while smoking my Graven A’s, hoping the cows would understand!.

It seemed hours but the hunger for food must have got to the cattle. A couple started sauntering past me, bellowing, and signalling perhaps for the others to follow. Then, as on cue, they all started and with incredible agility they all ran past me. The dust was choking me but I had escaped the hooves and horns of the mob of cattle.

My expected arrival at Melbourne did involve a stop prior to knocking on the door of Annemarie’s parents place and behind an old eucalypt, changed into my Ruben’s Scarf suit and did a general spruce-up!

Annemarie, here I come!

Ask Aunt Mary – The Pig’s Goes Through Agony

22 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by in Ladies Lounge

≈ 58 Comments

Column and Picture by Aunt Mary

Facebook Faux Pas

Dear wonderful nephews and nieces,

Well, your Aunt Mary finally went and did it! She got herself a computer and joined hypercyber revolution as you young ones out there all like to call it. What a brave new eworld this is, dear ones. Not one day was I on the world wide interweb before my box was filled with probing equestions from you all. I have no idea how you all sniffed me out so fast. You poor souls are all so very desperate for Aunt Mary’s counsel, aren’t you? Some times I have to stop and pity each and every darling one of you, I really do. But I know all too well how much you love your Aunt Mary and to be so needed by so many makes me a very happy Mary indeed; dare I go so far as to say it makes me a proud Mary? But enough! I need to keep on rolling down the river, don’t I young nephews and nieces?  Oh, but one more note before I go on, I do need to let you know that it may take me a while to get my elegs under me and find the time in my hectic schedule to ewrite back to you all especially as my little puss-puss has taken sick again and is demanding I pay her constant attention and cater to her every whim this week.

For now, I do want to address one econcern that was sent to me by my dear Nephew Norman. He ewrote:

Dear Aunt Mary, when will you be getting a Facebook page? We do so need your help navigating the treacherous seas of social networking. I have one particular Facebook friend whom I feel I have let go but I really don’t know the best way to do so. I and she, you see, have a history and even though we parted amicably I don’t really want this past dalliance spying on my present. Should I simply cut her off? Or is there a more mannered way for me to move on with my life?

Well, Norman, until I received your enote I frankly had slim to no information about this Facebook fad; but as you know your Aunt Mary is nothing if not resourceful and her razor sharp mind has been finished to a fine edge by years of trial and thus her experience in all matters of social import is second to none. Since receiving your emessage I set out to undertake an investigation of all things Facebook and I now feel adequately prepared to bring succor to your epleadings.

Facebook. Where do I start? Apparently in this 21st century virtual existence of ours this is what passes for social interaction. Tweetering and twitting and bloggering each other ad infinitum et nauseum. Accumulating new friends like sailors contract communicable diseases. Rounding up old friends most of whom we barely even acknowledged during our adolescent years. Pretending to be farmers and gansters and engaging in any number of imaginary games that we should have outgrown as preteens. Not to mention wasting countless valuable hours relentlessly swapping photos and songs and video clips as if we were collectively starved for any and every form of entertainment and doing most if not all of these activities while sitting alone at a keyboard in our pajamas or worse. In short, dear ones, this Facebook addiction has to be a one of the saddest reflections I know of how far we have fallen down the socio-evolutionary scale. If you ask me primates, ants and penguins now officially have more genuine interaction with one another on a daily basis than modern mankind.

But do not allow yourselves to believe that you are suddenly off the hook, dear ones. We cannot allow ourselves to add insult to injury. Just because we have launched ourselves headlong down this path of degeneration does not mean be are beyond reformation. What we have to do is take a stand and demand that our new virtual interactions carry with them the same obligations to social mores that our physical interactions once did.

Here, dear nephew Norman, is what your Aunt Mary strongly suggests you need to do avoid committing any further Facebook faux pas.

For one you have to start considering your online friendships as carefully as you do your offline friendships. Clicking the friend button should be akin to an invitation to a dinner party. One does not simply slam the door on a guest carrying an RSVP. An invited guest is at the very least deserving of an explanation or, if the fault is yours, an apology should the invitation need to be revoked. A reversal or revoking of friendship should never be undertaken on a whim but only carried out after careful reflection and for good and just reasons. As a practical step, nephew, you owe your one-time belle an honest and open explanation for your new found need to remove her from your virtual space. I suggest you send her an enote, or better yet a hand-written letter, that says something along these lines:

“Dear friend, It is clear that we once were closer than we are today and while I still cherish the time we spent together the bond we once had is no longer what it was. For us to continue to share intimacies and have our lives entwined, even in virtual manner, can only tie us to the past and impede our future growth and progress. Regrettably, the only logical way for us both to seek the better good is to cut these ties that bind and move on to a brighter tomorrow. I will in due course remove you from my friends list. I hope you can see that this is the best for both of us because if you continue to seek out a virtual friendship with me I will be forced to block you from my interweb completely. Yours sincerely, etc..

You have no doubt already realized that you have many other current Facebook friends who need to be pared off your dinner list. Really, Norman you actually believe you have the time and will to adequately interact with 238 Facebook friends? I thought not. Here are a few suggestions for trimming your list.

To status twitterers: Dear friend, in the past few hours I have learned that you woke up feeling blue, you made coffee, you watched the today show, you had a change of heart, and you are looking forward to a big evening. Although these events may feel life affirming and/or of vital importance within your small sphere of existence, I have grown weary of your constant status updates and see no other option but to retract my previous invitation of virtual friendship. Yours regrettably, etc..

To the quizaholics: Dear friend, I care not a whit what your pirate name would be or who is your celebrity beau. I am not interested in which Shakespeare character you are or what famous philosopher you most resemble. Because you seem unable to stop posting the results of the latest infantile test you clicked through I will be forced to click the “remove from friends” button immediately after I click send on this email. Yours emphatically, etc..

To the clearly deranged: Dear friend, when I accepted your original invitation of virtual friendship I frankly had no idea you had devolved over the past few decades into a slobbering lunatic. I now see there is no hope of you ever regaining the status of functional adult and so I find I am forced to delete you from my list of friends. I do hope you are unsuccessful in your attempt to secure my address and I warn you ahead of time that should you try to contact me again I will not hesitate to slap you with an order of restraint. Yours blantantly, etc..

I hope you take my response as seriously as I intended it to be received, dear nephew Norman. And before I conclude also consider this…perhaps if you didn’t have quite so many pictures of your drunken excesses and reckless ribaldry plastered all over the interweb you would not be so concerned about snooping eyes in the first place. Perhaps if you were able to show even a modicum of restraint in your virtual life you would not feel so compelled to toss your guests from the party willy-nilly. The old adage still applies dear ones. What you refrain from showing is ever more appealing than what you do.

Until next time dear nephew and nieces, nosce te ipsum and also know that Aunt Mary loves you to pieces…almost as much as she adores her sickly little puss-puss.

EDITORS NOTE: IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION FOR AUNT MARY WHY NOT POST IT AS A COMMENT?

From Here to Nairobi – Chapter 5: Communing with the Ancients

20 Saturday Feb 2010

Posted by in Neville Cole, Travels

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

 

Koobi Fora and some old fossils

Story and Photograph by Neville Cole

The wind is still blowing my curtains horizontal. I walk back to the patio to find John and Justin quietly drinking strong, sweet Kenyan coffee. Do these African guys every sleep, I wonder. John pours me a cup without having to enquire whether I’d like one.

“We’re thinking of heading up to Koobi Fora this morning.  Are you interested?”

“What’s Koobi Fora?” I ask.

“It’s a paleoanthropological archeological site,” Justin replies as if those multisyllabic words quite naturally roll off everyone’s tongue at seven in the morning; then, noting my blank expression, adds:  “Leakey established a base camp there in ‘68. He set up a Kenyan search team called the hominid gang who discovered hundreds of fossil Hominins in the area. Mostly they found Homo habilis, homo rudolfensis, and homo ergaster but they discovered Australopithecus remains up there as well. It a very important site paleoanthropologically speaking.” By now I could tell these two African boys were enjoying themselves at my expense.

“Let me have a cup of coffee before you try to explain any more of this,” I moan. “It too early for all these fucking big words.”

Justin and the Frenchies are flying up to shoot some big scene for their documentary so I thought we might as well go along to check it all out.”

“You can see the movie being made and commune with the ancients at the same time,” Justin adds, sipping slowly on the thick, black liquid in his cup. “We’d take you in the helicopter with us but they are carrying all kinds of shit with them today: wave riders, ultralights, hang gliders…the entire crew, some local Turkana hands to set everything up and, of course, all the models and Cristo.

“Cristo?” I repeated.

“That’s the name John came up with for our new mysterious, wandering friend. It was getting tiresome last night continually referring to him as friend or stranger or bearded one.”

“I decided his full name is Jesus Cristo,” John added with a cynical snort. “He’s our most glorious existential messiah.”

“Anyway,” Justin continued, “You should come up to Koobi Fora with John and check it out. It’s going to be crazy.”

I am not one to want to miss crazy, so naturally I agree to go along.

“Great,” said John getting up from the table. We leave in about an hour and don’t worry about the costs; we’ll figure it all out when we get back to Nairobi.”

The flight to Koobi Fora took us all the way to the very tip of the Jade Sea.  Here the landing strip is not only perpendicular to the prevailing wind but also covered in a three to twelve inch layer of loose blowing sand. Twenty-five feet above the ground we drop suddenly out of the sky and bounce violently to a rapid stop. “Wow!” John screams.  “Lucky we didn’t snap the landing gear with that one!  I only hope we’ll be able to lift up out of this quicksand later today.”

The ubiquitous African buggy picks us up at the strip. We see that the French crew and their small army of Turkana production assistants have arrived before us. Out of the enormous Russian helicopter has poured a mountain of equipment and that small army of Turkana production assistants. They have set about transforming the badlands landscape into a fully-fledged movie set. The first order of business it seems was to establish a base camp complete with a craft services tent and a hair and make-up station where the models will apparently to undergo some kind of prehistoric makeover.

In the distance I can just make out Justin and Cristo helping to lug two hang gliders to the top of an extinct volcano cone. Michel is talking to a couple of crew members who are busy constructing an ultra-light that will be rigged with a mounted camera. By the lake, I see a buggy unloading wave riders into the water. Jean is discussing the sequence of shots with the DP while grips set up two main cameras and and an array of reflectors. Everyone has a job to do but us.

“I’ve talked the driver into taking us down to the fossil fields,” John says tossing me a bottle of water he has snagged from craft services.

“I thought these were the fossil fields.”

“This isn’t where they find all the hominids,” John says already loping his way back to the buggy. “But Chongwe says he can take us to them.”

Our driver, Chongwe tell us he has worked at Koobi Fora for nearly half his life. As he drives us down the long, winding, rutted trail to the fossil fields he explains that searching the area for fossils has become his life’s work.

“Did you know Kamoya then?” John asks.

“Oh yes,” Chongwe smiles. “Mr. Kamoya is one of my most dear friends. I was one of the hominid gang. I helped Mr. Kamoya find Turkana boy. I was only a boy myself at the time.” Later John would explain that Kamoya Kimeu, is one of the world’s most successful fossil collectors. Kamoya worked with the Leakeys and is credited with making some of the most worlds most significant archaeological discoveries. The “Turkana Boy” Chongwe referred to was an almost complete Homo erectus skeleton found nearby in 1984.

As we trudge along the trail, Chongwe explains that, after the rains each year, the area is awash with rivulets and along each pit and gully new potential discoveries are exposed.  That is when the team really goes to work. It has been a long time since the last rains; but it is still difficult to take a step without landing your foot on a piece of ancient history.

“Look at this!” Chongwe bends to down to pick up two, small, cone-shaped objects.  “Crocodile teeth. This whole area was flooded by the lake about a million years ago.” John points out a curved fossil jutting out of gully which Chongwe says is a hippo jaw. I pick up shiny black rock about the size of a Swiss army knife.

“That is volcano rock. Over by the volcano we found an area where homo habilis made tools. That is knife for cutting fish. See? Fish bones everywhere.” We find fossils of every kind and size but our short excursion uncovers no identifiably human remains. Presumably those were all discovered soon after the last rainy season ended.

“I have done good work last season, my friends,” Chongwe smiles. “Everything there was uncovered I have found. Soon, the rains will come again and we will be out searching out for more ancient wonders.” We wandered with Chongwe for more than an hour. Slowly making our way up one gully and down the next like small children lost in a maze. Eventually we stop pulling up fossils and badgering Chongwe to identify each insignificant find. Instead, we find ourselves standing silently, trance-like, staring out over the post-apocalyptic sedimentary plain; all black lava, red claystones, brown siltstones, and grey sandstones, scattered with bone white fossils. None of us says a word for twenty minutes, maybe longer. Finally John, who has been unusually silent all morning, sidles over to me and whispers unconvincingly: “Well, this is almost as much fun as digging up graves.  Let’s go see what the Frenchies are up to.”  As we walk back to the buggy John is suddenly in the mood to talk again.

“So what do you make of that Cristo character?” he asks conspiratorially.

“Well,” I say, “he tells an interesting tale but I don’t believe much of it is true.”

“He says he’s been wandering out here for years?” John snorts. “I’ve seen backpackers who been out here for one week and they are without fail covered in welts and bites and their hair is a nappy mess. He looks like he’s just come from the spa. Did you see his hands? Not a callous on them. You are not going to wander through Africa the hard way and look like that. It is just not going to happen. If you notice, even the animals out here are covered in ticks and bites and scratches. It’s not a zoo out here. It’s the real thing! Anyway, we are agreed, right? He’s up to something. I just wish I could figure out what it is. Oh Jesus!” He says suddenly staring almost directly up into the sun. “Take a look at this, will you!”

Like Phoebus driving his chariot, the ultralight bursts out the glaring equatorial sun and buzzes directly over our heads. We scamper up the nearest hill to get a better view of the proceedings. From the top of the hill we can see the ultralight swooping down past a group of models positioned dramatically jet black lava flows. Each one stands, arms outstretched, with a thirty-foot trail of fluttering colored cloth blowing in the wind behind her. Narrowly missing the models, the ultralight turns and chases the wave riders along the lake shore; again each one carries a model clad in similar fashion to the lava sirens. Finally, the ultralight banks sharply back toward the volcanoes just in time to catch the two hang-gliders as they step off into the void and climb higher and higher into the piercingly blue sky.

“Whoa man!” says Chongwe who has scampered up the hill to join us. “This is some kind of show. Good thing we didn’t miss that!”

“What the hell is this documentary about anyway?” I wonder aloud. Nobody seems to know but we are all pretty sure it will look spectacular.

Untitled, uncertain, undeniably Simcard

20 Saturday Feb 2010

Posted by in Foodge Private Dick, Julian London

≈ 73 Comments

Story and Photographs by Julian London

Simcard Keelty felt particularly surefooted ‘aujourd’hui’, as he shadowed his nemesis Foodge.

He walked with a jaunty air that he was certain made him blend in with ‘Les Parisiennes’ on this sunny Friday. He had alighted at Gare Saint Lazar, smug in the knowledge that he had given the biggest tip of the day to the well known ‘train violinist’, who plied his trade on the St Germaine en-Laye route. He chuckled at the thought of Tony Negus reminding him to be frugal with his OAFS (overseas advanced funds).

He knew that Foodge had a liaison booked with a mysterious swarthy character, code named ‘The ditch’… He wasn’t 100pc sure, but rumour had it that it was bastardisation of his last name, which in turn  was nicked from that unsalubrious London Suburb where James Burbage had built the first ‘Theatre’. Of course Simcard was too thick to know this, but he had read it in the profile.

Anyway, he meandered through Place de La Madeleine (named after that saintly GM hunter), keeping ‘The Foodge’ about fifty paces ahead. Only stopping to take a photo of  the GM’s neo-classical temple . Mrs. Simcard would be able to show it around at her truncheon parties.

After a couple more twists and turns he spotted ‘The Foodge’ taking a turn off Rue Saint-Honere into Rue de Saussaies.

Simcard approached the turning gingerly, in case he had been made. But he hadn’t however— and he spotted his quarry making a secretive gesture through the window of a restaurant—then going in the front door, without even reading the menu.

Simcard was starving and thought wistfully of  his OAFS burning a hole in his new RJ Williams moleskins.  Well the hunger emboldened him and knowing that his thick moustache and tam-o’-shanter disguise would shield him, he sidled up to the door of Le Griffonnier and devoured the menu with his eyes. He spotted The Foodge, and the back of what he took to be The Ditch— and decided that discretion was more prudent than salivation, so headed back to the corner, from where he could see the Élysée Palace, the President’s official residence.

Anyway, after an eternity the bastards came out and Simcard dutifully followed once more. Down to The Champs-Élysées, past The Theatre Marigny and on to the wide side walk.

Here his quarry shook hands with The Ditch and took off across  The Champs-Élysées at the crossing, leaving Simcard a conundrum. Who should he follow?

Well having a penchant for capturing bearded men, he decided to take a couple of shots of the fast disappearing private dick . This he did and managed to get two. One  outside of  the escalators to the Clemenceau Metro and another through some traffic as Foodgie hurried past The Grande Palais, now an Art Gallery.  Simcard then turned his attention to The Ditch, and started following him. Hoping that he wasn’t too far behind the swarthy stranger in the wine coloured tee shirt with the odd writing on it…….to be continued…maybe!

Foodge 9 – My Boyfriend’s Back – and other bits

18 Thursday Feb 2010

Posted by in Foodge Private Dick

≈ 24 Comments

Breakfast at the Pig's Arms

Recently ……

Things were taking a turn for the worse.  I’m tagging along by “special invitation” with O’Hoo – a speed-balling cop/Russian Mafia double agent in search of a one-armed drink-spiking priest called Sandy.  I was a bit distracted.  I’d forgotten about Trotsky.  And I had nearly forgotten about my appointment with the blonde Miss Anne Thropy…..

O’Hoo only needed to look at the door and Pi , ah, squared up to it and let O’Hoo and me loose into a circle of light – the outside world.  It was some time in the day, I guess.  Not being dark.

I was really getting on top of situational analysis and I sensed that the blue Zephyr had, horse-like, made its own way over to meet with us and carry me home.  There’s a crime-fightin pecking order and a private dick ranks below a bent cop, apparently and so I took the wheel and O’Hoo took a swig from his hip flask.  The warm and inviting waft of a morning refresher of Bundy filled the car.  I looked like an old trusty but O’Hoo looked like he didn’t recognise sharing as a virtue.

I punched the radio button.  The radio said “Hey now, hey now, my boyfriend’s back !”.  I didn’t need to look at O’Hoo to know that he was a golden silence passenger.  I thought that the recent return of somebody’s boyfriend had better take a back seat.

I was driving in the general direction of away (Clue !) and I was aspiring to some kind of direction from O’Hoo, figuring that he was not out taking the airs for his health.  “Listen”, I said, “As much as I value your fun and generous companionship, I was wondering why it is that we’re going for a spin this moment”.  I was also wondering about our tattooed arse cheeks, but O’Hoo looked like he naturally gagged question time.  One inquiry would have to do for now.

“I’d kill for some of granny’s bacon, eggs and beans over at the Pig’s – wouldn’t you ?”.  I wouldn’t have killed for granny’s bacon eggs and beans, but I’m fairly certain that O’Hoo would – and probably had.  “Absolutely!” I somehow agreed, turning left off the Erskineville turnpike and down a laneway that had featured in one of Archie Roach’s ballads about Charcoal.

I was in a maze of small twisty little passages and I knew we were close to the pub because I could smell the acrid nasal assault of a combination of bacon, eggs, beans and burning hedge.  That’s the best way to find the Pig’s Arms.  Sniff for hedge and follow your nose.

The local kids were wagging school.  Unusual!?  I lied questioningly to myself.  I knew we were inside the gravitational field of the pub when I saw more kids in the car park, shooting butterflies with their shanghais.

And there at the back of the car park was Jail, deep in discussion, commercially engaged with Hedgie.  Hedgie is a Hell’s Angle with a horticultural bent.  There is a rumour that he got his nickname because he has spiky hair, but the congoscenti (those who can even smell the Congo through a doco on their TV sets) believe that “the Hedge” is deeply acquainted with the cultivation of decorative hemp plantations for aesthetic, commercial and recreational porpoises.

O’Hoo rolled down the window of the Zephyr and instructed Jail to have sex.

I edged the Zephyr next to a couple of 44 gallon drums of eyebrow hair.  Just out of range of the kids and their shanghais and O’Hoo and I headed for the Pig’s dining room, with Jail trailing along like shit on a sheep’s bum.

“We’ll have the lot with the lot, thanks granny”.  O’Hoo pretended to not hear the question that might have otherwise nourished Jail.  It was going to one of those days for Jail, who had managed to find a lower rung on the crime fightin’ peckin’ order than me.

Merv served us two glass canoes of Trotter’s Ale and a chaser of JW Black as palate cleansers before Manne emerged with a couple of granny Michelins worth of breakfast.  The eggs were round with yellow centres surrounded by a ragged white edge.  The beans were tiny round footballs swimming in red slurry.  The square slabs were either tiles or toast.  That meant that the other stuff was more than likely the bacon.

I was relieved to see O’Hoo using cutlery and the sting of the JW Black gave me some reassurance that I’d be reasonably protected from the first wave of microwildlife safari known as the “Pig’s Arms Big Brekkie Special”

Merv came over with the second flotilla of glass canoes and with a wry smile, took his life in his large hairy hands and asked “How are the Bottom Twins, today ?”