Monthly Archives: April 2010

8.5 Ewe Don’t Know What You’ve Bean Missen

30 Friday Apr 2010

Posted by in Mark

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Everywhere on Missen this emblem invokes fear

We finally arrive at Missen. Belinda and I with Helvi and Warrigal beam down to the surface onto the lawn at Hardy Cocksure’s house. I can hear a female sobbing uncontrollably in the house. We walk to the front door and knock. A woman answers “Yes” she sobs “Hi there, I’m Sandy, Gordon has sent me” I blurt nervously “Is Hardy home?” The woman cries and brings out a tissue to blow her nose “I’m Pussy” she relates, Hmmm, wow, I can see that but I better not go there “My Hardy’s gone LIMP” she bleats “Limp?” I ask “Yes, that’s right, LIMP, Lactose Induced Meltdown Procedure, oh, anyway, come in.” An acronym, I should have known.

Pussy is Hardy’s girlfriend and she relates to us a story of ICCB troops turning up at the door and drugging Hardy with lactose knowing he is lactose intolerant. Pussy tells us that a short little man in a space suit then comes to the door and says “Tell Lord Climate that the games over and to surrender”, Hmmm, I can smell the Rat behind this. Warrigal does a head to toe and then calls the Regen-o-lance while Helvi, who has morphed into combat mode, does a quick reconnoitre of the surrounds hoping she will find 500 elite ICCB troops waiting for her so she can decimate them and have a little fun.

I contact Neville, our navcom, “Neville patch me into the rodents ship please” I state rather assertively, “Yes Lord Climate, patching now” “Lord John speaking” answers the little worm. “You piece of excrement zark off or I’ll blow you out of the sky” I state in my non parish priest style of voice “Sandy, Sandy, Sandy, temper, temper, you seem to be losing it a bit lately” whines the rodent, “Surrender, without Hardy you won’t win the game and Gordon won’t get to complete his thesis” hisses the scheming rat. “Pig’s Arms” I curse and with that I disconnect.

Just then a man steps into the doorway making the door and everything around him look incredibility small. “This is Big M” says Pussy “He will have to captain the team in place of Hardy and Sandy you will have to play” Me, and avid cricket hater actually play cricket, oh for zark sake, what else do I have to do in this story. “So” I ask full of nerves and knocking at the knees “Why do they call you Big M?” “Don’t know really” says Big M “might be because I’m big and my name starts with M but I’ve never really thought about it”

We go to the game the next day. It’s being held at the main ground on Flong called The Foval, I’ll let you guess how it got that name. Hardy’s team is called Male Nurses United and the opposition is the Oppressed Homosexuals. The OP’s win the toss and bat and thanks to a good opening stand of 114 from their openers Brucie and Waggers they go on to post 324 off 50 overs. Gregor, our spinner took 5 for 49 which is pretty good in a one day game.

We bat and thanks to a well crafted ton from Big M we get to 9 for 319 with last man in and one over to go, you guessed it, me. Helvi gives me a pep talk “Now Sandy you must win the game, you fight and die a hero and a martyr” “Helvi, can you leave out the die bit, I’m a born coward don’t forget” The nanobots in my pants are working overtime as I walk out. Luckily I’m at the non strikers end. The bowler for the OP’s is Les, Les Boss and he pushes off the fence to run it. I can’t even see the ball as my eyes are closed but Big M taps the first few back down the pitch. The tension is rising Les calls out “Hey priest, you’re such a pansy you’re on the wrong team” “Just go back and bowl you shirt lifter” replies Big M. “And you’re a another bone idle, good for nothing, purse carrying nancy boy, male nurse” retorts Les. The next delivery Big M smacks through the covers, must be a four, no well fielded keeping it down to a single. Two balls to go, four runs needed. “Hey, isn’t Sandy a girl’s name?” barbs Les, “Just zark off mate or I’ll tell your boyfriend where you were last night” retorts Big M. The heat is getting hot.

You know batting is difficult especially when you have your eyes closed as I did to the first delivery. Big M comes down the pitch “C’mon Sandy, if we win this there will be strippers, kegs, scoobies and steak sandwiches all night back at the club so c’mon, C’MON”. Just as I face up a voice pops in my head “Use the farce Luke, er um, Sandy, use the farce” says Dad. Only trouble is I can’t think of anything stupid. I remember Astyages saying attack is the best form of defence, so lets attack. I point to the stadium as Les starts to run in. American viewers will probably know this as the Statue of Liberty play in baseball. In Australia this is know as a very zarking stupid thing to do. One never riles a vicious fast bowler that has the potential to kill you with a single blow.

I can see Les approaching, his nostrils flaring, his eyes bulging out of his head. His tongue is wailing in the breeze and his hair forms a trail behind him. He bowls, I swing, I miss, ball hits my head, I’m rendered unconscious, the ball sails over the boundary on the full. It’s a six, the Male Nurses United win, Gordon passes his thesis, 326 is the average number of beans in a 440 gram can, life is a wonderful but strange thing, well sort of….

For Michael

30 Friday Apr 2010

Posted by in Susan Merrell

≈ 12 Comments

....... borrowed from Banksy

By Susan Merrell.

I was walking beside the harbour when I heard the news. It was a glorious day.  The sun was dancing on the water like a thousand diamonds. News like this ought to be banned on such a day – or maybe even any day.  The SMS text message delivered its knock out punch.  I wasn’t prepared.

The text read:

“This is Tanya.  Michael’s daughter.  After a long illness Michael passed away around midnight last night.”

It became dark as I uttered the denial.

“No!”

My son who was walking beside me took the phone from my hands. He read the message.

“Mum, who is he?”

Tanya left me her number to ring should I “want to talk”.  Who did she think I was?  How did she get my number?

Michael and I met when we were very young and had too many responsibilities.  It was a time when the weight of the world felt like it was on our young shoulders.  We both had marriages, mortgages and were bringing up young children.

The meeting took place at the primary school that both our children attended – at the annual wine-and-cheese, meet-the-parents’ night.  Or as Michael called it, the Chine and Wees night.  He was president of the school council, I was a new parent.  The attraction was instant and from our first kiss we had trouble keeping our hands off each other.

The attraction and the subsequent affair confused us.  We were both fully committed to our respective marriages.  In retrospect, I think it had a lot to do with the need to be totally irresponsible.  And we were.

We met at lunch times.  Sometimes I’d meet him off the train for a few minutes of a passionate embrace before we both went to our separate homes.  We’d leave suggestive messages for each other in the classified pages of the daily newspaper.  We made love everywhere.  It was in a Melbourne downpour that we made love in a phone box outside Flinders Street Station wrapped in my voluminous raincoat.

Michael always did things to make me happy. “I love it when you smile,” he’d say. Once finding ourselves drinking at the same pub as Ron Barassi, I said to Michael:

“I’ve always wanted to meet Barassi.”

“No problems,” he said, as he took me over and introduced me.

I didn’t know Michael knew Barassi.  Turned out he didn’t.

Michael was a voracious reader, devouring often more than five books a week.  He was not tertiary educated but as a result of his reading had a vocabulary far larger than he had ever heard spoken.  Consequently, his mispronunciations were legendary.  My favourite was when he’d tell me he was “enamoured” with me but would place the stress on the wrong syllable making the word sound like enna mored. But then he’d usually argue the toss that he was right and I was wrong.

Another peculiarity of Michael’s was that he was profoundly colour blind.  It wasn’t that he mistook one colour for another, he simply had no idea what most colours were – so he’d guess.

“I love you in green,” he once told me.

“I’m wearing pink,” I replied.

“Yes, but it’s greenish pink, isn’t it?” he countered.

He’d tell me I was beautiful.  I needed to hear that.  I adored him.

I don’t know how it ended, I don’t know that it ever did.  But I moved away, started a new life, a new marriage. We kept in contact for a while.  If I was down, I’d call him. He’d make me laugh.  He was so much larger than life.

Then more than a decade went past where we didn’t speak.  But Michael was never completely out of my thoughts.  It was I that sought him out again.  After all the time that had past, I still couldn’t leave him alone.

His first words, after a decade were: “Darling, are you still beautiful?” How can you help loving such a man?

But the years had not been kind to Michael.  He’d grabbed life by the throat and given it a good shake.  He’d played hard and life was biting back.  At a relatively young age he’d had a massive heart attack.  They had not expected him to live.  He’d never totally regained his health.

I remember thinking when I put down the phone how devastated I’d have been if I’d looked for him just to find him gone.  We kept in closer contact from then on.  Michael would often comment on my various articles and blogs.

Michael’s contribution to my life has been very private but very profound.  There’ll never be anyone like him.  From the time we met I was totally enna mored.

So tomorrow, I will sit at the back of the church at his funeral service.  I will be the cliché of the mourner that nobody knows.  I’m doing it for him.  He would have liked it.

Kids and Cane Fields

29 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

≈ 13 Comments

On our street and at the very end of it, facing the harbour was a small company called Harry West. They had been there for decades and specialised in sail making and other activities connected to boating and sailing. There was also a slipway where medium sized boats and yachts would be ‘slipped’ and de-fouled of barnacles and recoated with anti-fouling paints. They employed about thirty or forty people in its hay-day with perhaps 20 still employed when we were living there, just a bit higher up from them. Every morning and every afternoon we would watch those workers walking past our house to and from work. Our kids got to know some of them and were often allowed to enter the factory and see the workings of sail making in progress. There were many of those enterprises around Sydney’s harbour foreshores but their numbers were shrinking.

On the other side of Harry West at the end of the dead end street where we were living were a few acres of disused harbour foreshore land which had, through blissful neglect by its owners, become a children’s paradise. They called it ‘the Cane fields’. It had patches of very tall cane type grasses growing which was ideal for cubby houses and hiding places. By dinner time, all one had to do was stroll down and call out and soon kids heads would be popping up from between the reeds of cane. Once, coming back from a week’s camping down the coast, we noticed our house had been entered by someone, not immediately, but later on when going to bed, I shouted to my wife ‘ why did you take the doonah away?’ I didn’t, she said. All the kid’s beds were without doonahs as well. Yet, the glass jars filled with coins or anything else of value had not been taken, just only the doonahs. The police were called and scratched their heads, could not make anything out of it. These doonahs had been bought in Holland and made in Norway from 100% eider down. Expensive, but very warm in winter and yet not sweaty in summer, the ideal bed covers for insomniacs like me.  We could only think of someone in need of sleeping out rough or a vagrant that would just take bedding and yet not money. The first thing we did was search all the cubbies in the Cane fields, but even though we found bits and ends of blankets and rags, no doonahs. The mystery was never solved. How did the thief know we had those Norwegian doonahs? Was it a close friend or family member, who knows?

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=_M09AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=The+East-+Balmain+cane+fields&source=bl&ots=UF0D9_Gp4r&sig=46QqRAJ5JcJ69SK9TgC3V6hvXos&hl=en&ei=2HTZS-W2CJWekQWO1ezoDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CCcQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false

It was a few years later, when our kids had grown past ‘cubby’ house phases that new and young families with younger kids had moved into our street, that the advantage of the Cane fields was continued. But, not for long. It was noticed that dark suited men wearing sinister sun glasses had  driven down in BMW’s and been seen spreading maps out on rocks and pointing with a wave of their arms to the expansive water views, then shaking hands followed by demonic laughter. Was the end of the Cane fields in sight? It did not take long and the dreaded letter with Councils envelope arrived with plans for a sub-division of the Cane fields into numerous small blocks. Right in the middle would be a bitumen driveway with allotments on both sides. With no thoroughfare to exit elsewhere it meant extra traffic up and down a very narrow street. The land, apart from the bushes of cane and a profusion of weeds also had the remnants of a maritime past. There was a huge ship’s propeller and steel cabling, square timber logs, a heap of anchors and a mountain of metal cleats. The best part of the Cane fields was its magic smell of industrial harbour, the lovely bouquet of tarred ropes and at low tide the rusted bodies of mangled bows that  were still telling stories.

The objections by residents were many and very vocal. Some had access to media and soon the TV cameras began to roll. Of course, every possible angle was exploited and crying children were thrust in front telling how they played in the canes and mothers weeping about losing a valuable children’s park and playground. Indeed, the creative future of entire generation of youth would be risked if the subdivision would be allowed to go ahead. Then, at 7pm the commercial channels would be switched on to see whose child or mother would appear on Telly and phone calls made, ‘did you see me on TV?  Yes, ‘you were good’, ‘I am sure your protest will help stop the project.’ The protests grew louder but when the developer ceded the last ten metres along the water facing the harbour as public open space, Council approved.

Soon the bulldozers arrived and in a single hour, decades of magic and history in children’s adventures was growled and grunted away with the might of the dozer’s blade. A puff of blue diesel and that was it. The cane all ploughed and churned to death.

The Adventures of Mongrel and the Runt 9A – Tea and Sympathy

29 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by in Warrigal Mirriyuula

≈ 24 Comments

Caption to a Tea

By Warrigal Mirriyuula

Beryl had boiled the kettle and their tea was now brewing while she made some sandwiches. This morning’s shopping had taken a little longer than they thought and so it would be a light lunch rather than tea and a bun.

Alice had gone quiet since their almost encounter with Doc and Gruber, and Beryl was casting around in her mind for a way to broach the subject anew, perhaps help her friend get to grips with what Beryl now thought of as the “The Doc Problem.”

Alice’s quiet ruminations got there first and out of the blue she began to list the items on the positive side of the ledger.

“I have enormous professional respect for Doc.” She said nodding with that respect, “You know I trained and worked at RPA,” she knew whereof she spoke, “well Doc is a better diagnostician and a better physician than any I met there. Molong is very lucky to have him.” Alice pursed her lips, paused momentarily, as if hooking up the next component of her analysis. “He’s got a generous nature and a terrific bed side manner.” This last attribute though, was somewhat problematic, but she’d deal with that later. “He really does care for his patients, both bodily and spiritually.” Lips pursed again; “Hmmm”, that wasn’t quite right. Doc was known for denying the role of the spirit in human affairs. The care and curing of the body, the defeat of the various ails and ills it’s prone to, a matter of science and skill according to Doc. “Apart from his “godlessness” he’s a good man.”

“Godlessness,” Alice was surprised at the vehemence with which Alice had imbued the word and just had to jump in. “I wouldn’t say Doc was “Godless”. I think he believes in his own way.” but she wasn’t so sure about this. Maybe Doc was agnostic, but she wasn’t about to start the negative ledger with an uncertainty. “It might be that God works through Doc without permission.” Beryl looked over at her friend hoping her little joke might have lightened her mood. It hadn’t, so she continued, “Anyway, isn’t the important thing that he’s a good man and a wonderful doctor? His patients all love him. There are some women in this town that see Doc as some kind of Christ like figure.”

Beryl smiled as she and Alice both pictured Mrs. D, who even now would be putting the finishing touches to a meal fit for a vice regal dinner, let alone a Monday lunch for two doctors.

“I don’t think this has anything whatsoever to do with God Alice. He didn’t make the rules you’re applying to Doc.” Beryl said speculatively. She went on to explain, “When I was a young girl on the farm, even before I went to school, I loved the bible stories Mum and Dad read to me at bedtime. It seemed there was always a lamb in the story and I thought how lucky I was to be surrounded by lambs. To me it was as if Jesus was everywhere.” Beryl smiled inwardly as she remembered those pre-war days filled with sunshine and innocence. “That’s remained the shape of my faith ever since. Jesus is everywhere working with the faithful to do better and helping those who have lost the way, or never found it. Doc isn’t “Godless” Alice. That would mean that God had abandoned him and I can’t believe for a moment that Doc’s skill and knowledge aren’t God given.” It wasn’t usual for Beryl to interrogate her faith like this. She liked the stories, hers was a narrative faith and the more she thought about it the more certain she was that Doc’s story seemed to fit the mould; a good man struggling with life to find meaning and purpose. Besides, she was married to a good man who had trouble with his faith, and with good reason, she’d always thought.

“All sorts of things happen in life. You meet all sorts. The good people you cherish. The bad ones you turn away from.” Beryl began to wonder herself where she might be leading with this. “People can be a bad lot, do terrible things. Compassion and forgiveness seem at the heart of it for me.” Yes, that was it! “Don’t you think you could be a little more forgiving towards Doc? After all, he can’t know the rules you’re failing him on.”

That was the truth of it, Alice thought as she heard again her mother’s vituperative hissing whisper in her ear, “Men are evil thoughtless creatures; manured pasture for the devil to grow discord and division. Drunkards, whoremongers and criminals, the lot of them.” It was painful to remember.

Alice began to cry as she further remembered her father going quietly to an early grave. Having married for love he then failed throughout that marriage to meet his wife’s high standards of Godliness and Christian rectitude; but he never stopped loving her and Alice had never heard him utter a single word of criticism or dissatisfaction. Alice remembered again as she often did in times of trouble, his gently holding her hands in his and telling her of the love he had always felt for her, how proud he was of her accomplishments in nursing; his body emaciated by disease, his face a hollow sepulchral mask animated only by the fire in his eyes as the cancer ate away at him leaving little but pale skin and the bone almost visible beneath that loose papery blue and white sack. He’d been a big man, well liked outside his family, respected even, in that way that quiet, uncomplaining hard workers are in a country town.

His diagnosis had prompted his suggestion that Alice attend the Royal Prince Alfred Nursing School. He’d worked right up to his final illness to pay for it; and suddenly, today, as the rain rattled on the iron roof of the pub, she realised why. As her parents’ marriage descended into a siege of attrition and the progress of her father’s disease continued inexorably, her father, in his usual quiet way, had been trying to free his beloved daughter from the malign influence of his demanding wife and the spectacle of a decaying and cankerous marriage. To provide her with an experience of the wider world, different people, to make the place in which Alice might find herself and begin to make her own decisions, free from her mother’s rules and constant criticism. And now here she was, a grown woman, both parents gone, and she was still applying her mother’s malignant rules to the only man she’d ever felt anything for. She couldn’t help her feelings; not her love for Doc or the uncertainty she felt about him. As she had always been she was torn between her parents, between her past and a possible future.

Bee laid a comforting arm over Alice’s shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be like this Alice. Why can’t you just tell him how you feel? It’s nonsense you saying you don’t know. You can’t even think about him without losing your composure.” She offered Alice her hankie to dry the small tears and they both settled to sip their tea and quietly eat their sandwiches.

Riding in Cars with Strangers

29 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by in The Public Bar

≈ 6 Comments

 

By Emma James

When we are young, one of the first lessons we learn is not to get into cars with strangers. It goes along with don’t take lollies from strangers and look both ways before crossing the road.

When we grow up, that first lesson becomes less important as we jump into cabs and onto buses on an almost daily basis, assuming we will arrive at our intended destination safely, free to carry on our business for the day.

Perhaps though we should take more heed of that primal safety lesson, especially in foreign places. As travellers and tourists we climb into cars trusting these strangers will take us where we ask even though we have no idea where that is.

Imagine being in a foreign city where you don’t speak the language. You’ve just managed to make the cabbie understand where you want to go and have perhaps agreed a price.

You buckle-up (if you have that luxury) and watch out the window as the car veers around corners, up streets and down a dark alley. Is that alley a shortcut or are you being taken in some kind of ritual kidnapping of tourists about to lose all your possessions and left only with your underwear?

Of course when you ask any questions, the cabbie’s limited vocabulary, has suddenly disappeared altogether, just as you might soon as well.

But usually you arrive safely and live to tell the tale of the “scenic” journey you took and the exorbitant amount of money you paid for it; again the driver’s vocabulary disappeared when you tried to negotiate on the rate.

We all so freely place our trust in hundreds of strangers in our everyday lives and often where are personal safety is involved – hairdressers, dentists, doctors and the list goes on.

A recent study out of the University of British Columbia in Canada explains that “large-scale societies in which strangers regularly engage in mutually beneficial transactions are puzzling”.

Yet behavioural experiments show that members of these societies continue to interact in “fair, trusting and cooperative behaviour”.

Looking at the taxi-ride, it is technically a mutually beneficial; you get to where you want (you hope) and the driver receives payment (sometimes more than you would like). So we place our trust in the taxi driver and assume we will be a) alive at the end of the trip and b) in the place we wanted to go.

Is that trust however somewhat mis-guided?

Obviously unless we hire our own mode of transport we must rely on strangers. But in countries with rather lax road rules it is more than just the “scenic” route that can be a problem

Take for instance a recent four hour mini-van ride I took with a friend and 10 locals between Trat and Bangkok in Thailand

Our driver was attempting to break the land-speed record and was only thwarted by a few stubborn drivers refusing to move to the left-hand lane despite our driver’s furious light flashing. Most other drivers had enough sense to dart out of the way at the sight of our van looming in their rear-view mirrors

The swerving skills of our driver were excellent. Left then right with pure precision, he even considered using the right-hand shoulder to overtake a couple of times and only once sent our van head-long towards the concrete barrier in the middle road.

Our record attempting journey was halted only by the gridlock of Bangkok’s traffic where we did arrive safely, albeit with a few internal organs dislodged and some frayed nerves

The locals in the van never once seemed concerned, so it was obviously a common manner of driving in Thailand. Which means perhaps our trust in this particular driver was well placed. If the locals had been concerned, as they were on a mountain taxi ride in Morocco where it seemed certain we were going to park the rickety old Mercedes at the bottom of a 400m ravine, it would have been a different story.

So perhaps it’s not the echoes of our parents words “never get in a car with a stranger” we need to follow, but instead the locals. If they seem comfortable, then relax and trust you’ll be okay. If they’re worried, then it may be time to grab a pen and paper and write your will.

Emmas new web site is……….

www.emmathejourno.wordpress.com

Letter to a Far Away Lover

28 Wednesday Apr 2010

Posted by in Poets Corner

≈ 20 Comments

The Pig’s Arms welcomes Miss Nom de Plume

Am I in your arms – at least in your imagination?

Are your fingers undoing my buttons as your lips caress my neck?

Can you feel my hands under your shirt – caressing your body as they travel downward?

Can you feel me stiffen under your touch as you remove the final barriers?

Can you hear me groan as our bodies become one?

Will the surrounding hills echo S T E P H A N I E?

Well, will they?

Five Things I Learned in a Week

27 Tuesday Apr 2010

Posted by in Gregor Stronach

≈ 43 Comments

By Gregor Stronach
One – It’s the advertisements that make TV really stupid.

I love television – it’s the world’s greatest form of entertainment for deadbeats and stoners and the perennially drug-fucked amongst us who can’t be bothered using their useless arms to hold up a newspaper or book because they’re a) too stupid, b) too stoned or c) their arms keep growing into long, waving strands of kelp. (I must remember to take the blue pills first, and then the red ones. Mama.)

But watching TV brings with it certain responsibilities, and one of those responsibilities is that we must, in order for the networks to continue to provide us with free movement and colour every day, pay attention to advertisements.

Like the one where the guy ambushes a lonely housewife, follows her home and goes through the dirty laundry – on order to show her how good his laundry detergent is. Honestly!

The way I see it, the guy’s either he’s a psychopath (probable), a paid actor pretending to be a panty-sniffing stalker (more probable) or the TV audience is too inured to the banality of the situation to realise that he’s not really an expert on stains… he’s just pretending.

It makes me wonder – why don’t we ever see people’s underpants on these commercials. Imagine it, if you will…

[Scene one – the laundry]

Stain Expert: “Look at those stains! They’re terrible! What have you been eating?”

[the housewife looks horribly embarrassed]

Stain Expert: “Here’s how to fix the problem, you filthy beast. Mix a little of our product with water to make a paste, put a little on the stain, and use the rest of it to clean your arse!”

Problem solved.

Two – Anyone who votes is clearly an idiot

What is with the people of the developed world? I’ve watched in staggering disbelief as both Australia (my home) and the US (where all the stuff that makes my home the way it is comes from) vote in conservative governments that seem hell-bent on blowing up as much of Iraq as they can within the next four years. It’s like watching two kids in a sandpit, armed with claymore mines and chewing on detonator caps.

What was Florida thinking? Surely the raft of hurricanes that threatened to move all of the retirees offshore (presumably to find their assets) was enough of a warning from God Himself that the state had better think twice before putting Bush back into the Whitehouse.

Here in Australia, we have had to endure the simpering, giggling return of the world’s least-attractive Prime Minister (and that list includes Helen Clark, Ariel Sharon and – of course – Margaret Thatcher). Worse still, he got in with a landslide.

It means, in a nutshell, that the voting public appears to be happy with conservative, right-leaning governments. Governments with a penchant for destroying other countries in the name of peace. Governments who demand that their electoral processes not be interfered with, unless it’s them doing the interfering.

Governments run by men with phallocentric agendas and no idea of how to plan further than a couple of months in advance, to whom every new development is a surprise (a challenge to be overcome), and to whom the ideals of compassion, fairness and equality are as foreign as Poodle Chow Mein.

It saddens me to see this developing the way that it has – a global swing to the right in developed nations means a lot to me.

Sure, I’ll be more afraid at night because of global security concerns. Sure, the rich will get their tax cuts while the poor drop through the safety nets.

Sure, the fetid stench of corruption will continue to blow through the halls of power.

But it’s all good news for me – it’s much easier to make fun of those guys than it is to make fun of the left.

Three – Staying up all night is bad for you.

Saturday was a lost day this week. This could have something to do with Friday night. Actually, it has everything to do with Friday night. While the going out part of Friday nights is almost always fun (with the notable exception of that extra-special Friday night trip to the 24-hour dentist to have a broken tooth removed), the staying up until dawn can have serious side effects.

This week, those included a sudden urge to watch TV (see point one) and a most unfortunate incident with my housemate, Pablo Escobar (with whom some of you may already be familiar… if not, I suggest a quick leaf through some of my earlier ravings. She’s in there somewhere. Anyway – more about her in point four).

The upshot of staying up all night is that the next day everyone who took part in the marathon effort of ‘seeing the break of day’ ends up looking, and for the most part behaving, like an extra from Shaun of the Dead. Indeed, it took a hefty blow to the back of the head with a cricket bat to get me to understand that it was time to sleep.

I miss being able to stay awake for three or four days at a time. I used to be able to do it, but as my body approaches its 32nd year on the planet, I have begun to realise that all is not as it once was.

I choose to blame the government.

Four – A vomiting cat is not a friendly cat.

Ahh, my dear, sweet Pablo. She’s still a little angel of death, living safe and sound in my apartment. It was her birthday a little while ago – she turned one. I know, I know… how the time has flown.

This week, we discovered that she has an allergy to kangaroo meat.

I should probably explain that kangaroos, while they are the national emblem of Australia, are a pest in plague proportions in the bush. They are also made of an extremely tasty meat, one which I happen to love.

Pablo loves the taste of it too – however, it makes her sick. She gets like a geysers at both ends when she eats roo meat, which makes for interesting evening’s entertainment, as we play games like ‘Find out what’s causing that terrible smell’, and ‘Oh God No Don’t Vomit In My Lap Oh Shit Oh Shit Oh Shit Get Off Me’. While they’re both great games that represent hours of fun for the family, they make Pablo a little unhappy. They also make me a little nauseous. But that’s OK – it’s good training for when I eventually become a parent, and have to deal with small children that are incapable of going more than three hours without soiling their trousers. Or, should I miss out on having kids, it’ll prepare me for old age. Either way, it’s all good.

Five – The war is coming too close to home.

I had a great weekend – a weekend blessedly free of the distractions of the internet and it’s evils, excesses and humourless statistics.

I logged in this morning, to be greeted with the news that an online friend had perished at the hands of ‘the enemy’ in Iraq.

He was a good guy – quick-witted, intelligent and funny when the right moment arose. He also agreed with me a lot in the discussions we had… make of that what you will.

But Pete won’t be sharing his mind with the world anymore. He was killed in the Babil Provence of Iraq as a result of enemy action. Consolations, such as the fact that he was there because he wanted to be, and that he died doing what he loved, don’t make me feel much better. And even though he wasn’t close enough to me to make me cry myself to sleep over the loss, it still burns that someone whose input into my life I truly enjoyed is now gone.

Cpl. Peter J. (Jav03) Giannopoulos, – thank you, and goodbye.

Foodge 12 – Lunch Becomes Foodge’s War

26 Monday Apr 2010

Posted by in Foodge Private Dick

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Rocky Di Sasatra - President of the Lewisham-Leichhardt Lambretta Club - before the accident.

Emmjay welcomes this Guest Episode by Big M !

O’Hoo leant across the table, “You gunna eat that?’ His hand hovering over the last day-old sausage roll, fresh from Merv’s ancient pie warmer.

Foodge shook his head, and drained the warm remnants from his glass canoe. The warm beer gently soothed away the fire in his gut, which would be revealed, at autopsy, to be due to a gastric ulcer. He shifted his gaze towards Merv, who took the hint and started to pour two more canoes of trotter’s best.

“Granny,” roared Merv, “Drop that bloody broom and get down under to see what’s wrong with that keg.” Merv held a canoe in his great fist with beery foam streaming down the side, running off his elbow. “Sorry gentlemen, Granny’ll have it fixed in a jiffy.”

A hint of a smile crinkled the corner of Foodge’s mouth. Yeah, Granny would fix it. There was nothing that the old girl didn’t know about kegs and taps, and pipes, as well as cooking, cleaning, and the general administration of the Pig’s Arms. It was a pity she new nothing about keeping beer cool, he reflected.

It was ten o’clock on a fine morning, and the place was humming along, mainly due to the presence of the Window Dresser’s Arms, Pig and Whistle Ladies Bowling Club. They held their weekly meeting every Tuesday morning, in spite of the fact that their green had been demolished to make way for Aldo’s Shopping Emporium.

Foodge’s ruminations were disturbed by the sound of a crash against the front door, as Hedgie’s distorted face pushed up against the glass. He had never been able to work out that the entrance doors opened outwards, to facilitate the egress of patrons at closing time. The door was wrenched open and Hedgie appeared, sobbing so fiercely that his entire frame shook.

Foodge moved to Hedgie’s side, expertly navigating the big, blubbering giant through the assorted stools and gasping bowling ladies (some, inexplicably held flames for poor old Hedgie, but that’s not for here). Merv placed a glass of JW on the bar, “On the house, son.”

O’Hoo had wiped the sausage roll oil from his maw, and had taken up position on a stool next to Hedgie, his best Police Association pen and police notebook in hand.

“It was bloody Gez, wanting dual club membership”

Foodge was befuddled, “What club?”

“Gez has been a member of both the Hell’s Angles, and the Lewisham-Leichhardt Lambretta Club.” Moaned Hedgie, “He’s been riding his Charlie Fat-Boy by day, and a bloody bright yellow Lambretta Serveta, by night. You know how one –eyed those Lambretta riders are? When they found out they went berserk. They declared a Lambretta vendetta”

“Settle down lad,” soothed O’Hoo, wishing he hadn’t eaten that second sausage roll, which seemed to be having a war with Granny’s beans and toast, “What did they do?”

“What didn’t the bastards do?”  Wailed Hedgie, “desecrated Highbury, that’s what they did. Broke in, cracked the slide on our Napier’s Memorial Slide Rule, broken all of the set squares and, T-squares, then they’ve torn up the only remaining sine, cosine and tangent tables left in Australia. Anything to do with Angles has been destroyed.”

Foodge, O’Hoo and Merv looked at each other. They all knew what this meant. Gang war, here, a bee’s dick away from the Pigs. Only swift, direct action could divert total disaster.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

25 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in Helvi Oosterman

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Helvi Oosterman

Last year I was in the bookshop in Newtown wanting to buy something with my mother’s day book voucher. Being keen on Scandinavian crime writers like Henning Mankell, I was looking for something by him. Of course, I normally only buy crime stories in second hand book shops or at markets; I tend to keep my money for more serious literature…

As I was in a hurry I ended up accidently buying the second one of the Stieg Larsson’s trilogy.  Only a few weeks ago I managed to get the first one of the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

To my great delight the movie of the same title was showing in our neck of the woods, in Bowral. We decided the best time to see it would be 6.30 pm as people would be most likely getting ready to cook or to at least start planning their dinners. We had a nice early pub dinner and were ready at the cinema a few minutes of the movie starting.

To our horror the queue was very long and by the time it was our turn to buy the tickets the boy behind the counter announced that only ten tickets were available, and that he would return to us as soon as he had settled the masses. I of course pleaded that I could sit anywhere, on my own, no need to find a two-seater for us. The ten of us ended up sitting in the front row; it was the only way…

Now, I had not had time to finish the book, so I did not know who the killer was, anymore than how this book would end, so seeing the film was going to seriously affect my pleasure of finishing the story. The movie lasted two and half hours but it was not one minute too long for us.

The film is tighter than the book.  I thought all actors were good, and of course the actress playing the girl with the tattoos, Lisbeth Salander, was excellent. I also do not agree with Margaret from the Movie Show that Michael Nyquist wasn’t well cast in the  leading male role, he can bring me flowers anytime…

For me the movie was also a trip home or at least a visit in the neighbourhood; I loved the snow filled winter landscapes, the pine and birch forests, the old summer huts on the lakes, the carrying in the firewood, the endless coffee drinking, even the Swedish formality, the pressed field flowers, whose Latin names I still remember, after all, I had to do at least fifty of them during my lower high school summers.

For Gez and me it’s a must-see. Don’t take my word for it, see it yourself!

Foodge 11b – Miss Anne Thropy

24 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in Foodge Private Dick

≈ 13 Comments

There was an air of acetone in Foodge’s office as the remaining wetness evaporated from Fern’s immaculately sculpted nails.  She opened the window to the point where she could make the judgment that the air outside was far less breathable than a boil-over in a cosmetic foundry.  Fern closed the window and turned the overhead fan up to “2”.  This made no difference.

Fern opened the door just before the doorbell rang.  Offscreen, Emmjay frowned at the sound effects operator, then realised that Fern was ad-libbing fresh air.

Standing in the doorway was a ravishing, tall and slender woman, impeccably attired in Eurojaponais fashion.  Fern knew she was looking at a woman of wealth, discernment and considerable taste.  The shoes were Anne Demeulemeester, the dress was a Comme de Garcon spring collection number in black, red and white.  The Fern was a tiny bit envious.  Emmjay realised that the ABC wardrobe man had created a fashion statement that would appear forty years in the future.  He scribbled one word on a piece of paper, handed it to his assistant, he always called “The First Mate”.  She handed it to the ABC wardrobe man.  It said “Centrelink”.

“Come in, Miss …..” Fern dangled an introductory opportunity.  “Thank you” replied the mysterious fashionista, declining the nominative insertion potential of the exchange.

“Mr Foodge is expected momentarily”, said Fern. “Do you mean that he is anticipated for a fleeting period of time in the sense of the literal English, or do you mean that after a short period he will no longer be expected to arrive – because he HAS arrived – as the Americans mangle the English ?” inquired the vision of style and grace.

“I mean, he is supposed to be here soon” came Fern’s increasingly testy response.  “Would you like a cup of coffee, some tea or perhaps a glass of water ?”   The water cooler made an obligingly authentic imitation of a dog unloading its breakfast in the alley outside, by way of answer and the woman opted for the offer of a seat in preference.

She sat with the elegance of a swan.  Tall, composed, straight and self-contained.  She was a woman of substance and Fern could tell that this was no mere wealthy dame riding the coattails of some merchant or a rapper’s moll.  No this dame had substance all right, and a well-worn season ticket to a gym.  She had the look of a woman who had lost a lot of puppy fat, had grown lean and hard, but still managed to keep the kind of curves a man might find irresistible.  Fern was standing back and letting her admiration struggle with her sense of envy.  Envy seemed comfortably in front for the long haul.  The gap was widening under the influence of about $200 worth of French perfume.

Both women heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway.  The door opened with a remarkably synchronised unlocking sound and Foodge strode in and tossed his fedora onto the hatstand in half of the corners of the room.

“Ah, good morning Miss ….Thropy” “Thropy” she echoed, needlessly, but usefully as emphasis and cadence – much like one of the Kransky sisters.  “I’m well, thank you Mr….. Foodge””Foodge” he responded, by way of making an embarrassing moment a little more embarrassing.

Foodge retired to the Aeron chair and Miss Thropy arranged herself on Foodge’s lap Chesterfield.

“I’ll get straight to the point, Mr Foodge” said Miss T, much to a rapidly-tiring Emmjay’s relief.  “We are having some concern over a small matter of a possible contract”.

Foodge suspected that it was a “royal we”, but thought it wise to seek clarification at the first break in the traffic.

“My ex-husband, Mr Foodge, has received death threats”.  “Yes, so ?” And he hasn’t returned from a business trip to Colombia.  He was due back three days ago.”  And what was he doing in Colombia, Miss Thropy ?”.  “He runs an import / export business, Mr Foodge.  He exports Ugg boots and surf apparel and imports washing powder.”

“And how can I help you Miss Thropy?” asked Foodge, suppressing jokes about a whitewash and shear fantasy.  He was quickly coming to the conclusion that this was a messy and possibly dangerous expedition up a blind alley and a perfect opportunity if not exactly getting rained on with his own .38, of finding out how inferior his gat was to an AK-47.

“ I want you to find him and bring him back, Mr Foodge”. “Miss……””Thropy”, she filled in. “Thropy, Yes….. Miss Anne Thropy, I recall” said Foodge.  “I’m a little tied up with a few cases at present”.  Fern had a sudden coughing fit.

“What are your fees, Mr Foodge ?”

Before Foodge had time to answer ‘five hundred a day plus expenses’, Anne Thropy said “I’ll pay you $1,000 a day.”  “Plus expenses”, added Foodge helpfully, but non-specifically. “Then we have an arrangement, Mr Foodge, she said and took a plain envelope from her bag, rose and placed it on the desk in front of Foodge and allowed Fern the time and space to open the door for her.

“We’ll be in touch, Mr Foodge”, she said over her shoulder. “Undoubtedly, Miss Anne Thropy”, he replied.