The Chief and I
By Neville Cole
I’m staring at Christo. Christo is staring at me. We are spending a long time staring. That shit Christo gave me was stra-wrong! I am buzzed. I am brazen. I am going to find out what is up with this guy once and for all. Only problem is…Christo has beaten me to the punch.
“You don’t like me, do you, my friend?” he asks with more than a hint of a smile.
“I don’t even know you…my friend…” I reply, while sporting a Woody Allen smirk.
“The easiest thing in the world is to not like someone you don’t know,” Christo notes and I have to admit it is a pretty profound reply.
“Indeed” I add in an outrageously fake British accent.
“So,” he says. “What is the problem, exactly? Is all this just because I won’t tell you the name my parents called me? You can call me anything you want, you know. I don’t mind. I’ll answer to it all.”
“What’s your story?” I suddenly blurt out, cutting him off mid-sentence.
“I told you my story the first night we met, my friend.”
“Yeah, I remember,” I say defiantly. “But see, the problem is, at the time I didn’t believe you…and now, I really don’t believe you. You are up to something. Thanks for the help with the hippo, by the way. That bloody thing was pretty pissed off wasn’t it?” I am clearly struggling to maintain a single line of thought and Christo, equally clearly, has noticed. He sits back, smiling benevolently; that is, until I move the discussion in a direction he isn’t willing to go.
“So what was your deal in Entebbe, anyway? Why the disappearing act?”
“Let’s just say,” Christo says, shifting slightly in his seat, “I’m not the passport and visa type and leave it at that.”
“Fine by me,” I say smugly. “No skin off my nose,” I add. “I was… just curious. What were we talking about again?”
Christo laughs. I laugh. I can’t stop laughing. I am laughing so hard it is difficult to catch a breath. Cristo stands up and leans out over the balcony. He calls out in Swahili to a waiter standing down by the pool. The man turns and calls back. They carry on a short conversation at during which I am able to make out the last two words: Asante sana or thank you very much.
“What was that all about?” I ask, finally suppressing my laugh attack.
“I’ve made dinner plans for us,” Christo replies.
“I was planning to get some room service and pass out pretty soon.”
“What? Room service? When there’s a real live party just down the street? Are you crazy? Come on, man? You’re in Africa. Where’s you sense of adventure?”
At that Christo springs like a wild cat from the patio to the branch of study-looking tree a few feet from us. Then, in one fluid motion he reaches down, grab the branch with his hands and slips lightly down to solid ground. I applaud generously and mime holding up a scorecard: “9.2 from the Australian judge.”
“Come on, Neville,” he laughs “Stop being such a damned colonial and come see the real Africa. I promise you won’t regret it.”
“Alright,” I finally relent, “but I’m going to use the door if you don’t mind.”
“Fine by me, Christo hoots; “but don’t blame me if you get gored by a hippo going back that way!”
Despite his warning, I am not stoned enough to even consider making the leap from the balcony and instead choose to quietly and quickly take a dash through the hippo fields.
Before I have time to reconsider my evening plans, Christo and I have left the hotel premises and are heading down a dark, muddy path into the noisy jungle of dusk. I realize I am in for the evening now because there is no way I am wandering back this way in the middle of the night alone. Many a midnight wanderer in East Africa ends up as lion food. Of course, here in Uganda, Idi Amin’s troops slaughtered virtually every lion years ago so I assume we are reasonably safe for now.
“So, what kind of party is this exactly?” I ask as we march along in file.”
“What day is it today?” Christo asks in return.
“Ah…Wednesday,” I answer without much certainty.
“Oh, good. Then you are going to see what a Wednesday party is like. By the way, do you have a few shillings we can toss in the kitty? You cannot turn up at an African party empty-handed.”
At the edge of some pretty dense jungle we come across a small clearing with a small stage at the far end and a large cooking fire by the entrance. There are four poles, strung with lights at each corner of the clearing. The lights, high up the poles, do little more than create an eerie glow while the cooking fire manages to throw a few flickering shadows across the ground and up into the surrounding trees.
I make my presence known right away by tripping over dinner. A still bloody, skinned goat lays only a few steps inside the entrance; but apparently I am the only person in attendance who didn’t expect it to be there. In my defense, I was somewhat distracted by the gutted impala hanging from a rack nearby and the sight of impala stew already bubbling in the cooking pot.
Christo steps surely around the goat carcass and walks immediately up to a wrinkled old man standing by a couple of dozen crates of beer. Christo talks to the old man for a minute or two, occasionally gesturing in my direction, then I see him hand the old man my shillings. After that the old man walks over to a strikingly tall man carrying a staff and wearing in a large animal skin cape. The old man points first to Christo and them to me. The man in the cape nods his head and the old man and waves to Christo. Christo, in turn, gestures to me to come join them.
“Neville,” he says happily, “this is the Chief. I explained to him how far you have travelled to be here tonight and offered him your gift. He wants us to enjoy ourselves and be guests at his party.”
“Asante,” I say to the Chief. “Asante sana.”
The Chief says something to Chriso. I can only make out the word Karibu, welcome.
“He says you are most welcome. He also says that he is sorry he did not know you were coming tonight from so far away or he would have made some special plans.”
I immediately blurt out the only other Swahili I know: “Hakuna matata!”
As soon as that wonderful phrase leaves my lips I wonder if it is appropriate to say “no worries” to a tribal chief; but before I can even complete my thought the Chief doubles over with laughter and most of the gathered crowd laughs and chatters as well.
“The chief says you are welcome in his village any time of the day or night,” Christo says smiling. “I guess you won him over you damn Aussie. What is it with you people? Does anyone in this world not love Australians?”
NEXT UP: PARTY: UGANDA STYLE
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Nev, I’ve been rereading the older ep.’s to catch me up with this one. I’m really enjoying this yarn.
….and who was a good lookin’ boy then? A dream in denim.
LikeLike
Three cheers for Warrigal!
…sayin’ the bleedin’ obvious (I do that). Dream in denim (yes!) Less obvious. Catchy. 🙂
LikeLike
thanks Warrigal…was a dreamy time to be sure…
LikeLike
Good story Neville…
🙂
LikeLike
Finally found something about cooking impala – you cook it in a similar way to goat or kid. If you are fresh out of impala you
can substitute venison. So impala doesn’t taste like chicken (!!) but it does taste a bit like goat, kid or deer. Hope that helps.
LikeLike
Viv, is it true that you dice with an impala on a dashboard ?
LikeLike
Some people definitely do! All this kidding about goats and impala has got to me – I’ve just made a bloody lovely
smelling special lamb stew. Now have to make a pile of sandwiches for hubby who is off to follow the Targa stuff
up the mountains tomorrow.
LikeLike
Blame the telling of this story on sandshoe folks. She has just reminded me of it and now you must read all about it! But it’s a funny one; though, if Mrs Ato reads it, the next time you hear my voice it will be distinctly of a higher pitch!
Neville, I apologise profoundly for navigating us all away from your juicy tale. Please forgive me!
It is all about the year 1976, the year Mrs Ato and I went to Greece wherein we met with Mister and Mrs Grassby and the Greek Minister (of Education, I think) and ate kid while she was being serenaded by a Greek crooner…
We had gone there at the suggestion of my mother.
You see, Mrs Ato had unfortunately miscarried her first two pregnancies and we were both quite sad. I, because Mrs Ato had gone through that powerfully traumatic experience, she, because she thought she could never carry any children.
“Nonsense,” said my mother. “What you must do is go to Greece and sit on the soil there. It’s the most fertile soil on the planet.”
We laughed but we went.
We visited my village and at one stage, as half the village was showing us around, reminding me of my childhood haunts, we visited my beloved little river. I have many a great time time there, swimming, fishing (I might talk about that type of fishing elsewhere) and running around in the summer heat.
One of my uncles had brought his shotgun with him and while at that river, he wanted to test my shooting skills. He shot at a tiny piece of wood floating down the rushing waters (Winter waters) and then asked me to do the same. I took the frightening weapon and he showed me how to rest it hard up against my left shoulder. Mrs Ato was behind me, her hand resting at the back of that same shoulder.
My uncle pointed at another floating stick. I aimed and pulled the trigger.
The rebound shocked me. Jerked my shoulder right back. Mrs Ato was also shocked. So much so that she slipped and fell upon the muddy banks where we were standing.
Thus she ended up “sitting on Greek soil!”
We often laugh about it because we are pretty certain that our first sweet and gorgeous daughter was conceived that very night!
You should see my mother’s grin of matriarchal authority!
Precious.
LikeLike
Sorry, “right shoulder.”
LikeLike
Six degree of separation red herring, ‘Mou. I outbid Al Grassby at the auction for our old house in Birchgrove. He was trying to buy it for his mistress of the time. Not sure what that means, but I can say they the neighbours seemed relieved 🙂
LikeLike
Ah, Grassby!
A couple of years later I was an ALP candidate and, among the many other luminaries of the time -Keating, Button, etc, etc, etc, etc…. he, too was invited to a huge BBQ I had in my back yard.
The moment he walked in, he began hugging everyone -but EVRY ONE, as if they were old lost friends. Tight, embarrassing hugs and kisses aplenty. Smile from ear to ear.
Three sheep on the spits. I hear him call out from in front of one of them: “Hey, George, which one’s the goat?”
I think it might have been Mrs Ato (though I’d never dob my darling wife in to such a thing) who answered quick az a flash, “You’re the goat Al!”
But, like I said, I’d deny that on a stack of bibles, Q’rans, the Talmud and the Book of Dead!
LikeLike
I cooked sausages for Gough and Margaret. Bob Hawke propositioned my best friend (she said No) at an
ALP fundraiser ‘do’ which I organised. I never met Al Grassby though.
LikeLike
You big, big, BIG name dropper, Vivie!
I don’t believe you!
But do YOU believe me, when I say that I and a couple of other members of the Melb. Greek Community have introduced these two giants -Gough and Marge- to a number of PASOK dignitaries who were visiting Oz at the time? Shook hands with both of them too! It was quite blaze at the time, though my parents were wearing smiles of pride on their dials that must have lit up the whole of our hemisphere!
Spoke with Hawkie, too, during a huge fund raiser in Melbourne but he didn’t proposition me at them time. Probably because he wasn’t sloshed enough yet and his eyesight not impaired enough. Never liked the man. Nor did my parents. After Gough he seemed like the serpent in the garden of Eden! (pappy’s words.)
LikeLike
I know you believe me and I do you (I always did and always will love Gough). I’ve got more intimate encounters
(lunches and dinners) with famous people – Quentin Bryce, Noam Chomsky and Manning Clark top that list.
LikeLike
Bugger! No, I certainly can’t top Manning Clark!
David Malouf, Jack Hibberd (translated his “Stretch…”) John Masters, gave an interview to a Greek Archbishop on ABC RN, the then obese and obnoxious Demmis Roussos (very brief and aggro encounter with the gunk-wit), interviews with other Greek singers like Maria Farantouri, Mariza Koch, author, Antonis Samarakis, exchanged mail Kazantzakis’ wife Helen, and with Melina Mercouri (when she was the minister for Culture in PASOK) brief meetings and exchanges with ministers from PASOK in Greece, in the 70s, saw Theodorakis, “but flying past me”, made a speech about war and Aristophanes to a number of ministers of the EU in Belgium, (2006) spoke with actors and director of my Lysistrata in Belgium… Blah, blah, blah…
But how I wish I had met Manning Clark!
LikeLike
Melina Mercouri ! WOW and double WOW – she was my favourite actress for years. Saw Never on a Sunday when
I was about 10 years old and again many years later. She was just fabulous and even more so when she went into
politics (I remember thinking, yeah, that would be right, that’s her all over). Manning was here to give a lecture
in the afternoon and we had the luck to take him out for dinner. He spent more time talking with my husband but it
was an unforgettable evening for me (there is another long story there). (PS: hubby is now a retired teacher and uni.
lecturer and general smartarse in the nicest possible way.)
LikeLike
Never on a Sunday!
Now you know, Vivie, that was when I began thinking about translating!
I was thoroughly pissed off with one piece of translation in the dialogue which I thought completely changed the point of the film! Can’t remember now what it was but it truly gave the film a different meaning. And it looked like it was done with some sinister agenda in mind. Talked about it for years… talking about it still!
It was when I first became aware that just because something is written it doesn’t make it correct. From then on I began to be more interested in the skills of translation and the skills of twisting the meaning. Then, while doing Uni, I also did a translator/interpreter course and did the job: in courts, in legal chambers, in business, etc. and there saw the same manipulation going on, which I brought to the court’s attention. Made lots of enemies but managed to escape their evil intent! 🙂
Your hubby sounds quite like me.
I think I must have lived through the intellectually most exciting and stimulating times. Imagine, Mercouri and Kazantzakis’ wife in Greece and Germaine Greer in Oz! Mother, sister, cousins, Mrs Ato… Gough… Jim Cairns… A heavenly cauldron of ideas and emotions! Yummy!
LikeLike
So many similarities Atomou. Hubby originally started out teaching Ancient History. He did a little translating
years ago (Chaucer). I guess the deliberate translation ‘error’ was of a political nature. Remember Menzies and
censorship ruled so much of what we read and saw.
LikeLike
I started on my way over here to drop some names. On my way round the corridors of my mind I have been delayed reacquainting myself with some less frequently recalled. Such excellent good experience to meet people who have excelled in their craft, at their talk, walking, hiking, in the fields of science, history and including politics and as well, to meet people who have met them. How enjoyable reading about the niceties of expression, lessons learned or even the idiosyncrasies of personality.
Not neglecting among people no-one else has heard of there are some (this can sound so platitudinous) whose contribution is so inestimable in my life instruction I canot understand why the entire world does not know of them and drop that person’s name. Although we would be stock still if we stopped at every infamy. 🙂
LikeLike
When it comes to comments…the more the merrier I always say. Your tales are wonderful and all the recipes for kids and goats have my head spinning. Love it…
LikeLike
Neville, you have fallen over some more says Sandshoe putting up inverted commas ” ‘goats’ ” (wiping my eyes of tears of laughter). 🙂
LikeLike
This page is about goats, isn’t it?
Stop me if it isn’t but here’s a poem I wrote which mentions them.
Goats
Goats once lowered their bearded
Jaws and dragged the penury
Out into the open air
But we knew then where we were.
We lived on a poor land,
Nourished only by thin blood
And airy myths -hardly the stuff to
Feed the hungry multitudes!
Everywhere we dug
Our fingers would come up
Chipped and scratched white by the
Marbles
Which we then caressed and studied with
Reverence and,
Once again, forgot our
Rumbling stomachs.
There were only the thistles and these
Belonged to the donkeys and to the
High sun.
My father now, hoe in hand, bows a little
And digs deep into my own, personal,
Vegetable garden and by High
Summer the salad perfumes my kitchen.
“There are no goats, no myths,
Nor any marbles here,” he says
As he scrubs hard at the black, horse-
Manured soil stuck deep into his fingernails.
LikeLike
Much appreciated, ‘Mou.
LikeLike
See the problem here Mou is that you have your actual, testable, scientifically verifiable talent. The real stuff, not just facade and french braces, real talent. Puts you in a class of your own; and you’re all class.
That’s fabulous mate. It’s so good to have you back.
Tell Mrs. Ato that she is doing a wonderful goodness, not complaining too much about the time you spend with us. She’ll be racking up browny points wherever it is that browny points are racked up.
LikeLike
Wow, Waz!
You won me! Seduced me! Conquered me!
You can take me to the drive in any time!
Your wonderful words came almost at the same time with those of my immigrant daughter.
Talking about an email I’ve received on my work, she gushed with (among other words) “This is your space, dad, your space only. No-one else comes close!”
I mean, is it possible for a man not to break down with emotion when his daughter and his friend see so much in him?
So, I’ve spent a few hours sniffling and sobbing with joy. In the garden because Mrs Ato was here. There’s no one around me who isn’t a fantastic mortal! They prop me up and lift me high all the time.
Sometimes I overdo things. The work bit, I mean. I exhaust myself. Skyping with students and teachers, actors and directors in the middle of the night. Sometimes I don’t have any sleep for days. Always on a high, always as if I’m on some illicit drugs. Mrs Ato is right to watch over me and to just jump in and switch the puter off sometimes. We never argue. Never have and doubt we ever will.
And she has no doubt that my work helps many people, people often from places in the world we’ve never heard of. Now and then a tiny villages off the map, in Africa, or on some island somewhere. As well as from well developed places. A couple of months ago, I skyped with the students and tutor of a class in the Oxford Uni. Most thrilling stuff. Awesome. Mrs Ato was talking about it with pride flushing her face to everyone.
I better shut up now coz she does get in here sometimes, not as much as before, I think, but she still does and so I don’t want embarrassment to play havoc in our household again.
Thank you, Waz. Wish I could clink ouzo glasses with you because, if you recognize talent in me, Waz, then I can assure you I (and Mrs Ato, incidentally to whom I’ve read out some of your brilliant tales) recognize enormous talent in you.
LikeLike
There I was said something nice and… 🙂
Right. I’m off to the bit where we are allowed to drop names. That conversational exchange is good. (Wow, Mrs Ato understands you, ‘mou. Awe. Mrs Atomou is gorgeous and I love her. There I’ve said something else a bit flowery.)
🙂
LikeLike
As a Promo, this has it all, Neville. I am waiting breathlessly for the penny to drop. Fell on the floor laughing at all the (hopefully) appropriate places, only to find it already crowded. Adore the title.
LikeLike
“I make my presence known right away by tripping over dinner” Good line Neville. I think Sandy would do exactly the same. Cheers.
LikeLike
I myself ‘ve tripped over dinner. Like Fr Sandy.
LikeLike
Yes of course shoe, Father Sandy 🙂
LikeLike
Just to do a bit of obscure name dropping, Mrs Ato and I shared a lovely meal of kid in a restaurant in Athens with Al Grassby and a Greek Minister. A greek crooner came next to Mrs Ato with his guitar and sang her a very romantic song… not that we needed it at that time of our just married salad days! Kid’s good!
LikeLike
atomou, how is it cooked? You know me and my addiction to food. 🙂
LikeLike
Love goat…always delicious. best I ever tasted was at 2am in rio de janerio. much better than impala…although aren’t all stews better then 2nd day?
LikeLike
Definitely. 2nd day chicken curry is to die for 🙂
LikeLike
Put curry in the goat, Hung and I’ll personally run over into your kitchen and slice your right arm off -or the one you play guitar with, whichever is the longest!
It’s great in a stew. Slow simmering stew with the vegies you love the most. About an hour. Definitely include onions and garlic. Big chunks of garlic (the purple or pink stuff not that whitewashed BS), make them visible chunks, add them towards the end of the stewing. Parsley. Depending on the colour you want to end up with, add or not, tomatoes, tomato puré and sweet paprika. Pinch of salt. A couple of spuds. Bite size. The rest is pretty much up to you. Carrots? Cellery? Spinach?
Whatever you do with this meat, the dish must look lush. All the ingredients must be assertive. Prominent. Showy. Bite size potato means the sort that Cyplops would bite into. The meat should not be shredded into thin strands on sinew but allowed to display itself. Let it say proudly: “I am the glorious goat that walks on the rough crags of precipices. I am the most graceful, aerobat on earth. The ancient Greeks used to sacrifice me to Bacchus to purify the TRAGIC stage. Think deeply of your mortality while you chew into my flesh.” And other such lofty sentiments. Big chunks of flesh, then.
If you’re to roast in the oven, then don’t you dare baste it with anything but its own juices, mingled with pure, nay, verginal unguents. You may place a couple of tomatoes next to it in the roasting pan but never pour tomatoes or its puré! But NEVER! It’ll jump right out of the oven and kick you to death.
Again, slow oven. 180, for an hour or so. Keep basting it with its juices. Small whole onions, small whole potatoes or hefty pieces of them. Preferably Pontiac. Garlic again and this tome oregano, towards the end. Never shame it by poking pieces of garlic in little holes dug into it!
A dash of pepper and salt. Very little else. Goats are proud. They want to dominate your tongue, not play second fiddle to some other wacko taste.
It’s a shameful sacrilege, for example to mingle it with creams and milks while cooking. You may have a small dish of yogurt next to your plate and occasionally, with another piece of cutlery, usually a spoon, add some of that yogurt into your mouth, but not while it’s engaged with the goat’s flesh.
I suggest not to roast a leg as is but to cut it into large pieces. There’s a trick to this. A sort of trick of reverence. Never let it be seen that you used a knife to cut the flesh. Gives it bad memories. The goat, I mean, not the knife. If you’ve bought a leg, then cook it for about half an hour and then, take it out and carefully tear it apart.
I’d never fry it or BBQ it, though resting it on the coals of your hearth is quite acceptable. Nice in fact. “Hearth” is a compound word of “house” and “heart” so, yes, it’s noble, virtuous and worthy of goat. Let it sit ON the coals and turn it occasionally. Here you may use a leg. Not yours, the goat’s.
Get the idea?
Eating goat is an existential experience, not a mere culinary one. That’s for sheep and chickens!
The taste is unforgettable. You will not be able to have small talk at the table while you’re eating goat. It takes away the desire to do anything else but to concentrate on that fantastic experience. Tragedy at its very best!
Enjoy.
With ouzo or retsina!
LikeLike
Sorry ato, what did you say after retsina? 🙂
LikeLike
Ouch!
LikeLike
No one says anything much after retsina….
A few incoherent amorous words, maybe…
LikeLike
Thanks for the help with the hippo… hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
I applaud generously and mime holding up a scorecard: “9.2 from the Australian judge.”… hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
LikeLike
I read this early hours of the morning/late night. It matures (like the goat might) and my one real complaint remains it is not enough. More is better. 🙂
LikeLike
More yummy goat. Fresh too.
LikeLike
How?
LikeLike
I knew you would ask that very question. Still bloody it says. No mention of maggots or foul smell therefore gotta
be fresh. Probably slaughtered no more than an hour ago I’d say. Wonder what impala tastes like. Oh, I know –
impala!
LikeLike
Chevrolette Impala?
LikeLike
There was a biggish bloke built like a brick shithouse who used to eat Holden cars or whatever on the Royal Agricultural Show circuit in the 50s. Mysterious. I was about 5.
LikeLike
Impala tastes just like chicken because that’s rule number one: all things taste like chicken unless they taste like shit. Rule number two is that all things take three minutes to cook in the microwave, unless it’s shit…
LikeLike
C’mon Viv, I thought a jazzy recipe would have sounded better 🙂
LikeLike
Well kid is most definitely superior to goat. That goat I had a while back was actually a disaster – it was
tough and I had to admit defeat and threw the lot out. I had kid on two occasions a long time ago and I thought
it was better than lamb. Just cook it like you would a roast leg and to please atomou add plenty of lemon juice and
stud it with garlic slivers and sprinkle with oregano and salt. When nearly done, scoop off any fat (there won’t be
much) and add home cut potato wedges, more lemon and salt and turn a couple of times. Serve with a decent Greek
style salad and don’t forget the ouzo to begin the meal.
LikeLike
Aahh, that’s better 🙂
LikeLike
If I could chant for yet more (drool) recipes of Vivienne’s I would… who else will write the Pig’s Arms cookbook. Bonus that I am told the market for cookbooks never dries up 🙂 ).
LikeLike
I’m lazy, our local Indian does a curried goat which tastes gorgeous!
LikeLike
No, no, no, Vivienne!
Studding a goat! Lemon! Leg of it in the oven, cooked like a common sheep! Sacrilege, I tell you, it’s sacrilege!
Sheep is for brutes like Cyclopes to tend, not for bacchants and epicureans to pleasure their souls!
Oh, be calm my rushing heart! They are but barbarians who talk of kid as lamb! Is a wolf a lion, a bear a leopard?
Oh, the sacrilege!
LikeLike
How about gently over coals? I am talking about kid, not goat, and I did say it was better than lamb. My oven would
treat it like a god if only I could get my hands on some!
LikeLike
Hey Viv !
FM and I went to our trad Melbourne Cup restaurant lunch. I had Capretto – for the first time ! It was very tender.
The baking and the sauce were good. But all up I prefer lamb shanks – the dark meat thereon. Is great hot or cold. I remember fondly a childhood where Dad and I would jostle for the best bit of a lamb shoulder every now and then on a Sunday roast
LikeLike
Was he a Greek, sands?
I remember an idiot like that once. Made a huge bet that he could eat an EK, Holden, I think -over a certain length of time. Don’t know how that eventuated but the Greek press had a field day or two in Melbourne at the time…. Hmmm, now I’m beginning to remember something more… He took a reasonable deposit on that bet and did a runner. They called him Homer… Get it? Gone home… get it? No? It’s a Greek joke. Loses its punch line in the translation.
LikeLike
No, it keeps its punch as far as I can tell 🙂
LikeLike
You’d think the man was drunk, on quite a bit more than punch, really, (just to extemporise 😉 ) I actually recall the worried expression on his face about keeping the tyres down (gawwn, I made that up, he had to let the tyres go.)
Big M! To think the punters bought tickets to watch this heroic effort. Meanwhile, Atomou outdoes us all writing excitement I sometimes think. So… 🙂
LikeLike
I don’t …what the hell ! In my defence (re the above post) I had not drunk a drop and the goats were at the door goating to be fed. Ignore that post. Start from where Atomou wrote me acknowledgement of the alleged chap I thought was eating a Holden… Dear Ato might have it right the chap was perhaps Greek, it rings a bit of a bell, I can’t say about the Holden model allegedly being eaten, it was one probably now desired as a collector’s item and not recommended for eating, no surprise to me he disappeared (a Homer would if he was not born here and had to eat cars for a living, especially a national sysmbol) and he couldn’t keep the tyres down (there I go again writing nonsense into a good story). Look, it is such an implausible story, imagine how I am pleased Atomou spoke to it because if this is not real memory Atomou and I have possibly inadvertently wandered at some time into each other’s DNA circuitry (our DNA might even have been at the same ringside event and now we cannot recognise we, ourselves, were not actually there), call the medicinal department and bring the retsina! 🙂
LikeLike
No, no, sands, it’s not a meeting or -dare I say?- cross fertilisation of some memory DNA! The story is true though it’s quite old. Probably pre-1976, the year Mrs Ato and I went to Greece.
I really can’t remember much more. If Neos Kosmos has archives that go back that far into the cob webs of time, then we could check the story out but Would you really want me to call them?
I love your digressions. Often they are absolutely hilarious. Enigmatic, bizarre, whacky but always chuckles bearing!
“The goats were goating!”
Who coulda thunk of that one!
Good one, sands!
LikeLike
Two things – my dad and I also took turns in having the shank (which is on the shoulder), both regarding it as the
best part. Growing up in Melbourne we ate a lot of lamb – always buying a side each week. Second one – I
too remember the guy who was going to eat a Holden!
LikeLike
The Holden-eating dude – Is it true that his big end gave up or did he get stuck with the car-bure-eater ?
LikeLike
Actually, he was Pisst-on, Emm.
Drove his con rod through his muffler, the idiot and ended up being shocked by his absorber.
Had to steer him back into the paddock with all the other cows.
Get it? Steer him? Cows?
It’s a Greek joke. Loses its kick in the translation.
LikeLike
I got to where Vivienne writes of ‘Two things’, I thought reasonably of the first about the shank and her dad, growing up in Melbourne, ‘Oh Melbourne, am I imagining that chap who I think ate the car was from Melbourne’ … and of the second thing, OUT LOUD with a sudden intake of breath, “OMG, ViviENNE remembers it” in that sort of tone like ‘What have I done’, in that tone you use in rare moments of self appraisal, fair enough I have never doubted BEFORE this is true cross my heart and spit, hope to die if I tell a whopper, but that this memory might in fact be true now I have voiced it to seemingly sensible company, or are they all in fact either sucked in or … and then I burst out LAUGHING at my reaction (HILARIOUS) that the bloke was by yet a third party declared to be REMEMBERED… my eyes are wet from laughing. A HOLDEN CAR! DON’T BE STARING… Maybe this is TRUE … Better sober up. Erhem. To think I am 60 years of age and I have never breathed a word of this memory just carried around in this section of my mind like a 5 year old (so f%$*ng well preserved!) ‘I’m at the Royal Show and a man is eating a Holden car’ … Gee you’re among the best pals a girl could have, a couple of you think a man was eating a Holden 🙂 And interlaced with a yarn about eating goat and goats. Thank you atomou too re what you especially said encouraging me and yes, I liked ‘goating’. 🙂
LikeLike
You are not imagining anything – it is true! But, heck, we are the same age. If we start letting out more
memories we might find we went to the same school!
LikeLike
PS – Shoe – I think you were older than 5 at the time unless there were two blokes eating cars at the Show but at
different times last century.
LikeLike
Not far off that preccinct of 5 years of age. Certainly relative to now. Your memory must be strong in regard of the hefty feller.
Considering this in the less removed light of my memory being true, I reflect that the profession was probably not good for this chap’s health. His appearance as I recall it dimly may only be explained by genetics and theatrical make-up. By the way, I so cannot imagine two persons in Australia ate a Holden, unless this one of your reference or of mine had a stuntman double teeheee … or the first fellow never accomplished the public enactment of their fetish and the second was called in … also perhaps Greek? 🙂
LikeLike