Monthly Archives: January 2011

About An Old Mate – The Pig’s Welcomes T2

16 Sunday Jan 2011

Posted by in Astyages

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Russian Monument to Bikers

Whew! Well, that was a close shave… if I hadn’t turned a headlong dive into a combat roll, I’d have gone face first into the tarmac and that, as they say, would have been that. “It would have been ‘Goodnight’ from me; and it would have been ‘Goodnight’ from him!”

Two and a half weeks in hospital, three operations on the foot, nearly $10,000 worth of surgical scrap metal rods, plates and screws holding my foot and ankle bones together, and another couple of weeks of home-recuperation later (and with more operationls to come… “Oh, joy!”) I’m still unable to do much, but I’ve finally recovered enough energy to keep my promise to make a contribution to Poet’s Corner.

To that end, it seems appropriate at the present moment in time to offer you, “Dave, the Mad Biker from Hell”, which I’d like to dedicate to the Bruised and Battered Bikers’ Brigade, and to all the nurses and staff at the RAH, especially the nurses on Ward R3/Orthopaedics.

Dave, the Mad Biker from Hell

1: You may keep your tales of glory
Of wealth and power and fame
And I’ll tell you the story
Of one who wouldn’t play that game:
A hard-riding crazy Irishman
Who, so I’ve heard tell,
Is known by the name,
And it’s earned him some fame –
As ‘Dave, the Mad Biker from Hell’

2: From the cold Streets of London
Young David had come,
To Australia’s sunny shores.
His busker’s life he’d leave behind;
It’s hardships he’d deplored.
A New Start he’d work hard to make,
And he’d succeed for sure…
Until one day fate laid his path
To the Uni’s hallowed door…

3: Now, Dave had but one ambition,
And all he sought was knowledge,
So he studied really hard
At Elizabeth Community College…
Then to Uni off he went,
As proud as proud could be
To study Anthropology
And earn him a degree.

4: He passed with flying colors;
To do honors was invited.
But then they made him student rep
And his career was sorely blighted
When they disestablished the department
Of Anthropology
And he was made to fight his teachers
And the whole Arts Faculty.

5: He knew it was no accident,
The situation had been crafted:
Volunteered, real ‘Army-Style’;
He knew that he’d been shafted…
Now the winding road it calls him,
For he knows that he must find
A different kind of future
To the one he left behind.

6: Now he rides the lonely road
In silence, and solitude serene
While he ponders on the irony
Of all he’d heard and seen.
Even those who had supported him
Could now all kiss his ass
For those he’d represented, (of course),
Had been mostly middle-class.

7: Like his life, Dave’s ancient bike reflects
Cruel hardship and poverty
The clutch worn through, the brakes near gone
The tyres as bald as he;
But he doesn’t care for he knows full well
He’s more chance now than then,
Of survival, as he rides this wreck,
As ‘Dave the mad biker from Hell’.

Dinner for Two at the Back of St.Jude’s

15 Saturday Jan 2011

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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Finally the weather had settled into a benign dryness, even a promise of sun lurking behind the clouds. The Brisbane floods were receding with Insurance companies licking their wounds, and the ABC news back to normal and the cricket.  Here in Bowral the last of the grandkids, sated from helmeted Razor skating and vanilla ice cream with Milo chocolate topping were returned to their homes. Thank you kindly and a glorious return to freedom!

The idea fermented over a few days was to have a nice outdoor dinner for two. You know the kind to restore post Christmas madness and a rekindling of marital glow with the need for some restoration. Time to take scaffolding down, remove the smelly ham bone, clean the fridge and book the car for a pink slip.

Sticking to the dinner for two though, I bought fresh salmon, Dutch carrots and some firm potatoes. This was going to be a simple yet delicious dinner. We already had the wasabi, the soy sauce but not an adequate wine to justify this momentous occasion of marital rejuvenation for 2011 and a surging revival in conjugal bliss with the eventual sharing of sweetness and goodness trickling down throughout the entire community of villas and townhouses here in Bowral.

“Dan Murphy.” This, as always, the last stop to a totally trustworthy agent of at least able to supply the necessary imbibing ingredients for any event, let alone the dinner for two at the back of St Jude’s at Bowral with fresh salmon and firm potatoes.

Like always we are inexorably drawn to the Dan Murphy’s bins of specials. The specials are often euphemistically called ‘bin- ends’ or line –ends.  Whatever, they give a hint of bargains to be had, even though through bitter experience, the bargain might often be a bottle that has peaked, just as inexorably. Never the less, a Dutch gene that seeks to save and find magical bargains is often embedded forever in those born and tainted with ‘The House of Oranje.’ J’ai maintiendrai ‘is our motto engraved on coats of arms and the guilder.

 So, both Helvi and I now deeply bent over the many bins of specials, featuring mouth-watering discounts. We finally, and with a resurgence of patriotism, perhaps  linked to those suffering from floods in Queensland where everybody is now ‘shoulder to shoulder’ and to ‘the last man’ working to clean the mud, decided on a bottle of ‘Billabong’.  A true Aussi oy, oy, oy number.

Reduced from $18.90 to $9.99 and a nice little 2009 date to boot. A red with ‘light oak characters to be served with roast beef and vegetables,’ it said on the back and at the bottom. We were delighted if not reckless as well. A red wine with salmon is a bit brave, but what the heck. This was all for rejuvenations and re-kindling, remember? I should have continued reading.

Anyway, the carrots with greenery hanging out over the sauce pan were boiled to perfection. The potatoes micro-waved for 13 minutes. The fish grilled for 7 minutes in total with its flesh a roseate pre-pubescent pink.  Helvi glazed the Dutch carrots with some Mimosa honey. I had uncapped the wine an hour before but with metal screw caps now omitted to get a sniff of the cork. No wonder Portugal is up the spout now that cork is gone and screw caps are in.

Helvi had set the table outside with a colourful table cloth; there was a hint of perfumed evening air, cicadas giving a free concert. All was ready for the resurgence and rejuvenations. We clicked our glasses and gazed into each other’s eyes. It was all getting very French and we both took a deep and meaningful sip.

Oh, the wine, that bargain at $ 9.99. In small lettering below Billabong Red and in brackets.

(De- Alcoholised) and lower still, “0.5% Alcohol.”

“ f#@cking hell.” You f@$%c*ng cheapskate.

Tonight we avoided the special bin-ends, walked straight past them.

Wired World of Warrigal

14 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by in Bands at the Pig's Arms, Warrigal Mirriyuula

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by Warrigal

Picture by Warrigal

Friday night will never be the same folks, enjoy. PS: One of my favourite Warrigal pictures, the Nimmow surfing the wave, beautiful.

 

The Stone Poneys featuring Linda Ronstadt Different Drum

Emmylou Harris The Ballad of Pancho and Lefty

Phoebe Snow Poetry Man

Joni Mitchell Down To You

Sandie Shaw Always Something There To Remind Me

Rotary Connection featuring Minnie Ripperton Teach Me How To Fly

Donna Summer State Of Independence

Dionne Warwick Don’t Make Me Over

Mary Wells My Guy

Diana Ross Chain Reaction

Kylie Minogue & Nick Cave Where The Wild Roses Grow

Annie Lennox Why

Chrissy Hynde & The Pretenders Don’ Get Me Wrong

Bjork It’s Oh So Quiet

Julie London Two Sleepy People

Helen Shapiro It Might As Well Rain Until September

Aretha Franklin Say A Little Prayer

Janis Joplin Piece Of My Heart

Astrid Gilberto The Girl From Ipanema

Dusty Springfield Nothing Has Been Proved

Ella Fitzgerald Anything Goes

This week it’s all women. There has been no attempt to be definitive with this assemblage. As usual they were chosen as they occurred to me for no better reason than I’m particularly fond of all these tracks for one reason or another.

Happy listening.

WM

Raging Rivers

13 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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Between all the tragedies being played out amongst the floods and raging rivers all over the place, I wonder what, in a panic and totally bewilderment, we would salvage after the dreaded midnight knock by police to evacuate.

On the TV, that horrible medium, not a moment of peoples private miseries or anguish, could be spared from the ever vigilant public stuck in the comfort of their reclining easy chairs. Did you too hear those inane questions from ABC journos; “how do you feel the flooding will affect the people,” it was asked?  Oh, they will be delighted!

There it was, for all to see, people loading up their possessions. Some just carried a suitcase, others loaded up their cars, boats and trailers, with chairs, foam furniture (perhaps from Clark Rubber,) dogs, cats and even a galah. I saw a floating device with what looked like a big fridge on top of a matrass. A couple of men were clear headed enough to load a treasured wine collection with some white wine bottles sticking out. Was it a good sauvignon Blanc or some dreadful heavily oaked chardonnay?

What really took the overall price for a moment of Chekov, amongst all that misery, were a couple of girls wading through the rising waters carrying a huge mirror. ’A mirror,’ now that was really something you would miss.

I don’t know what I would take, perhaps just some old black and white photos that I store in a small box. You know the sort of things that one sometimes peer at and wonder what happened to it all. Did it all pan out? 

 Would I take a passport, banking details? What about some books, my tin toy locomotive?

I don’t know but we had some lovely garlic prawns last night. What else could one have done?

Super

11 Tuesday Jan 2011

Posted by in Lehan Winifred Ramsay

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Comment and Painting by Lehan Winifred Ramsay
News of Elton John and his partner having a baby has meandered its way over to Unleashed for commentary. As usual the real grist of the discussion is on reproductive rights for gay people, usually described as equal rights versus discrimination, and as usual I’m disturbed by it. Disturbed enough to comment, my comment disturbing enough to receive critical responses. Those critical responses have me rocking back on my seat once again. Is there real cause for my comments, or are they coming from my own biases?

There is something good about these situations, I have to say. They give us cause to reconsider. I remember the case of a woman in her 60’s giving birth a few years ago through reproductive technologies. But I doubt I’d be quite as against it as I am against this. It may not have been a natural thing, but at least the baby developed in the body of the woman who would be it’s mother. But it’s a murky murky thing. What is a right body, and is every body that gives birth going to be accompanied by a woman capable of being a mother? And does it matter, that someone doesn’t have a mother?

What I find myself thinking is this. It doesn’t seem right to me, this situation. And I think I have reason to feel uncomfortable, so I am happy enough with my gut feeling and happy enough to speak out. I think it’s necessary to highlight the ways in which heterosexual people have been pushing the boundaries of reproductive and birth rights for so long. I think we need to take a good long hard look at the laws and loopholes and clean them up – from long ago. Straight people have always done what they wanted if they had the means, and people have always turned a blind eye. So why shouldn’t gay people – isn’t that the way a lot of the the arguments go? And they have a point. We need to clean up the discrepancies now that we can see them.

How does a society define what’s best for people? I really have no idea. All I know is that having a mother seems to matter to animals. A lot. So why doesn’t it matter to us?

A Psalm for Foodge

11 Tuesday Jan 2011

Posted by in Foodge Private Dick, Lehan Winifred Ramsay, Pig Psalms

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.... for gourd's sake

By Lehan Winifred Ramsay

1 What advantage then hath the Publican? or what profit (is there) of circumcision?

2 Much every way: chiefly, because that until the stirring of the Oracles the drinkers were commited.

3 For what if some should not continue their drinking? shall their women sunder the faith without effect?

4 God forbid: yea, let the Gourd be true, and every man a drinker; as it is written, That though mightest be absolved in thy Tab, and mightest overcome The Stirring when thou art served.

5 But if our unrighteous commend the righteousness of Forsaking the Gourd before it Closeth, what shall we say? And Is She who taketh our man Foodge from the Gourd a vain Gent? (I speak as a man)

Vivienne on Cookbooks

10 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by in Vivienne

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Pictures and Story by Vivienne

These are my favourite cookbooks and I write about them in no particular order – I love them all.

The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander (1996 and 816 pages) – This really is a ‘must have’ cookbook and that is exactly what I said to myself when I heard that it had just been published.  It is almost an encyclopaedia and very much Australian.  There is a lot of cross referencing (Stephanie is a trained librarian) and it works its way alphabetically – anchovies, apricots, bacon, coriander, lamb, melons, rabbit, sage, trotters, yabbies etc.  So, for example,  if you happen to have a big crop of X vegetable here you will find how to store, prepare and cook it.    Want to know what to do with a duck?  Stephanie gives you all you need to know to cook it chinese style, french style, in a salad or with fruit.  Her marinated boned leg of lamb is a little ripper.  This too has some basics but it is so much more and it is written with a lot of love.

Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David  (a Penguin paperback, reprinted 1970) – This is the first cookbook I bought for myself and it is now in six pieces held together with a rubber band.  Elizabeth includes quotes from such people as Henry James regarding a lunch he had at Bourg in France – these are all fascinating and reflect her own attitude to food and eating.  Her section on eggs is amazing – two pages on the details of cooking an omelette.  Some of her recipes omit certain details but commonsense usually overcomes that and the results are always delicious.  Many recipes are remarkably short and simple (five lines on how to cook a stiphado).  Elizabeth David was a pioneer cook and ahead of her time (she also loved oysters).  A must have book.

South East Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon (hardback, 1972).  Over the years I have found that even if you don’t think one of Charmaine’s dishes is ‘for you’ give it a go and trust her.  All the recipes are very good and taste great.  She takes you through India, Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, China and Japan in just 120 pages.  If you like ‘asian’ food you can have it all in just one book – it is like a best of the best.  There is an introduction to each country but the one on Burma is significant as that was where she spent her childhood.

Wogfood – an oral history with recipes by John Newton (1996) – and my copy is autographed!  John came to Albury for a festival and I had a lovely chat with him.  When he wrote Short Black for the Sydney Morning Herald I won his competition for an original regional dish and he sent me Australia, the Beautiful Cookbook (a very big book).  Wogfood is a story of migrants from the Mediterranean and what happened to them in Australia.  Quite a number of them lived and prospered in North East Victoria as well as Melbourne.  You can read about people like Greg Malouf and his kitchen at O’Connell’s Hotel in South Melbourne.  It is 240 pages including old family photos and a good sprinkling of recipes (duck confit, fennel salad, harissa, kapamas, Italian tomato sauce etc). Wonderful reading.

Greek Cookbook by Tess Mallos – my copy from 1978.  It is an A4 paperback which starts with 26 pages on their regional specialties and the joy of sipping an ouzo while enjoying mezethakia.  The recipes are focused on soups, sauces, seafood, meats, pastries etc and they are easy (uncomplicated) and work.  If I want to do something Greek this is my first port of call.  I spent three weeks in Greece and this book reflects my experience there – all good and a lot of fun.

Lebanese Cookbook by Dawn, Elaine and Selwa Anthony – also from 1978 (A4 hardback).  It has a similar format to the Greek Cookbook.  There are suggested menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner followed by mezza, pastries, soups, fish, meats, stuffed vegetables, salads, pickles etc.  It contains the only recipe for stuffed grape vine leaves which, when I cooked it, tasted terrific and better than any I have had elsewhere.

Note:

I have a lot of cookbooks and some are only used for inspiration, others contain a few recipes which I regularly use and then there are those which contain vital information on such things as how to kindly kill a crayfish.  The last cookbook mention here is included as a basic best book – not a favourite but highly recommended.

The Australian Women’s Weekly Original Cookbook by food editor Ellen Sinclair (reprinted 1989) – a must for some people because of the fact it is excellent if you haven’t a clue how to make a pavlova or a good scone.  Follow the recipe and you’ll be very happy (Cream Scones recipe a total winner and was made often when I had plenty of homemade raspberry jam).  I don’t actually refer to this book very often but it is an excellent reference for anyone who knows little about how to cook anything.  It covers all one would need if you only ever bought one cookbook and didn’t want something which one might call ‘modern Australian cooking’.

For those who don’t care much for cookbooks, here is a photo of another part of our driveway, taken in December 2010 and proving you can grow jacarandas in frost prone areas.

Monkey-Do and Ducky

10 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by in Sandshoe

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Image and Poem by Sandshoe.

 

 

Wise Monkey-Do and Ducky waited

 

perched behind the shed’s dank, lush

 

surround of fallen vines, tangled

 

leaves and branches, a massed crush

 

of red wildflowers falling, roiling

 

off the tin roof of the gazebo,

 

bold Gold Sun’s rim glowing, dawning

 

on New Day’s rise.  Their souls akimbo,

 

the friends looked out together

 

waiting for Gold Sun’s full shine, warm

 

in their new morning’s warm-sweet air,

 

their warm friendship as warm –

 

as sweet.  Strange! Dark! Pea-green sea!

 

As still as only still can be!

 

 

 

Pig’s Psalm 23 – the Cole-ridge Rondo

09 Sunday Jan 2011

Posted by in Lehan Winifred Ramsay, Neville Cole, Pig Psalms

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Watering Hole by Lehan Winifred Ramsay

By Neville Cole

THE PIG’S ARMS IS MY WATERING HOLE

The Pig’s Arms is my watering hole,
I shall not thirst;
Emmjay makes me submit green manuscripts.
Shoe leads me beyond sweet poetry;
Warrigal restores my soul.
Atamou leads me in paths of classical righteousness
for Theseustoo, Gerard and Helvi’s name’s sake.

Yea, though I travel through the valleys
of Nairobi and through space, time and alternate realities,
I fear no submission;
for Nev is with me;
Hung’s wit and Viv’s recipes, they comfort me.

Surely Voice, Big M, Lehan, Astages, Gregor and Julian shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the
famous pink drinks and Trotter’s ale forever.