Fish & Chips with Fruits of Love
July 15, 2013

There might still be a few of you who remember the Fish & Chips of yesteryear. I do and remember well that The Daily Telegraph was the preferred newspaper into which the fish and chips would be wrapped in. Nothing will ever wipe out the memory of the fragrance of the newsprint embedded into those chips. The generous sprinkling of vinegar would help not only spread the newsprint bouquet but also actually imprint the black lettering onto the chips.

Who could ever forget or replace the joy of eating them and at the same time enjoy the luxury and opportunity to do some serious reading while picking at the lovely fish and chips. It was then as it is still now that juicy scandals were the preferred newspaper article. In those days a divorce could only be obtained if proof of infidelity could be obtained and presented into a Court. As the chips were being unwrapped so were the juicy divorce articles that I would eagerly devour as well. I was a randy teenager given to raging spontaneous erections no matter from which concrete reinforced steel park bench I was eating my chips.

Boy, oh boy (or, if you like, Girl, oh girl) did people go through trouble finding that proof. Nothing was more profitable that being a private detective stalking the guilty party. The best ones could name their price. Some had waiting lists as long as your arm and would even feature on the Sunday Telegraph social pages. They were the aristocracy of Australian Society on the move, almost on par with Nola Dekyvere who was the doyen of raising funds for charities and President of The Golden Ball committee. The private detective’s job was to get clear and unequivocal proof of sexual peccadilloes from anyone not being the conjugal and legal spouse (wedded bliss).

I remember reading (while devouring my chips) of a gabardine cloaked detective who had hidden underneath a bed into which, he feverishly hoped, an improper act would come to fruition. It did not take long for a couple to enter the room. He could tell they were man and women by just able to observe feet. One wore male shoes while the other had high heels. He ‘observed the undressing’ he told his Honor solemnly. It became very un-appetizing he went on to say.

“Why”, his Honor asked, keen to get to the nitty gritty? “Well, the detective offered,” while they were clearly enjoying the fruits of their improper behavior, they chucked the peeling onto my coat, he replied. “They did what,” His Honor clearly getting into his stride now, asked? “Not just once, the detective offered, but three times in one hour.” He followed this up by taking a small parcel from out of his suit pocket which the Court’s orderly, ever so solemnly, took to the Judge for damning evidence.

There was to be a short break for his Honor to contemplate this damning evidence. After resuming and the obligatory three knocks on the door, the ‘all to stand’ order was given, the divorce was granted. It was noticed by the detective, who had seen it all, that his Honor looked slightly flushed. Human nature is frail, he pensively reflected. He would not have been surpised if his Honor had a bit of private fruition just by himself. It’s not easy to listen to all those stories of human frailty and expect not to be affected.
It’s all so much Fish & Chips.

Tags: Australian, Divorce court, Fish & Chips, His Honor, Nola Dekyvere, The Daily Telegraph

Photograph by Emmjay

Norwegian Socks.
A few nights ago we thought of re-visiting our socks, taking stock of an important item of apparel. Most us go through life not paying too much attention to socks but with retirement comes the time and opportunity to take a closer look. It was a rather cold week-end evening, a bit boring on TV and we were not in the mood for yet another comedy show on TV. How much jolliness can the system stand?

As we were gathering socks Helvi asked me if I still remembered buying a pair of thick woolen Norwegian socks. I did remember; it was in 1993 during a stay in Holland. We had both gone to the Saturday market at a small place in Holland named Nijverdal. It was a bitterly cold day and as we sauntered through all the different stalls I stopped at a hot fish and chips stall and ordered deep fried freshly crumbed sole for both of us with Patat frites. (French fries) Of course, the left eyed Dover Sole is a delicacy that is now rare.

They, like so many other fish species have been over fished but back in 1993 they were freely available. Indeed, since that day I haven’t eaten a single sole. Of course in the southern hemisphere a true sole is not there and we compromise and make do with flounder instead…and the chips are not the same either but that’s life. After arrival in Australia we discovered people would put vinegar on chips. It was a bad omen. However, the nail in the coffin was tinned spaghetti on toast. Can you believe it? Yes, I can. Everything you can imagine is possible in Australia, even the things you can’t imagine.

What is the same though are those before mentioned Norwegian woolen socks. I asked Helvi to chuck the socks to me for closer inspection. Only a true lover of woolen socks knows what it is to put a hand inside the confines of the heel and swivel the socks around the hand seeking for possible wear and tear. I held them up to light, still perfect. Not even a single ray of light penetrating the sock. That’s Norwegian socks for you. They were expensive but what joy to wear and over so many years.

My first memories are about socks. During the war years of 1940-45 and at St Nicholas on the 5th of December, when the Dutch give their kids presents, the same here at Christmas time, we used to get a single sock hanging from the fire-place as a present. It was some years after when there was more money about that the sock would hold actual presents. Those first toddler memories are still telling me today that the single sock was the total present.

My mum told me she knitted them from wool unraveled from an old jumper or perhaps even old under-pants. I must have worn this single sock on alternative feet to get the warmth divided equally. Ever since those single sock years I hold socks with a deep and heartfelt reverence. I just don’t understand the mentality of people throwing socks out just because there is a hole in the heel. All you have to do is turn the socks around with the hole on top of the foot and presto, the hole doesn’t show.

The other alternative is to buy Norwegian socks.

Tags: Australia, Christmas, Holland, Norwegian Socks, St Nicholas
Posted in Gerard Oosterman |

Vive la France

Somewhere in the bowels of this blog is a piece about a meal of ‘Boeuf de Tartare avec un oeuf’ (beef tartar), I was unwittingly exposed to while in France. It was in the city of Montpelier to be precise… It caused some hilarity when my ignorance about the world of ‘gastronomigue de France’ was so mercilessly and brutally shown up.

A few weeks before this momentous and shameful event we had flown into Marseille only to be marooned at the airport. The French farmers were angry again and had surrounded the airport with their tractors, sharpened scythes and red faces.

No one could get in or out. We had organized a French Citroen to be rented some weeks before in Australia. We were given the keys at the Marseille Hire-car desk but apart from opening the doors and sitting in the car, we could not drive anywhere thanks to the boycott. I turned the key and tried the engine. A few times going brrrm, brrrrrooom, but that’s about all. The car was brand new and had just done a few hundred meters. It was also the smallest car we had ever sat in, more like putting on a jacket than stepping in a car, but it was automatic. For me having to change driving on the right, automatic was tres important.

One farmer took pity on us. Nothing has ever beaten the sheer friendliness and French ‘fraternite and egalite’ of that farmer ever since. Perhaps he recognized the farmer in me? Anyway, he moved his tractor and beckoned a friend of his to lead us to freedom. Alors, alors he kept saying. We drove over a small kerb and along the edge of the runways passing countless stranded planes, followed by a dirt track and voila, we were near the highway towards Montpellier. He waved goodbye and we shouted ‘merci beaucoup’, followed by a heartfelt ‘au revoir. I had exhausted just about all my French.

A few weeks after:

We were seated in a below footpath restaurant on a cobbled stone narrow street in Montpellier. The atmosphere was muted as were the lights. Couples were holding hands and whispering sweet nothingness while picking at their greens and patate de frites… Helvi ordered a sensible filet mignon done rare, and I softly asked for a beef tartar done ‘medium’ s’il vous plait. The Garcon laughed heartily. I did not think it was that funny.

Helvi, ‘why do you always play the fool? Pardonez moi, I asked? She answered me, ‘beef tartar is raw meat’. No, it’s not. It is beef very rare and tenderized as it used to traditionally done under the horse saddles of wild Mongolian Tartars in pursuit of Cossacks deep inside the Crimea. It is the rarest of meat but only just cooked for a minute or so.

The horrible truth was soon delivered to our table. Helvi was right. A massive blob of raw mince and a raw quivering egg on top was facing me across from a triumphant Helvi. I told you, she sweetly smiled. I don’t know why I thought it was tender steak, but we all sometimes carry lifelong misconceptions, don’t we? I genuinely thought the term ‘beef tartar’ came from an historical fact.

Helvi also drove home another truth about those wild Tartars riding on horses and saddles laden with steaks underneath. “They ride their horses bareback, no saddles.” Can you even imagine riding a horse that way sitting bare-bum on your steak tenderizing it all day? They eat a lot of cabbage as well, she added mischievously?

It just never stops.

Tags: Citroen, Cossacks, Crimea, Filet Mignon, France, Montpellier, Tartars

You either do what you want to do or spend your life just waiting for week-ends to come around. I think that pearl of wisdom might have come from a successful Austrian or Moldavian philosopher inside a mountain cave deep in thought and wholly absorbed in ‘Weltanschauung’ contemplation of the importance of doing nothing much except occasionally sweep out his cave.

It is all in the broom, some say. The broom that sweeps our lives of all the debris that never found any use in our lives. Lately I noticed the debris building up again. Has anyone noticed that shops now try and sell even more with big discounts on multiple items? You are urged to buy six loaves of bread and get 50 cents off for doing so. The latest that caught my eye is to buy scissors in packets of six. Six scissors?

What is there to cut still? Do peoples cut the cloth for a twin set or blouse, make boys trousers? My mum was a fervent cutter and sewer of the cloth with one of those pedal sewing machines. It was a ‘Singer’. Her feet would go up and down so fast; today it would be seen as an early form of rap-dancing beating the BigBang boys or even a Moon Walk.

My mum had one pair of scissors her whole life. Sometimes a man on a bike would come along. The bike would be put on its stand and knifes and scissors would be sharpened by him peddling the bike that drove a round sharpening stone on top of the handle bars.
This sharpening device has never been improved since. In any case nothing gets sharpened anymore. People chuck it all out and buy multiple sets of knives and scissors, six at the time. The happy shopper comes home with six loaves of bread and six pairs of scissors. It fills their lives, gives substance to an existence so thread bare that my mum’s Singer could well be in for a revival.

Those ideas of the past don’t easily let go. How come that people were more connected with sharpening knifes or scissors? Even enameled pots and pans were repaired with patches put into bottoms when rust had worked a pin-hole into them. Of course, it is nice we can afford to buy stainless steel that doesn’t’ rust but do we need to be so much on the rampage to consume? Why not take pride in a saucepan that has cooked meals for decades on end and try and keep it going as long as possible.

We used to have kind, friendly and benevolent relationships with all sorts of utensils. My mum’s green enameled milk bucket at the bottom of the stairs used to get filled by the milkman when ordered by my mum from above shouting ‘three liters to-day, please”. That bucket experienced entire generations of kids growing up. I can’t remember if this bucket followed us to Australia but I would like to think it did.

Our housed are now so full of everything. Cupboards piling over, scissors behind settees, drawers full of knives with a giant butcher block blocking access to the kitchen. Ikea boxes in the garbage bin. An Allen key looking forlorn, just cast away with all the other debris. We are groaning with debris.

We need a new broom.

Utopia

The Chain and Ball baseness of Politics.
Now, please don’t run away (yet), just a few words about the recent drama leading to a change of our Prime Minister. Her name is Julia Gillard. We had for the first time a PM that was and still is a female, but not anymore our country’s leader. Six years ago she was lauded as a future Prime Minister.

We had Kevin Rudd for three years first, after which fate decided a time was right for a female prime minister. We were so happy to get a change from an 11 year long stifling conservative government doing its best to keep us within the set of boundaries that ensured a solid maintenance of the status quo and cups-o-tea.

Of course, some now say, “The conservative government between 1996 and 2007 were our best years.” Sorry, but I am vague what the achievements during those years were. Was it the involvement of Australia in the Iraqi war or keeping refugees away from our shores? Was it the fondness of the PM John Howard in his love of a foreign Queen and cricket while wearing raglan sleeved pullovers…?

I remember his way of assuaging latent or not so latent xenophobia with his rant about how ‘we will decide who comes to this country and the method whereby they come’ followed up with ‘the children overboard’ lie. The slogans were received like honky-tonk to the ears of the red necks. “Let the boat people drown, they deserve it,” was his real message. “Teach them a lesson,” while rocking back authoritatively on his immoral heels. He knew it all.

As his tenure unfolded over the years, history, as it always does, spewed him out with his unpopularity resulting in only the second time around of a PM losing his own seat. Can you imagine? Yes I can. Nothing lowers everything to a level of baseness than politics.

My idea of a Utopia would be no politics and no Government. Go back to yeomen, carpenters and roof thatchers, jesters and clowns deciding issues with a fair exchange of goods for labour, a bartering for books on papyrus, wheel barrows or axes and with families around the communal fire or water-well. Poetry reading on Friday conversationally aided by the lubricant of an honest ale and strong coffee with snacks of calamari soaked in butter milk with some pepper.

There will be discourse on the weeks’ comings with fireworks and building giant slippery dips contemplation with dancing and hop scotching by others. Hurts would be heeled and soothed made better with hugs and kisses. Almonds, char-grilled and coated with chocolate would be currency and goats would give us cheese and much joyful bleating. Barking dogs and purring cats bouncing at the feet of leaping children, skipping using flaxen ropes and slapping rounded twiggy hoops round and around.

Music and singing for the just and last alive lingering up to a heaven still imagined during the final moment of a joyful departure. Incense burning to a loving memory never to fade or forgotten by kins and friends. Fresh daisies with five leaf clover on our dear beloved, so still now, yet buried below warm embracing sands.

That’s a Utopia that may one day find itself on the shores of our salt encrusted shores, smooth worn by pounding waves on rocks.
It is so much better than the present chain and ball politics.

Big Joe’s Policy Development Platform