The Club
August 23, 2013

The Club

Most clubs are now gambling dens. Forget Raffles of Singapore or the Kurhaus of the Dutch Scheveningen, they played Baccarat and Écarté then.
Mischa Elman en Wladimir Horowitz, Richard Tauber, Lucienne Boyer, Greta Keller, Marie Dubas, Maurice Chevalier, Herbertvon Karajan, La Argentina, Duke Ellington, Ray Ventura,
Bela Bartok,Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, George Brassens, Maria Callas, Marlène Dietrich with last but not least the Rolling Stones, are some that performed in The Kurhaus till about 1965.

Clubs are all populated by spinning wheels and flashing lights now and we play the poker-machine. Participants sit grim faced behind those flashing electronic machines. They feed money in them as if there is no tomorrow. For many there is no tomorrow. The tomorrow has been fed into the machines. The plastic shopping bag with food is all that some of them will (hopefully) come home with.

Lately clubs are advertising that they, more than anyone else, are encouraging ‘problem gamblers’ to seek counseling. What the clubs are less enthusiastic about is minimizing the number of poker machines and/or limit players money withdrawals from their ATM’s…Poker machines are worth their weight in gold and pubs and clubs know it.

Anyway, it was on a stormy day. The temperature was 8c and the day loomed long and overcast. We decided to visit a local ‘workers’ club.

Click to access sub197.pdf

The origins of Australian Workers Clubs seem to have got lost in the bowels of history. I can’t find much in that area on the internet. It is interesting that in one of the largest, The Revesby Workers Club they have a large insignia at the front of it depicting a crossed plumber’s wrench and hammer. This seems to hint at a communist influence in earlier days. One can just imagine the board of directors compromising after a heated debate to allow a hammer and sickle design. They replaced the sickle with a very large plumber’s wrench, Ha, ha.

The general advertised aim of clubs is to provide good amenities for families to meet and spend enjoyable social times together. The clubs are non-profit where all income (from gambling) is ploughed back in many areas for the welfare of communities. Sports, leisure, care for the aged are just a few social items that most clubs are involved with.

We arrive and after entering were met by a very nice warm blast of air conditioning. At the desk we complied with a very odd and much questioned ritual of filling in a form requesting our full name, address and driver’s license. We are not a member of the club but even so are always very welcome as long as we comply with this ritual. Whenever we ask; why this strange procedure?

Answers vary depending on the level of club expertise, ranging from ‘getting a win on the pokies and not paying taxation’ or; most common, ‘well, that is the law!’ Some vaguely mention liquor laws and the distance of the venue and the non-members home. Others mention that the law allowing people to drink a beer on Sunday (after church) was only passed (1962) if clubs would comply with this compulsory form filling by non-members. This, as so many other typical Anglo oddities remains a mysterious puzzle for us pragmatic Europhiles.

The Workers clubs in Australia are very popular with well designed pleasant architecture combining nice affordable food with range of beverages of coffees, wines and everything in between. The services are excellent and the gambling part well away from the family or diners. There are open fires, comfortable seating with lounges and soft furnishings. I could easily spend my days there, reading up, sipping a short black and observe its clientele, including the non-members. When we were there many just enjoyed the warmth away from the hostile bitter cold blasts swirling the tree branches around outside.

I had a lovely rump steak (rare) with a vegetable mix of cream sautéed potatoes, beet root, baked pumpkin with fresh coriander. With this steak& chips came a real silver boat of pepper sauce, my favourite! My lovely H decided on a Beef burger which was so huge, she took half of it home and even then it needed several tissues to wrap it up. Milo looked hopefully up to H when the other half was eaten in the evening. No luck though. He had just been given his chicken neck. This is Milo’s favourite as well.

So, in summing up; clubs do provide enjoyable venues and do much good in the communities, but… all on the back of those gaming machines which causes immense miseries for many.

Would a higher taxation on all income be a better option, still have clubs but without all those poker machines?
It is all so difficult.

Tags: Bela Bartok, Communism, Duke Ellington, Dutch, Kurhaus, Marlene Dietrich, Raffles, revesby, Russia, Singapore, The Rolling Stones< the Club
Posted in Gerard Oosterman

Carly and Johnny
Playlist Algernon

No secrets – Carly Simon

At Folsom Prison – Johnny Cash

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August 19, 2013

I sometimes wonder if it could at all be possible to limit men’s voting rights, just for a few years. Would the world become a better place? I mean women have only gained the rights to vote fairly recently so it would be no big deal if, even for the sake of some historical redress, men would be barred from voting. Perhaps just for five years or so.

What is little known is that it was New Zealand that gave women the right to vote (1893) first in the world, soon followed by all Australian states, excluding Victoria. Finland was first of the block in Europe but at that time was still a Grand duchy of the Russian Empire. Finland is outstanding in that women’s suffrage gained in 1906 also immediately allowed women to stand for elections. This did not happen in New Zealand and Australia till much later. Women to stand for elections in New Zealand did not happen till 1919 for the lower chamber and 1941 for upper chamber. In Australia it also took many years for women to be voted into parliament. (1921 Edit Cowan.) On a federal level it wasn’t till 1962 that aboriginal people were even allowed to vote! It was mainly the temperance movement that gave women their voting rights in NZ and Australia which resulted the US in following suit soon after. (Disclaimer; find out your own facts on this.)

The possibility of Abbott becoming a PM would certainly not happen if men were barred from voting. Perhaps Julia would still be here. I am not sure K.Rudd would be around either. Some of you might well think that events would not be any better or much different even without men and their penile driven peculiarities. They often recall the combatetive and warlike natures of Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher. Yes, quite so but they only got there by imitating the worst of their male counterparts. Joan of Arc or Mother Theresa would never have been Prime Ministers or heads of state with the inclusion of males in the voting world.

When our possible future PM Tony Abbott came out with his pearl of ‘suppositories of Wisdom’, declaration, women voters would have made him a court jester instead, never a PM. They are just too caring to allow a man with such a curious state of mind being wasted on being a mere PM.

The more I think of barring men from voting the more it starts to appeal. It is almost daily when I read about road rage. Yet, all road rage is indulged in by men. I have yet to hear a case of female road rage. Are the troubles in the world an expression of male road rage, a colliding of cultures or differences being just the vehicle for unlimited killings and brutal murder, total mayhem and illogical demented behavior with male minds running amok, thrusting rockets and bullets mercilessly into each other?

Look at the treatment of refugees in Australia. The ‘suppository wisdom’ party now rallying support from even more inhumane treatment by promising the voters that the thirty thousand refugees already in Australia will never gain residency here. What utter contempt for others, what total madness, but… also note that it is mainly the women who front up with compassion and humane treatment, often with genuine tears. They are not at the forefront of retribution and brutality against refugees. What bastardy for the possible future Prime Minister Abbott (Mr Suppository) to try and dive even lower than his party’s Liberal predecessors. Where are the tear stained faces of the men, with hearts of stone with fossilized emotional reactions to anything needing compassion and understanding.

What next? Will the mainly male driven parties keep responding with ever increasing tougher measures; line them up, shoot them, or send them to concentration camps? They’re almost doing that now.

So, ban men for a while from voting. Give it a go.

We have nothing to lose.

Suffer the men. Make that ten years.

Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Edit Cowan, Finland, Golda Meir, Grand duchy, Margaret Thatcher, New Zealand, Russia, Tony Abbott, Women’s suffrage
Posted in Gerard Oosterman |

Playlist by Algernon

Crosby Stills Nash – Crosby Stills Nash

Neil Young – Greatest Hits

Here is Milo, the incorrigable Jack Russell..
August 15, 2013

I give you ‘Milo’, the incorrigible Jack Russell.

Our pet dog is named Milo and someone asked me to give him his turn in my next piece. Milo celebrated his 8th birthday on the 1st of August. We have recently been thinking of a trip to somewhere, preferably France or back again to Bali. Even though we have nice neighbours willing to care for Milo we thought of upgrading his credentials with the necessary injections at the vet in case of a stay in a kennel.

However, it brings a cold sweat to my armpits thinking of bringing Milo to a kennel. His beseeching eyes after dropping him off will haunt me forever. On the other hand he is skilled in manipulating things to his advantage, knowing full well my guilt gets into automatic very easily. He generally now runs the family and it is him who decides the events of the day and in what order.

Most evenings he now wonders in and out at his will. He either stands in front of the back-yard door or in front of the entrance door. Often he does both within a few minutes. His reason is the possums. He can smell them each evening. In early spring even possums’ thoughts turn to love and are busy plucking flowers from our garden which they garnish with Italian parsley, rosemary and cos lettuce before having an all out orgy with lots of grunting and leaping about. All this enrages Milo, who has decided now to sleep outside.

Before going to bed, usually around mid-night, I check on Milo who just sits under our Manchurian pear tree in which a couple of the possums have managed to climb into. I can see their beady eyes glinting with love/ lust and sex, in that order. So does Milo and he just quickly casts a look at me as if to say; don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on them, just go inside boss. The problem is that there are so many of them that despite Milo running about, they slip by and climb from tree to tree. They know Milo can’t climb.

Milo is unperturbed by his lack of being able to climb trees or flying and does practice as much as he can. He leaps up surprisingly high for his size but inevitably returns to earth. At best, he seems to levitate for just a split second and that gives him hope which I am loath to take away. I usually look away when he leaps up so bravely and determinedly, not wishing to be witness when he lands back . I told him we are sure one day he will fly. He quickly looked away as if he somehow knew we were bullshitting. Milo is clever.

Even so, a stay at the kennel might teach him he can’t always have it his way. He will have to behave. I wonder if we will phone him from Paris to find out his welfare. My sister and husband looked after a house whose owners went to the US for 5 weeks. They had two French Bull dogs and the owners phoned up daily to find out about their dogs.

There is hope for Milo.

Tags: French bull dogs., Jack Russell, Paris
Posted in Gerard Oosterman |

Milo on Possum watch

003

The ‘Suppository of all Wisdom’.
August 13, 2013

A cheeky little number and ‘suppository of Wisdom’..
A few weeks ago someone questioned the silly terms given by wine tasters to alcoholic beverages. Far from it to complain about our national past-time of tippling but to call a wine having ‘ambition’ or being ‘arrogant’ is getting a bit wild. I have often watched those buffs at wine-tasting. Those with small noses need not apply. Most wine tasters have enormous noses not unlike the proboscis monkey with those flexible noses. Do they also drink through their noses?

Apart from giving a simple wine the most ridiculous attributes on par with an enraptured tourist guide describing Sydney’s opera House to Japanese tourists or Lang Lang’s suave description of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony to musical conservatorium students we have this latest discussion from our possible future Prime minister, Mr Tony Abbott.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/10236990/Australian-election-debate-Tony-Abbott-makes-suppository-gaffe.html

He is a Rhodes Scholar, apparently meant to say repository – a storage place- rather than a medication inserted in the rectum. Get a bit closer to your screen now and listen carefully.

His political opponents have now available one of the richest veins of jokes, cartoons, and endless requests for Mr Abbott to bend over and get free ‘suppositories of wisdom’.
This is George Bush’s territory in Australia all over again.

August 11, 2013

Speak-a- da-english pleaz.

Do people still speak English in Australia or is it my aging? Of late, I am drawn to the language of silence as the preferred language. There are silent movies why not silent speech? It’s just that I don’t seem to mix with people that still speak normal English. The English speakers have all died, or, like me, are old and prefer silence.

Most people, especially the young now, use a kind of rapid language with bits of English thrown in for good measure. On the television or radio, it is the same. There is the Adam-Hills show which has been lauded as the best ever. In between lots of laughter there is that kind of unintelligible rapid machine-gun type talking between hopeful Biebers or other Big Brother like fame seekers. They must be in such a hurry to attain fame and riches. How else to explain their strange fast talk?

By the time I try to decipher the first few words the program has changed into a mad dance routine and I am again faced with the manic laughter of a rapturous audience and Adam’s rampant crinkly face all contorted into a somewhat too spontaneous response, making a mockery of anyone still trying to make sense of the first joke. I don’t get it anymore. It all moves too fast. The fun has gone out of comedy. Give me back Charley Chaplin or even Ronnie Barker with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. They spoke English.

At least with those cold- calls on the land line you get to talk to someone from India or the Philippines where English is still being spoken properly. It’s a pleasure to be reassured by a polite; ‘can I speak to the owner, please?’ I always feel honored to answer and take great pleasure in finally meeting like-wise people linguistically still normal and intelligible.

It is a great pity that I can’t really extend the conversation. Regrettably, I am not in the market in wanting to get richer, neither need a cheaper phone rate, nor a lucky chance to own a resort on some pacific island with waving palms and coconut clad wearing maidens playing the ukulele. It is a cruel conundrum to find an equal in language but with totally opposite desirable aims or outcomes.

I usually am too much of a coward to end the pleading conversation by, just as politely refusing their kind offers. Instead I switch on the electric juicer , hoping the noise will be seen by the callers as something close to a technical hitch. Those cold-callers have families waiting, little mouths to feed and probably live in some shanty without drainage, let alone have electric juicers. It is a cruel world. But, at least they still speak English, heavily accented, but preferable to the gun fire tattle rattle of our locals and TV comperes.

Here in Bowral we have an Elvis impersonator. He arrived on a Saturday morning by small truck laden with large speakers and amplifiers and a DVD player with TV screen on which he can read and hear the words of the songs that he then ‘supposedly’ sings. He is totally into being Elvis Presley with many glittering gold baubles stitched on his vest and flared trousers. His face is old and a brown weathered sixties looking, topped by a shiny wavy pitch-black wig of hair carefully brushed back but enough of it falling over the right side of his fore-head. Through the years he has developed a formidable stomach but still is agile enough to sway, very routinely, backwards and forwards with a speaker in his hand and makes a credible impression as an Elvis. I can tell that the young walk past somewhat bewildered and amused. They wouldn’t know what a legend he represents. The young are all in a hurry to become instantly famous aided by incoherence.

I really think that this is what he has been doing for years, perhaps his entire life. The whole electronic caboodle is driven by a small petrol generator that is only just less noisy than the pre-recorded music and singing. He has a printed note in an open suitcase asking to support him and his love for ‘The King’. I suppose his cause is as good as any or better. He certainly deserved a couple of dollars. It can’t be easy to pack and unpack this half-truck load twice daily doing the rounds around Australia. A true troubadour. What dedication for an idol that is still lingering around yet faded into history like forgotten notes left in a bottom drawer. I try and spend time listening to this Elvis still sung in fairly normal English.

I can understand every word.
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August 1, 2013

It all was done with a military type of precision and planning beforehand. Plans for travel were searched up on the internet with many options of travel by combining trains and buses duly printed out. The motel was booked and reference numbers of different stages of hospital procedures studied and taken notice of.

We were told that after the operation, driving would be out of the question so the return trip by public transport would be done in reverse. The first hitch arrived soon after arrival at about 5pm. It was getting dark and the normally lit up signs of Motel were nowhere to be see. The Motel was advertised being situated at Macquarie Park so that’s where the train took us. No motel and we were told it was at Macquarie University rail station instead of Macquarie Park.

We walked about 3 kms back to where we had passed this station before. We were lucky not to be seen as asylum seekers with our bags and struggling demeanors. No street signs and no street numbers. Worse, no people. Finally a lone jogger. I asked him for directions and he gave a reply but kept on jogging in circles around us. Most curious, perhaps he did not want to lose his momentum or meters per minute as he did have some device strapped to his wrist. He kept jogging around me and I turned with him in order to hear what he was saying. He did not really know where he was either. The traffic around us was like a speedway. No taxis, just a shrieking madness on wheels. Kafka nightmare springs to mind.

We plodded on with H getting despondent and very tired. Finally a girl just walking. We asked and she promptly whipped out a gadget into which she tapped the Motel’s name. Within seconds it showed the road we were on and how much further the motel was. Another 1.2 Kms she said. She was an angel.

We arrived hungry and totally dehydrated at our motel. We were too far gone for any fights or marital punch ups. Fortunately we were near a giant shopping-mall that seemed to cater mainly for students of the nearby university. A Thai beef salad and water replenished us and our anger soon abated. We were too buggered for any talk and I had a rotten night, feeling I should have enquired better. I failed in reconnoitering our destination better. I also kept on seeing visions of needles entering my eyes and remembered fainting once at the doctor many years ago. White coats and surgical things do that to me. I am more heroic with words. I usually do a detour around anyone wearing stethoscope or even just glasses.

Next day, at 7.30 am I entered the hospital next to the motel. I coughed up the lollie, not an insignificant amount for the best treatment! I was duly tagged around my wrist and ankle. Ankle? Was the ankle bracelet in case of an inspection of identity at the morgue? Now-a-days technology does most of the work and my tags came out of a printer with the operation and ward number, the specialist, my address, next of kin, all printed on a very strong water proof adhesive tag.

I remembered many years ago at a public hospital being given just a single handwritten tag out of a row of tags which a nurse put around my wrist. I never checked but it turned out to have the name of a woman patient. I came very close to getting wheeled into a hysterectomy ward. It must have been the beard that gave the mistake away and luckily had a colonoscopy instead. Not that a colonoscopy is a pick-nick on the banks of the Blue Danube.

After the usual struggle with the gown open at the back, but underpants were allowed, I was wheeled in the theatre. The operation was over in about 30 minutes. I was give local anesthetic and remained fully aware. It was totally painless and even saw the amazing sight of needles entering my eyeball. Just because you close your eyelid doesn’t mean your eye stops looking! It was just like in the movies. (Not the Sound of Music)

Helvi visited me and appeared, as always, like an angel with her lovely reassuring Mona Lisa smile. Calm and collected she studied me and I regaled with gusto the lovely lunch I had enjoyed after the long fast from the mid-night before. Pork cutlets with garlic infused potatoes, lovely carrots with Apple Strudel with cream as a finale. A coffee as well. Real coffee, I stated. She doubted it.

Amazing, but most of the staff seemed Asian with a punctuality that was awe inspiring. Every two hours a trolley would be wheeled in and temperature, blood pressure and my pulse taken. Brown arms were winding the blood pressure tube around my arm. Almond eyes coming down on me with a concern for my welfare as if I was on death-bed or a shot down war pilot. At times I would be asked for my name and date of birth. Was this to check my state of mind, gone gaga or perchance not the full ticket anymore?

I stayed overnight. During that night the two hour medical inspections continued mercilessly. I was fine and without discomfort and even thought that at one stage the bacon and egg breakfast was coming. Sadly, it was only 2am.

Above the bed I had a small interactive touch TV with internet key board attached to it on a tray. It was suspended from the ceiling by a complex arrangement of swiveling steel pipes and brackets. The bed also had a remote that would do all sorts of strange things to the mattress. When I was a bit bored I just amused myself with the movable bed and the TV and imagined a honeymoon.

Next day at 6.30 am I was wheeled to the eye clinic and the specialist surgeon looked at my eyes and told me the operation was perfect and very successful. Make sure you stop the car when you get driven back because the gas injected behind your eye needs time to adjust to the higher altitude of the Southern Highlands Mountains. When I told him we were travelling by public transport he told me he wasn’t keen on that idea. If something happens, you won’t be able to ask the train driver to stop the train, will you, he said?

Fortunately, after Helvi phoned around, a good friend, (an American of course) offered to pick us up from the motel and drive us back to our home. We had not seen this old friend for some time. He had only just returned from California to spend time with his very old mom.

It turned out that my eye adjusted without any problems with higher altitude. I am still not seeing much. It is as if I am underwater with everything shimmering. That is normal and it will take a few weeks for the gas to be replaced by natural eye fluids. My eye will be as good as new. Marvelous what can be done with modern medical innovation…Thank you dear doctor Van Ho.

So, that’s that then. What next in aging?

Tags: Apple strudel, Blue Danube, Helvi Oosterman, Kafka, Macquary Park Hospital, Vitrectomy

Is this the new Tosca or Weiner’s weiner?
July 28, 2013

The romantic tragedy and passion of Puccini’s Tosca is palpable. She, who sacrificed herself to the man she hated in order to save the man she loved. Could it be any more beautiful and yet also be so tragic? In fact when it comes to love, perhaps they are the same. The tearstained upturned faces of so many, more likely from women than men, feature thickly in operas, paintings and leather-bound books that litter our history like so many autumnal leaves in Finnish Forests or so many tears having seeped down into the deepest oceans. Tosca was no ordinary woman. She made grown men weep.

One wonders if the beauty and tragedy of unrequited love has waned and if so, can we blame sexting? Of late this new form of romance has taken a strange twist. A potential mayor of New York has confessed of having sent many pictures of him-self to suitors of the opposite sex. Leaving behind the morals of his conjugal state and our urge to judge others let’s just stick to the subject of modern romance. Is sexting a new form of seeking romance and is it a kind of natural progression from the days of Puccini or Tolstoy? After all no one goes around sticking knives into people whilst singing in Italian like they used to. While unbridled womanizing still has free rein as proven by Mr Weiner in New York, none still happens to involve carriages with galloping horses over Russian tundra.

The one thing still shared between those former strategies of romance and the present is the age old matter of ‘vengeance’, always vengeance. No tale of romance could exist without retribution ‘vengeance is mine’ could be written on many a tombstone resting under the countless Elm trees of history. It descends on the hapless victims like the sword of Damocles with no escape.

Poor Mr Strauss- Kahn, a future president now being described as nothing more than ‘a rutting chimpanzee’ only knows too well the vengeance of unforgiving amoureuses still circling the carcasses of his previous stature. Even so, he is hesitantly and ever so slowly recovering and was seen last week at the Cannes festival with a new love tugging at his arms. Those DNA spots on the hotel carpet receding and the maid happy with a settlement.

However, the New York future mayoral attempts at romance through texting explicit photos of him-self seem to have brought is to a completely new level. The past always involved the complete features of the persons. This was the way people made up their minds about any possible entanglement and involvement. The visual prospect was one of many that people consciously or otherwise helped to make up decisions, often foolishly so, but, what the heck, that’s love for you. However, just to see pictures of genitalia seems to have done away with that form of initial introduction.

I fail to see what criteria one could possibly surmise from such limited pictorial imagery. Is the photo of Mr Anthony Weiner’s penis sent to one of his suitors an indication of his determination in achieving an outcome for the rubbish collection from the Streets of NY or a push in lowering parking fees? I don’t see that but then again I don’t have photo of his penis either. Women also send intimate pictures of themselves to future lovers and again, I fail to see how one can possibly scan anything out of looking at their private parts. What can you possibly scrounge from a vaginal photo? Can she reverse park or is she good at making gravy? The mind boggles.

A politician’s worst nightmare came out in Canada when a Twitter account showed up a politician’s penis. A spokesperson defended this by saying his BlackBerry went off in his pocket and later on confused the issue even further by saying that it was somebody else’s penis. He was a candidate for parliament and lost by over 500 votes. People are unforgiving and remember ‘vengeance’ is still around.

We have yet to see if Mr Weiner will survive his weiner.

Tags: Anthony Weiner, Blackberry, Canada, New York., penis, Puccini, Strauss-Kahn, Tolstoy, Tosca, Vagina
Posted in Gerard Oosterman |