Author Archives: Therese Trouserzoff

How Different Can Dogs Get ? One Canus Tell

09 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by in The Public Bar, Warrigal Mirriyuula

≈ 27 Comments

 

Siberian Wolf

Story by Warrigal Mirriyuula

You all know what a sucker I am for a good dog yarn; so when I came across some recent research regarding the genetic and morphological variation in domestic dogs I was immediately drawn to a study that articulates the human determined direction of domestic dog evolution over the past 10K years, and specially the effect of human selection in confirming Darwin’s theory. Human intervention has allowed dogs to follow their own evolutionary paths, dumping Darwin’s soundbite, ‘survival of the fittest’, and proving him right in the bargain. The study was conducted by biologists Chris Klingenberg, of The University of Manchester and Abby Drake, of the College of the Holy Cross in the US.

Published in The American Naturalist on January 20, 2010, the study compared the skull shapes of domestic dogs with those of different species across the order Carnivora, to which dogs belong along with cats, bears, weasels, civets and even seals and walruses.

African Wild Dog

It found that the skull shapes of domestic dogs varied as much as those of the whole order. It also showed that the extremes of diversity were farther apart in domestic dogs than in the rest of the order. This means, for instance, that a Collie has a skull shape that is more different from that of a Pekingese than the skull shape of the cat is from that of a walrus.

Dr Drake explains: “We usually think of evolution as a slow and gradual process, but the incredible amount of diversity in domestic dogs has originated through selective breeding in just the last few hundred years, and particularly after the modern purebred dog breeds were established in the last 150 years.”

Asian Wild Dog

By contrast, the order Carnivora dates back at least 60 million years. The massive diversity in the shapes of the dogs’ skulls emphatically proves that selection has a powerful role to play in evolution and the level of diversity that separates species and even families can be generated within a single species, in this case in dogs.

Much of the diversity of domestic dog skulls is outside the range of variation in the Carnivora, and thus represents skull shapes that are entirely novel.

Dr Klingenberg adds: “Domestic dogs are boldly going where no self respecting carnivore ever has gone before.

“Domestic dogs don’t live in the wild so they don’t have to run after things and kill them — their food comes out of a tin and the toughest thing they’ll ever have to chew is their owner’s slippers. So they can get away with a lot of variation that would affect functions such as breathing and chewing and would therefore lead to their extinction.

“Natural selection has been relaxed and replaced with artificial selection for various shapes that breeders favour.”

Dingo

Domestic dogs are a model species for studying longer term natural selection. Darwin studied them, as well as pigeons and other domesticated species.

Drake and Klingenberg compared the amazing amount of diversity in dogs to the entire order Carnivora. They measured the positions of 50 recognizable points on the skulls of dogs and their ‘cousins’ from the rest of the order Carnivora, and analyzed shape variation with newly developed methods.

The team divided the dog breeds into categories according to function, such as hunting, herding, guarding and companion dogs. They found the companion (or pet) dogs were more variable than all the other categories put together.

Pug

 

According to Drake, “Dogs are bred for their looks, not for doing a job so there is more scope for outlandish variations, which are then able to survive and reproduce.”

Dr Klingenberg concludes: “I think this example of head shape is characteristic of many others and is showing it so clearly, showing what happens when you consistently and over time apply selection.

“This study illustrates the power of Darwinian selection with so much variation produced in such a short period of time. The evidence is very strong.”

Story Source:

Adapted from materials provided by University of Manchester.

Journal Reference:

1. Chris Klingenberg and Abby Drake. Large-scale diversification of skull shape in domestic dogs: Disparity and modularity. The American Naturalist, January 20, 2010

Not Extremely Festive This Year – My Fault ?

03 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Cricics, Critics, Everyone's a Critic

≈ 5 Comments

Sorry, this is a bit of a ramble – so if you can be bothered, get a cuppa and a comfortable chair.

Sometimes I try to write a review with a positive slant – even give the show the benefit of my doubt.  But today I’m failing miserably.  Apologies up front.  No, never apologise.  Grahame Bird style.  No, not that either.  And I know that we have a new festival director and I want to avoid raising Voice’s ire about ugly personal abuse because that’s not what I intend.

Sometimes a bad entertainment experience comes from within.  Bad attitude going to a show is often rewarded accordingly.  On reflection I think an unhappy review is as much a reflection on the reviewer as it is on the show.  OK, I’ll admit some culpability here.

This was our fourth Sydney Festival in a row; 1 Magical; 2 Amazing; 3 Curate’s egg; 4 Mostly disappointing.

For me the 2010 Sydney Festival was in trouble when the program was released last November.  The First Mate and I pored over the paperwork with the usual expectant excitement – and after an hour or so we exchanged  “Oh Dear” looks.  Very little seemed interesting.  But like troupers we re-applied ourselves to the task and agreed on:

  • Smoke and Mirrors in the Spiegeltent – Adult Circus/Cabaret/Vaudeville
  • Toumani Diabate – West African kora player extraordinaire and friends and relations
  • Circus Oz at Tumbalong Park
  • Giselle at the Carriageworks – Redfern – walking distance from home
  • Dirty Three and Laughing Clowns at the Enmore Theatre – also walking distance from home
  • Optimism – after Candide at Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre
  • The Fence –  a late booking to Urban Theatre Projects (about whom I’ve previously written at the Pig’s – challenging theatre al fresco) – this time in a constructed outdoor theatre in the old King’s School grounds in Parramatta.

The deal is that if you book five or more gigs you get a 20% discount.  But not all gigs can be booked this way and you must do a separate booking for some of the others – this is how I forgot to book the Brazilian Dance gig.  Also I was a bit festivalled out at this stage.

We gave the German Production of Hamlet a miss after a really disappointing, dull and very boring (coarse but accurate) experience with Sydney Theatre Company’s War of the Roses last year.  It was as I said at the time (another Unleashed sat-on piece) –  blood death and boredom times four.  Unrelenting 4 X 2 hour sessions over two days on a bare set stage.  Not saved by Cate Blanchett.  We were looking for relief as Australia followed the rest of the world into recession – and we got grim, grim, grim.  Pity, the reviews this year said the German Hamlet was a Festival Highlight.

So the summary reviews ?

Smoke and Mirrors - Comic Genious and Two Ducks - Photo by Jamie Williams

Smoke and Mirrors – was arguably the best thing at the festival this year.  It was scary, funny, riveting dirty cabaret at its best.  The small cast – especially the MC Joel Grey character was talented beyond description – bad, bad and hilarious.  And did we love singing along to his version of the lewd Eskimo Nell – Irene Iray ?  You bet !  The acrobats were simply unbelievably good – doing impossible acts of wry daring and strength.  The bearded lady with the voice that soared like an angel was wonderful.  I was in love.  And the First Mate swore we saw her again at Yum Cha in Erina – but that’s another story – about hallucinogenic prawn toast.  Todd McKenny (you know the gay dance dude who pegged out in Rushcutter’s Bay park) tapped up a miraculous storm.  The magician was sufficiently barely competent so I was spellbound waiting to see whether he was going to screw up.  I wasn’t disappointed with some poorly concealed sleights (spelling ?) of hand.  All up – Fabulous.

But the timing of Spiegeltent and the other gigs prevented us from going to the allegedly great Indian music and show troupe in Hyde Park – ah compromises, compromises.

Toumani Diabate - West African kora player extraordinaire and the Symmetric Band

Toumani Diabate and his band at the lovely State Theatre  were really very good too.  He DID seem to play the same piece three times with variations – Opening solo, then again with full band and once more for luck in the closing encore, but hey – it’s a great sound and the piece goes for about 12 minutes.  Sample some of his music off the web or see if he shows up in the Nathan Rees Memorial Dance Club at the Pig’s Arms in the near future..

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Barely Contained

Circus Oz was pretty much what Circus Oz is – one more time around.  Some hilarious stunts, challenging if not exactly death defying acrobatics, slick tumbling, a strong woman who was really extremely fit (Pins of Steel) and a midget (are we OK to say this these days or am I supposed to say “vertically challenged person” ?) – were clever, funny and quite entertaining.  If I’m damning them with feint praise, perhaps that’s fair enough.  The crew are multi-talented performers and they did a workman-like if not astonishingly novel job.

Giselle –  I was looking forward to Giselle.  Pity that we had had a huge day at work and a family disaster that same day – and we flopped in front of the TV – exhausted – completely forgetting that our tickets to Giselle were for that night.  oops !

Dirty Three - sure were

Dirty Three and Laughing Clowns at the Enmore Theatre.  An ’80s band reprise for Bands that I missed in the 80s but who carried some cult following cachet.  The Sydney Morning Herald daily review of the Festival poured scorn on this gig.   Fair enough.  It was without a doubt the worst gig I’ve been to for a very long time.  I remember Ed Kuepper – formerly of the Saints being regarded back then as a brilliant but irascible guitarist musician composer.  The music was a wall of hard driven, monotonous, repetitive rock punctuated with some fiercely passionate saxophone work.   The Herald critic bucketed the Enmore Theatre as a really shit venue – it was monsoon hot or worse, crowded and acoustically ordinary.  He /she said that if the Enmore was the best they could do for a venue for live music in Sydney, that is the reason why live music is dying.  Amen to that.  We headed to the bar after three mutually indistinguishable songs with unintelligible lyrics.  You had to be a die-hard fan.

Relieved to go back into the sauna for the second half, we were met by a hippie  Charles Manson in stove-pipe pants with an electric violin, attempting to do kungfoo kicks and play – seemingly like a dude on lsd.  “Hey man, this song is about the 2% of the time when you fall in love that’s not all fucked up”.  Well, that’s an elegant and perceptive take on love !  No, well, at this point I have to loosen myself up and say I cannot remember a performance more crapulous than this trio.  I’m absolutely certain that they were playing the 98% fucked up bits.

Optimism - well, maybe

The Herald panned “Optimism” saying that it was neither optimistic nor particularly funny.  I like Frank Woodley and I thought it was funny – kind of, but I was trying pretty hard to adopt a positive attitude – after all, it was my dough going down the gurgler at an alarming rate.  Alison Whyte did a convincing job, Francis Greenslade was as goonish as his name suggests and Barry Otto played Barry Otto (score: one all).

Urban Theatre Projects' "The Fence"

Now, to the Fence.  I have come to expect the unexpected from Urban Theatre Projects and I wasn’t let down expectation-wise.  The play explored (really more like “toyed-with”) the difficulties of a mixed race family in domestic tension.  An indigenous man.  A white woman.  Both from tough circumstances.  His family, a neighbour and for some unknown reason an obese Greek boarder,wandered around their living room and backyard, wandered on and off set.  Had a few blues, played a bit of Paul Kelly and Willie Nelson music and for me left me with the feeling of waiting for Godot, western suburbs style.  It’s not PC to bag out indigenous performance, so let’s just say that perhaps I was having another flat night by bringing along a worn out unresponsive attitude.

This year we spent roughly half of the usual budget on tickets to the festival.  It was hard to decide what was worth going to – and we went anyway out of loyalty to what had previously been much needed nourishment for the soul.  Maybe the flat program was a reflection of a lack of support from the famously broke NSW Government.  Maybe it was a reflection of a tired festival in general or the real face of the global financial meltdown.  The tickets were mostly – but not entirely more reasonably priced but the quality of events was also toned down.  I gather that some other big ticket events – $145 for some (according to the Herald) vastly under-rehearsed sea shanties on the Opera House forecourt) were true stinkers and I have to say that my days of speculating $300 the pair for tickets to see whether Marianne Faithfull can still cut the mustard with the Ballad of Lucy Jordan after ALL THESE years – are well and truly over.

Next year, I’m afraid, if the program smells like Stilton, I won’t be paying hard cash to be cheesed off.

Now, fingers crossed that the forthcoming Sydney Writers’ Festival will be another boomer.  And that the Sydney Film Festival will rise out of the ashes  of last year’s hole.  I’m hoping to feel just a tad more festive real soon now !

The Old Apple iPad

01 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by in The Mens

≈ 14 Comments

There’s been quite a lot of road miles written about the new wonder product from Apple with the dodgy name.  I watched chunks of the Steve Jobs evangelist gathering and product release.  As I said somewhere on Unleashed that I smell a rat – and there’s a lot of self-serving hoopla assumptions by Apple that I would rather use their slick device to do the kind of mundane things that I can – but rarely – do on a Laptop or a Netbook.

I have been long in IT and related work.  I have seen the next best things disappear without a trace many times before.  Apple did it with the Lisa (which pushed a good idea – mouse-driven graphic user interface) over the top at huge cost and for an audience that apparently was supposed to be happy with something less useful than it’s predecessors.  There was also a thing called “the Newton”.  Disappeared, vanished, poof !

Anyway  the more they hype it, the less I’m inclined to rush out.  But if one of the Pig’s patrons were to say “It’s fantastic !”.  That would be another thing and I’d have to check it out.

For now, here’s a tasteless clip for the patrons with thick skins – wherein ratbags ridiculed the iPad – in 2006 – four years before it went onto the market.

Caution – serious mockery

Crikey – it must be good !

From Here to Nairobi – Chapter 1: Over the Rift I Go

31 Sunday Jan 2010

Posted by in Neville Cole, Travels

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

The Jade Sea - from the spackled window of the Cessna

Story and Photographs by Neville Cole

For someone who travels a lot I don’t travel particularly well. Bumpy roads, open seas and general turbulence always leave me worse for wear. I was hoping this flight across the Rift Valley would be calm and uneventful; but, once again here I sit, buzzing through a pack of gathering cumulonimbus with my sweat-daubed forehead pressed forlornly against the spackled plastic window of a high-wing Cessna. The chilled clear plastic pane at this altitude provides a modicum of relief but just in case I have my handy American Airlines air-sickness bag in my lap. The bag has become something of a lucky charm for me. Ever since I picked it up I’ve never had to use it – something I borrowed that I never blew chunks into I like to tell people. I wouldn’t tell people that at the moment. My sense of humor is long gone. I dropped it unceremoniously back on the tarmac in Nairobi when I first spotted that line of towering thunderheads drifting along the horizon. Now I am thoroughly miserable: my shirt and pants unbuttoned in a weak attempt to gain comfort. I fear that all I have managed to do is look vaguely desperate and hung-over.

The BBC World Service keeps crackling in my ear. It has just announced that the time is 14:30 GMT and promptly returns me to the Royal Highland Tattoo. Lulled by the comforting tones of the bagpipers, I try to grab a few moments of sleep, my first since leaving London twenty-two hours prior; but a sudden drop of more than a hundred vertical feet shakes me violently back to life. My headset buzzes loudly and farts twice before John’s far too cheery voice breaks in over the roar of the prop.

“Sorry about that…it’s a tad drafty up here, what ho!  Bloody hard work holding her steady this time of year with all this heat and the clouds and all.”

“I’m fine,” I lie. I blink my bloodshot eyes and stare down at the Great Rift Valley stretched out from horizon to horizon like an enormous open wound.

“Incredible, huh?” the voice breaks in again.

“Yes. Amazing,” I mumble with limited enthusiasm.

“You can see it from space with the naked eye, you know.” I nod lazily and the voice continues on. “So I’m told anyway, never been there myself. Ha!” I smile half-heartedly which is more than enough to encourage the voice to continue. “Stretches all the way from the Red Sea to Mozambique. That’s one bloody great rip.”

“Hmm…urp” I note with utter finality as a small bubble of bile belches up into my mouth.  “Just land this fucking plane, now!”  Well, that’s what I am screaming in my head.  My actual words are, “We must be getting pretty close, now.”

“Yeah,” John smiles. “We’ll be there in no time.” As if on cue the plane shudders and drops like a stone, bounces once or twice then shoots back up into the clouds.

“Whoo!” John hollers into my ear. “That was a bit of a wonky one, wasn’t it? The god’s are playing silly buggers with us, aren’t they? Don’t worry. We’ll be safe and sound on the ground before the top of the hour.”

John and I met last night at Florida 2000, a busy Kenyan dance club, nude cabaret, and whorehouse.  I told him I was in Africa to get away from it all. He’d heard it all before. “If you want to get away, come with me tomorrow.  I’m going to the end of the earth and I’ll only charge you for the petrol it takes to fly there.”  We drank until dawn, took a few hours to sober up, and were on our way to the Oasis Club before noon.

The Oasis Club lies at the southern tip of Lake Turkana, or as it is more poetically known, the Jade Sea. It is two hours and ten minutes by small plane from Nairobi in the middle of one of the most barren, uninhabitable stretches of land in East Africa.

the Loyangalani air strip was built parallel to the lake to take advantage of the near constant cross-winds

“Loyangalani. Alpha kilo papa yankee four six five. Loyangalani. This is Alpha kilo papa yankee four six five, two souls board.  Request landing.” A voice on the other end of the radio frequency pipes in.

“Dave?  Is that you?”

“No.  Wolfgang.  It’s John.”

“John?”

“Dave’s son.”

“O, right you are! I thought Dave was bringing a group up here for some fishing.”

“He couldn’t make it. Last minute change. Said he love to be here, but he isn’t. Not to worry though, I’ve got an avid fisherman here with me.”

“Goodo.  Keep to the runway, OK? None of this monkey business in the parking lot.”

“That’s Dave’s trick, Wolfgang.”

“Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“I’ll keep out of the parking lot.  Am I clear for landing, then?”

“Yes, yes. I’ll come down in the buggy.” John turns to me and laughs again. “Bloody, Wolfgang.  He’s a nutter!”

“Mmmm.” I note, wiping back my sweat beaded brow. John never mentioned fishing in Nairobi. I mean to question him about it but his eyes are glistening with glee at the chance to spin another yarn so I let him go on.

“The parking lot landing is one of my dad’s old tricks. You see, the wind just about always blows from the volcanoes over there to the lake; but the strip, with typical Kikuyu planning, was built parallel to the lake. To make use of the near constant roaring crosswind, I’m guessing. Anyway, one day Dave figured it would be much easier to come in across the lake and land right in the parking lot. He knew that with this wind he’d stop as soon as the wheels touched the ground; which is exactly what happened, but not before Wolfgang nearly spit out a lung screaming emergency landing directions.  Bloody Dave; he’s always looking for a way to frighten the poor bugger to death.”

Bush pilots have a saying: Any landing you walk away from is a good landing. This maxim was clearly demonstrated on the sandy, windswept strip at the Oasis where John descended like a drunken barnstormer or at very least a reckless crop duster, wildly dipping and tipping the wings right up to the moment we hit the target with a crunching blow that would have made any kamikaze proud.”

“Nice job,” I deadpan, too queasy to be frightened.

Wolfgang pulls up in the buggy as we step down from the plane. He may not be much of an air traffic controller but Wolfgang Deschler is a gregarious host and it must be noted one of the world’s premier Nile Perch chefs.  Nile Perch is a giant, oily fish that is difficult to prepare well; but there isn’t much else other than Tilapia that can survive in the alkaline waters of Lake Turkana. These days Tilapia are available in every grocery freezer so I’m not sure I could call Wolfgang the world’s greatest Tilapia chef but he definitely is the undisputed king of Nile Perch cuisine. After twenty-five years of practice there isn’t a way to cook Nile Perch that Wolfgang hasn’t mastered. Heck, he created most of the recipes himself, he just can’t bring himself eat the bloody things himself anymore.  He catches them, cleans them and cooks them but he absolutely refuses to eat another fucking Nile Perch as long as he lives.

Wolfgang Dreschler - our gregarious host

“Welcome to the Oasis Club, gentlemen!” Wolfgang blurts at us with a wide smile and a hearty handshake. You are mostly in luck.  We have one room left for the evening.” So much for getting away from it all, the Oasis Club is about to have its busiest night in years; busier even than the glory days of the early eighties when famous artists like Andy Warhol’s Factory photographer Peter Beard and famous spy fiction writers like John LeCarre and famous famous-people like Bianca Jagger established the Oasis Club as a fashionably famous place to escape the outside world. Of course, even in those glory years the Oasis Club was rarely full. Big nights at the Oasis did happen but they were few and far between; which, incidentally, is the main reason why fourteen years ago Wolfgang’s wife packed it in and moved back to Nairobi.

I watch as John climbs out onto the Cessna’s wing to attach a wind tie. He looks like a praying mantis stalking along an all too slender branch. “You take the room,” he says. “I’ll sleep on the lawn under the stars.”

“You’ll have company on the lawn tonight, Dave.  Do you know of Justin Bell?

“From Arusha? Sure I know him.  What’s he doing up here? I thought he only did safaris?”

“He’s traveling with some foreign TV outfit. Making some kind of docco. You should see all the shit they’re hauling, all kinds of shit. Flew here in that big Russian troop carrier over there. What is that? An Mi-8? Is this all you have?”

“We’re just looking around.”

“Where is your fishing gear?”

“We thought we’d borrow yours.” Wolfgang looks at us both with a suspicious eye.

“So, I’m guessing you won’t actually need the charter boat any more. Your safari fell through again, didn’t it? I suppose he found you in a bar last night in Nairobi. Am I pretty close?”

My expression says all Wolfgang needs to hear. “Nevermind. I’ve got one room left and I’ll give you the drop-in rate. You look a little green, my friend. Was your pilot bouncing you around too much?  He’s not well known for sticking to one altitude, you know.”

“You keep confusing me with Dave, Wolfgang. I’m a completely different kind of pilot.  Besides, it wasn’t the flying that did it to him it was heavy drinking last night at the Florida 2000.”

“Florida 2000? The Frenchies haven’t stopped raving about that place since they got here. Nairobi sure must have changed since I was last there.”

“Everything’s changed in the last 25 years except you, Wolfgang. You’re as nuts as ever!”  Wolfgang laughs, revs up the buggy and drives us up to the club.

My room, I discover, would make a Spartan feel very much at home; but I am too tired to worry about creature comforts. I lie face down on my cot and spin off into dizzy slumber.

NEXT UP: NO SHORTS, NO SHIRT, NO SERVICE (females excepted)

Oysters – A Return of Service

29 Friday Jan 2010

Posted by in The Dining Room

≈ 30 Comments

Ah, huitres .... l'avion rose

Story and photographs by Jules

This window dresser and a pigsarmsman recently sashayed into Harrods with his 86 year old Mum for an oyster treat. Mum being insistent that they have, `the selection’.

Now this is a great idea because one gets to do the comparison in `real-time’.  One can guzzle the little molluscs one after t’other and compare taste.

Just as an aside here let me tell you that oysters actually filter and clean the water that they live in. (Makes a change from Humans, the nasty beasts.) A healthy oyster can filter 50 gallons of water a day. Well so I read somewhere. I’m not going to provide a peer reviewed paper!!

Anyway they ( we) had some rock oysters, Japanese Pacific oysters, Clares, Belons- and my favourite The Colchester, accompanied by brown bread and butter. The bread baked on site and the un-salted butter sourced from The Harrods Dairy Farm—or so I’m told.

Rare shot of Jules in the Harrod's dining room - modelled after the Pig's Arms Dining Room

They were duly dispatched, accompanied by a glass of French Champagne * (from Harrods vineyards, no doubt)- and this enabled us to come to a sensible decision with the suitcase purchase, upstairs.

One of my old haunts in affluent days of yore was Wheelers. Good old fashioned silver service, with slightly snooty waiters. It made me feel good in the seventies, to dine in the up market establishments. Me with denims and kaftan shirt, accompanied by the remnants of “the beautiful people of the sixties” ,the hoi-polloi , current and fading  debutantes and–well anybody really, especially if they had pizzazz.

I never got to Wheelers Oyster Bar in Whitstable, but have avowed to take the pilgrimage one day. This year perchance, if plans for a 400th anniversary school reunion are taken up. It is miles away, nowhere is too far in Dear Old Blighty .

Thanks to Neville Cole for prompting me to dig out last year’s photos. If you hadn’t they would probably just languish on my hard drive for evermore and a day.

But just before I go I’ll just share this:

On a sojourn on the Coast of California once, we picked out a seafood restaurant in Sausalito, just over the Northern side of The Golden Gate Bridge. We had driven up from LA, stopping at a couple of motels and made camp in a Ramada Hotel in San Francisco. You know, we had the family room with two king sized beds for five of us. Fortunately the saucepans were 3, 5 & 7 years old, so we all bunked in No Prob!

I can’t recall the name of the restaurant, but their specialty was lobster and I was very keen, especially after some recommendations.

I’ll keep this short—as it’s humid today and I need a pool fix.  So let me just tell you that it was a riot.

They slapped bibs on us and made a great big fuss, as we were `Poms abroad’. This led to an abandonment of our English manners and we took great delight in making a mess. 5 or 6 beers helped the oysters down and some Californian White (can’t remember the style), washed the lobster down. It is the way we would like to eat, more often I’m sure.

*poetic embellishment—as Mum had champagne and I had soda, lime and bitters.

Oyster Call Australia Home – The Pig’s Arms Welcomes Neville Cole

28 Thursday Jan 2010

Posted by in The Dining Room

≈ 42 Comments

The Pig's Arms new North American correspondent...... shucks

In which I answer the question: Is it ever appropriate to order oysters on a first date?

Oysters are funny things, aren’t they? Right up there with the funniest things you can eat. Not counting the truly bizarre – monkey brains, blow fish, pig balls and the like…but regular food. Oysters have to be the weirdest normal food out there. I mean, let’s face it! Oysters are odd. They look like extremely large boogers laid out on ashtrays arranged on a bed of kitty litter; but we pay a fortune for them (unless you order them at Hooters or something but that’s a pretty dicey proposition, isn’t it?). You have to be a real risk taker or completely mesmerized by boobs and orange shorts to order oysters at that place.

Then again, who am I to talk? I’ve ordered oysters in Rocky Point, Mexico. Ever been there? It’s not what anyone would call a culinary experience. They have this place called the Happy Dolphin. It’s basically a three story bar crammed with tables that serves food smothered in cheese. I’ve never seen a single table of sober people at the Happy Dolphin. Last time I was there my whole floor was having a food fight. Tortillas were flying every which way. One group of middle-aged drunks spent the whole night continually tossing theirs into the ceiling fan above their heads and laughing uproariously as they shot dramatically across the room. The staff didn’t even flinch they just kept loading them with more fish-bowl sized margaritas, refilling the tortilla plates and occasionally sweeping up the mess. There were no looks of disgust or frustration just resignation pure and simple. “Gringos being gringos. What are you going to do, amigo?” they seemed to be thinking.

I did not have oysters at the Happy Dolphin and I did not throw tortillas either…well, not many.

I did have oysters at a little sidewalk café called the Blue Marlin. The food there is excellent and I found the oysters quite delectable. That is, until I got home and every newspaper heading and every TV report and every internet blog was screaming about high levels of fecal contamination in the waters near Rocky Point coupled an outbreak of Vibrio Vulnificus that was causing gastroenteritis, cholera, dysentery, colitis, flux, colic, ague, abnormal flatulence, bloody stools, tachycardia, turgor, vomiting and a hundred other horrible things. Mmm…that’s making me hungry just thinking about it.

Some reports say 99% of the oysters in the Gulf Coast are contaminated with Vibrio Vulnificus…and I am assuming that the Sea of Cortez around Rocky Point is pretty much the same percentage and before you ask, no, Tabasco won’t kill the bacteria and neither will tequila.  Think about it. 99% is right around the same percentage you have of losing in Vegas. I don’t know about you but I don’t like those odds.

While we are talking percentages, I’ve read that 60% of the people treated for oyster-related illness are men. I don’t think that necessarily proves that women are stronger than men. I think it proves that more men are stupid enough to believe that oysters are an aphrodisiac or that men are more desperate to try an aphrodisiac than women. Honestly, who really believes that a snotty little mollusk will make you “strong like bull in the sack?” Same people who think that rhino horn will do the trick probably.

I do want to go on record here…this is not the reason I like oysters. My love of oysters is hereditary. I grew up on the things. Back in Australia in the 70s oysters were king. We could get them everywhere. I’m serious we could quite literally drive into a gas station (well, petrol station) and say “Oy, mate! Fill ‘er up and while you’re at it check me oil and I think one of me tyres is a bit flat too. Oh, and top off the washer fluid, will ya? Oh, yeah… and we’ll take two dozen oysters. Yeah, go ahead and shuck em we’re gonna eat them in the car.” It’s true…google meribula oysters petrol if you don’t believe me.

They have good oysters down under. Small but tasty. The first time we came to the States (in 1977) we arrived in San Francisco and went straight to Fisherman’s Wharf and ordered an oysters appertizer. We couldn’t believe what they carried out to us…two or three inches long they were. Great slabs of oyster meat! We thought we’d died and gone to heaven. Then we tasted them. Wasn’t pretty. I’ve had plenty of good oysters stateside since then but that was not a good day. My mum, she’s 80 now, but she still talks about the horror of it.

“We ordered oysters in San Francisco, it was” she’ll say. “Oh, what was the name of the place? Filene’s Basement, I think.”

“No mum, that’s the place you went shopping in Boston.”

“Oh yes, marvelous place. We had to get coats in San Francisco. It was so cold. Even in summer! That San Francisco is so dirty. Not as dirty as New York City but still not like Melbourne. Well, Melbourne does have some dirty spots I suppose, don’t you think?”

“What about the oysters, mum?”

“Oh, they were terrible, weren’t they? Flabby, tasteless, horrible, yuck! Not like we have here in Australia. You see, our oysters are much smaller but they are sweet and delicious…” Yes, that’s right…my mother is Dame Edna Everage. So now you know where I get it from…

Anyway, the point is I don’t eat oysters to get feeling all sexy or anything like that. I really do like how they taste. But sometimes it is hard to convince people of that. Ever order oysters on a first date? The girl will be all “Uh-uh, no way buddy!” She will immediately be all up in your face, wagging her finger and doing that thing where they kind of move their head independent of their shoulders in a threatening way as if to say “You did not just do that! You did not just order oysters! Not with me! Not on a first date!” Men wont do that if the girl orders oysters, of course. No girls, if you order oysters on a first date he will just assume you’re a slut. So, all in all, it’s better to wait a while before going the for the old oysters on the half shell.

Come to think of it, there’s really only one good time to order oysters: Valentine’s Day. Picture it…a nice romantic dinner, both of you all dressed to the nines, a nice bottle of wine chilling by the table. You look at her and see desire in her heart. That’s the night to order oysters. Just make sure you don’t happen to be having this dinner at Hooters or in Mexico because if you are you won’t be “getting it on” later that night you’ll be in the bathroom alternately puking your guts out and suffering from horrendous bouts of explosive diarrhea. Bon appétit!

Answer to a Girl’s Prayers – the Pig-tel USB Solar Hair Dryer

26 Tuesday Jan 2010

Posted by in Pig-Tel Products, The Other Side of the Carpark

≈ 9 Comments

Digital Hot Air from Warrigal

Especially for Emma J – you requested one – and Pig-tel delivers

for just 3 monthly payments of $39.95 plus postage and handline ($287.00)

another great Pig-tel product can be yours.

If you’re not completely satisfied, return the unused portion and we’ll give you a full refund (excluding postage and handling) – what could be fairer than that ?

First ten callers will receive a hat of our choosing – possibly with the Pig-tel logo.