Category Archives: Gerard Oosterman

“The Slap and Midnight in Paris.” ( hundred percent factual)

24 Monday Oct 2011

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Over the last few weeks I watched short segments of the TV series The Slap. They were short bits that I watched, so don’t take my observations as too factual or writ in cement, more like cast in yoghurt. Take what you like and chuck the rest.

Yesterday, with all the turmoil on the Inebriates and their Bleached Bones etc, Helvi and I went to see Woody Allen’s ‘Midnight in Paris’ here in Bowral.  The difference between the two films could not be starker. I don’t know about you but I find watching The Slap almost unbearable. The negativity is just seeping out from almost every sequence. One can’t fault the acting, the filming and the expert casting, or indeed the story which is based on the book by Christos Tsiolkas… I am usual the first one to admit that the ‘art of things’ is what matters almost more than the technique or even the story. If it works it works, is my motto. The Slap works in the sense of a well made series, well acted but the unrelenting emptiness of the couples lives just spoils it for me. Too depressing!

The main character, the slapper, the son of Greek parents, is just about the pits. He seems to go through life between short bursts of ejaculating around the place and walks to the fridge grabbing a beer. All is enjoyed with the minimum of care or pleasure. He cuts an apple with utter contempt. He chucks his mobile phone about.  He struts around his pool and house which would have to be the ultimate in hideous empty totally impersonal architecture.  He runs a business whereby his only involvement seems to be the money.  His son, a sad boy, whereby at one segment is seen to watch with his brutal father some segment of music with gyrating hip swinging female hopping dancers. Before that he watched his mother being brutalised by his father.

The only people who seemed to have some humanity about are the Greek parents and to some extent, the breast feeding mother of the slapped kid and her partner. (I even saw some books in their poor little house.) I remember the ABC making good TV, especially comedy. What with that silly Julia series and now the Slap. What’s cooking next?

Compare this with Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. Well, there is no comparison. We walked out jubilant. What a lovely story. The wife of the French president, Carla Bruni, is stunning as a tourist guide doing the rounds through Le Louvre or was it The Jardin the Versailles? The main character is forced to face the shortcomings of his shopping addicted American wife and their divergent aims. No matter how Woody Allen faces the cynicisms of the world he lives, his rather disappointing and glum view of so much of the culture he was born into, he dresses them up in artistry and above all humour. He gave us (and still is giving) wonderful films. I liked his “ not only do I not believe in a God, but try and get a plumber on a Sunday!.

Tom R.I.P (Amongst the bleached Bones of the inebriates at Orange. NSW)

22 Saturday Oct 2011

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(A story; some fiction, some not. Tom and the many mothers are still everywhere.)

Tom, who was black and a returned soldier from the Korean War, used to live with his mother in Orange. He never did get into a decent working live and his request for a land grant was knocked back, as were all other requests from aboriginals in those post Korean War days. Tom could not even get a beer in a pub at that time. He fought as good if not better than most in Korea. He was fearless and when shot in the leg he hobbled on regardless for the next couple of days. Someone finally got him into a hospital. It left him with a gammy leg, a permanent limp.

When he applied for the soldier land grant he was told by the clerk,” bugger off,” “not for you Abos, mate.” Some of his white mates were given the VC’s for less fighting than some of those black ones. Even though Tom could not get into the pub, he managed to get into the grog quite well. He never figured out the one about the land grant refusal, somehow always thought he was part of the land before white men. It did not make much sense, but then again, so much did not make sense. Black fellas got killed in the war more than Australians, yet they were never rewarded for bravery. They weren’t even citizens.  That’s why Tom also did not get a pension. He  never understood the problem, no matter how often he asked himself or others.

His mum kept telling him “keep your nose clean, stay away from grog.” He only kept the first part but loved those brooding dark long- necks. Over time they rewarded him more than anything, even though it was of short duration. Each bottle set up the need for the next one. Tom drifted off to Sydney, camping along Salt Pan Creek at Herne Bay. He used to do short spurts of work, became an itinerant rabbito. In the evening he joined his mob on the creek, stewed up the left- over rabbits with pumpkins. The grog was also part of his mob. Many were returned soldiers but never shared in the spirit of Anzac, not a single medal. There was just this wrong kind of spirit; better than nothing at times.

Tom just idled along but somehow never got the thing about the returned soldier’s Land Grant out of his head. He would have liked to have been able to raise horses on the couple of hundred acres that so many white soldiers got after the return from Korea. Not being a citizen was a puzzle that never got solved, especially not when his days became more and more endured in an alcoholic daze. He used to pinch his arm, “yes, I am a person and am alive”, “how come I am not a citizen.” “What’s a citizen?” Apparently, anyone but a black fella.

He went back to Orange and lived with his mother who put up with his now deeply entrenched need for grog. He would be charged over and over again with drunken behaviour, disorderly behaviour, pissing up against the rosemary at the Town’s returned soldier’s memorial with the bronze inscribed names of so many brave but white souls.  White souls, the lot of them, and all dead but still regarded true citizens. All their wives and mothers were receiving pensions.

Tom’s mother was just scraping by with the help of uncles and aunties and assorted relatives, all without pensions. “We are from the Wiradjuri people; we lived here well before any white man.”  “Your grandmother use to grow seeds around here and we were the first gardeners,” she told Tom.

The coppers got fed up with Tom. It was too much. The Order was read out by the Magistrate; “Pursuant to Section of the Act, I am satisfied that Tom is an Inebriate within the meaning of the 1912 Act and hereby Order the Inebriate to be placed in a licensed institute for the remainder of his life”, or, till he is deemed cured. The chief constable with a grin on his face led Tom downstairs to his fate. Tom mused on the stairs down; am I now a citizen?

Tom was taken to the inebriate section of the mental hospital in Orange where he spent the rest of his life. He wasn’t even told of his mother’s death. In 1968 he finally became an Australian citizen and had his pension regularly paid out to the Institute. Tom did not get better nor did he ever find out why he was not a citizen before 1968. Over thirty percent of the inmates were aboriginals. Tom died in 1974.

Keywords: Orange, Korean War, Aboriginal, Korea, Sydney, Herne Bay, Anzac, Land Grant, alcoholism, Wiragjuri, inebriate

The Inventiveness of a damaged Woman ( The end)

20 Thursday Oct 2011

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She entered the village shop to buy the flour and as a surprise for Boris, a bottle of vodka. She walked past the woman’s house on the way back. It fired her rage up again. Boris was still inside, the axe where it was before. When she got home, she put in some more wood in the stove and calmly sprinkled some rat poison in his chicken broth. Not too much, just a spoon full.

 The idea she was taking charge made her almost happy. She felt a renewal surging through her that she hadn’t felt for many years. Enough was enough. What right did anyone have to undo her, unhinge her, and make her mad? He never walked into the forest too drunk, to be swallowed up by snow only to resurface in early spring, with a scrawny skeletal hand poking up in the thaw. Akalena was not going to stand for any more of what she got since her marriage. Boris would be taught a lesson!

Much to Boris’ chagrin, his tumbler of Vodka and his soup was waiting for him when he got back. Without a word he slurped the Vodka and soup down before he grabbed his wife at the crutch. ‘You are next, he growled’. ‘What’s up with you and the vodka, he demanded? ‘Just have some more soup dear’, she offered. The vodka and the sex for axe was now getting the better (or worse) of him and he soon snored away on the floor. When he woke up next day she wanted Boris to chop up some more wood. The winter had started in earnest. There was frost on the inside of the windows each morning before she would get up and put up fresh wood in the stove. Boris complained he felt a bit dizzy but managed to put on his coat to chop up a month supply of wood. The pine was easy to split and soon his axe blows could be heard in the neighbourhood.

 

This time, Akalena put in two rations of rat poison in his chicken soup, next to his bowl another tumbler of his alcohol. He came in looking somewhat pale but let go of his usual cunt calling and grabbing while being unbuttoned. She had left in large pieces of chicken this time. Again, the vodka and soup diverted his attention away from the usual attacks and violence. He was also getting unsteady on his feet, due to either the vodka or the rat poison or a combination of both. This time he collapsed in his bed at the back of the house.

Akalena had run out of rags for her mats but now started to cut up in long strips Boris’ old shirts and underwear. She fed them into her loom while singing softly to herself. The wood pile outside will be the last pile he will chop, she smiled. Boris had taken to staying in bed while Akalena continued feeding him his poisonous cocktail of chicken soup and vodka. He started to look pale and suffered dizzy spells. ‘You are killing me’, Boris would complain while in an attack of delirium. ‘Oh, my darling, don’t say that’, after all I’ve done for you’. ‘Here, have some soup’. This time, the soup was without the poison. She did want him to suffer but not have it over with too quickly. He had to be kept finely balanced between life and death, conscious enough to still experience some of what she suffered all those years. 

She kept the door of his bedroom locked and unheated while cutting his best Sunday suit, his pants, his coats, all his clothing. All cut into strips and all fed into the loom. It would be one of her best mats. As she fed him she cradled his head, spoon fed him. She now started to cut his bed clothes, his pyjamas. His face contorted with terror and supreme fright. ‘No, no you are my husband, my darling’ she said while she now cut away his pants exposing his shrivelled pale manhood. Boris had lost his voice, gone was the swearing, the cunt calling. She smiled at him and left the room, shutting the door behind her. The windows where white with frost and Boris would still have a day or so left in deliriums, perhaps still hoping it would all end. Next day, the bed sheets and last blanket was taken away, cut into strips and fed into her loom. The mat was almost finished. It was her best and strongest mat, many would walk over it. Boris was now getting towards the finale. He looked up into her eyes. Was there some recognition finally? Some regret, some admittance of actions? It was too late… His hands parallel to his body lifted slightly and started to shake, a last tremor and that was that. His death as delicious now as her chicken soup had been all those years. Akalena left the room, rolled up the mat. Boris became useful, finally.

The Inventiveness of a damaged Woman (part 2)

19 Wednesday Oct 2011

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Akalena made the best of it, bringing up her three children and making a meagre income from weaving hard wearing floor rugs. Those mats were woven together from old rags that she used to scavenge together from throw me downs by the rich in the bigger towns. She had through the years build up a reputation for her colourful mats.  Her colour combinations and natural taste set her mats apart from most other weavers.

 She managed to survive despite Boris’s whoring ways. Her loom was busy, especially in those long and harsh winters with the build up of snow on the window sills and overhanging eaves. Still, she did always have enough firewood and there was always chicken soup on the wood stove.

Anyone walking past her timber house would hear the sounds of the loom when Akalena was weaving her mats. The throwing of the warp across while the shuttle would find its way through the threads, tightening the twirled rags into yet another bit of matting. She would take care into picking the right colours that would be repeated along the lengths of the mat. It gave her peace as well as an income from which she could send her kids to school as well as provide the endless chicken broths for Boris. His culinary needs never varied. Just chicken soup and the home-made sour dough black bread.

The years went by and her children were often witness to Boris violence, sometimes even at the receiving end of his rage, getting belted. Once, Boris broke the youngest his arm. Police were called, but they showed their sympathy for Boris more than her children. They were mean men as well, having witnessed the same treatment when they were young.  This was the way of the Ukraine; it was the way of many men. Men always give back what was given to them when they were young.

 Akalena would throw herself in between Boris and her children, hoping to prevent even more injury. What would any woman have done when her children were at risk? She needed to have something to keep her going, to survive and somehow keep sane. What was there to look forward to? There were some whose plight became so severe; they would walk out of the village, back to other relatives, distant aunts, gone forever.

One day, when she noticed Boris’s axe outside the house of a woman known for her generosity in giving sex for axe, she decided she had enough. Her fury and rage welled up. All those years of abuse she had suffered. The continuing sexual degradation when he demanded from her by force what he got elsewhere with money or axing wood for stinking whores. The beatings and rapes, the abuse of her children, the stealing of her money earned by weaving mats…the years of making his chicken soup and  early morning baking bread. What had it given her? Where and when would it end?

The Inventiveness of a damaged Woman ( part 1)

17 Monday Oct 2011

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There is nothing quite as creative or revengeful as a woman wanting to even out the pain and suffering endured over a lifetime at the hands of a cruel and hopeless man.  Her name was Akalena, his was Boris.

This is her story.

Of course the start of her marriage was wonderful, even loving. He chopped up the firewood. No one could wield the axe in this small Ukrainian village of Pukiv like Boris. He stacked the piles nicely, provided the kindling by going into a small pine forest.  Mountains of pine cones, twigs and even the dried needles he carefully arranged in neat piles. When winter came, and it came to fire wood, there was plenty. He would sometimes drink vodka but nothing too much, certainly not like Ivan from next door, whose wife made him sleep in front of the wood stove when drunk. Her marriage had long ago waned to nothing but she did not want to have her husband found frozen stiff in the forest. Those Ukrainian winters were never kind to those men too scared and inebriated to find their way to the front gate and face spousal fury. When men went missing, the wives would first look into the neighbouring woods, that’s if there hadn’t been a heavy snow fall. In early spring, the forest would then yield its bitter harvest with husbands’ remains found, some still clutching the bottle. It went some way in explaining the surplus of available women. Sometimes, while Boris was swinging his axe, some of those without husbands would saunter by, their hips still capable of a suggestive swing as well.

While Boris did not fall prey to Vodka very often, he did keep a lecherous and leering eye out for those women with loose ways and swinging hips, especially if special favours could be bought. He would sometimes take his axe to one of those women that had walked by, but ended up with more than just chopping their fire-wood. It wasn’t long when rumours became rife of Boris having been noticed whoring and snoring amongst the widows of Pukiv, spending nights away. He had no qualms upsetting Akalena, smelling of Vodka and stale sex. When confronted by Akalena, he scowled and told her ‘did you ever run out of firewood, did you, you bitch’?  Go on, ‘give me my hot soup and pull my boots off’. I’ll fucking well swing my axe wherever I choose to’. Akalena would give him his chicken soup…; boil some water for his stinking feet. The soup had been on the stove for hours, waiting for Boris to show up.

 Akalena was disappointed in her Boris and as the years went by, her love also shrivelled as did the love of so many Ukrainian women married to those hopeless men. The swinging of axes or their Vodka fuelled raucous ranting never did make up for their violence, their drunkenness and their hopeless and desperate womanising. There were some who secretly wished their husbands would be found frozen stiff in the pine forest as well. They would give up going into the forest, almost hoping they would not be found except in spring.

(will be continued)

Dodgy Chook Numbers ( How to get hoodwinked by ‘free range Market’)

11 Tuesday Oct 2011

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Things are hardly ever what they appear to be, especially not in the world of shopping, and in particular, in the world of egg buying. A few nights ago we were jolted into the reality of animal cruelty when a program on chooks and their environs was presented on the TV.

It proved to be an amazing world of deceit, cunning, and hoodwinking of you, the customer. If you thought that buying ‘free range’ eggs made you into a person caring for the welfare of the Rhode-Island Reds, think again. Unlike in the EU where the term ‘free range’ means a minimum of 4sq metres of open space per chicken and a mandatory supply of greenery. Here ‘free range’ can be even more cruel and horrific than caged birds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_range.

The European Union regulates marketing standards for egg farming which specifies the following (cumulative) minimum conditions for the free-range method:

  • hens have continuous daytime access to open-air runs, except in the case of temporary restrictions imposed by veterinary authorities,
  • the open-air runs to which hens have access is mainly covered with vegetation and not used for other purposes except for orchards, woodland and livestock grazing if the latter is authorized by the competent authorities,
  • the open-air runs must at least satisfy the conditions specified in Article 4(1)(3)(b)(ii) of Directive 1999/74/EC whereby the maximum stocking density is not greater than 2500 hens per hectare of ground available to the hens or one hen per 4m2 at all times and the runs are not extending beyond a radius of 150 m from the nearest pophole of the building; an extension of up to 350 m from the nearest pophole of the building is permissible provided that a sufficient number of shelters and drinking troughs within the meaning of that provision are evenly distributed throughout the whole open-air run with at least four shelters per hectare.[

    Free range.

 It is different in Australia where there seems to be an open slather on deceiving customers into thinking that free range eggs, which are often 2 to 3 times the price of caged eggs, are somehow produced by happy chickens, freely cavorting and picking their food from open grassy fields. Those EU standards are certainly not applied here. The latest regulation now allows a staggering 20 000 chickens per Ha (10 000 sq Metres). That is one chicken per half a sq M. This in effect raises their stress levels to such an extent it results in cannibalism. No worries, the chooks are then de-beaked which was shown to be done by the young pullets putting their beaks into a feeding tube. Instead of getting feed, they get instantly de-beaked. Footage was shown of the young pullets with bleeding beaks.

If you thought the Australian Egg board would be keen to improve conditions for the poor chooks or at least comply with EU standards, think again. A quick scan through the list of directors reads like the who’s who of some of the largest ‘free range’ operators, egg marketers and producers. http://www.aecl.org/about-us/board-of-directors

Hardly a bunch of unbiased, independent operators keen on improving the lot for chickens. Their main aim is to improve profits not kindness to chooks.

 In Sweden, where else, caged eggs have been banned. In many other European countries, main supermarkets, including Aldi, do not stock caged eggs anymore. Al least the ‘free range’ eggs have the legislative back up of a maximum of 2500 chooks per Ha. How come, after so much publicity of late about the plight of chooks, this hasn’t been implemented here? It makes one wonder if the caged eggs are not a better and more ethical deal here after all.

I hope Tony Abbott is not behind all this. He is such a ‘free marketeer’, anything is possible. It’s all such a rort, isn’t it?

Don’t let fat stand in the Way. (of Neo-liberalism and Markets)

10 Monday Oct 2011

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There we go again. I am hardly up hoisting my morning coat on, and what do I see on opening The Australian newspaper ( for art and TV section),  a largish article expanding on the previous week’s news on the Danish Fat Tax (DFT) and giving some rather interesting snippets of insight of a country that likes to prevent rather than react afterwards.

It waxes lyrically on how Finland and Romania are now also going to implement this tax. Now, the curious but very enlightening part of this article is on how those Nordic countries seem to Govern. It’s heart-warming again, isn’t it? First let us reflect that Denmark has taken a turn to the left with a female leader with Ms Thorning-Schmidt, who, nota bene happens to be the daughter in law of the former British Labour leader Neil Kinnock…

Ms Thorning-Schmidt came to power last month promising to increase taxes on banks and high earners to pay for more spending on health and schools. Eyes agog please! She got into power promising to increase taxes! The fat tax had already been introduced by the outgoing conservative government, but to no avail. Their promises of increasing taxation weren’t big enough and they, the practical Danes, booted them out. Can this tale get any better? Yes, it can.

Denmark has a low obesity rate of 10% with a special tax on high sugar content foods such as soft drinks and sweets having been in place for some years. It is the highest taxed of developed countries with a VAT of 25% on top of everything else. With these taxes one would have thought there would be riots and blood on the streets daily, but no, nothing like that on the news lately. On the contrary, I don’t get the impression the Danes are particularly unhappy with their lot.

England is generally known as being loath to take action of any kind too rapidly with their fondness for ‘order, order’ instead, are slowly considering a fat tax as well. Previously, like here in Australia, they preferred to nudge people into better food and eating habits. Any form of tax to force things along is traditionally thought of as forming corrupting ‘Nanny State’ habits, implying that the UK is some kind of dream socially equal paradise already.

With a wild guess that Australia might have had a much lower obesity rate some years ago, it would not be all that unreasonable to assume that our world reputation as the fattest on earth, could have been nipped in the bud by none other than…our intrepid potentially disastrous future leader, the honourable…., I give you……. Tony Abbott…. Order, order,… some years ago.

Yep, that’s right, wasn’t he a health minister, health and ageing some 10 years ago? Before that there were other Liberal Health ministers. While obesity started to impact on general health with a blowing out of associated diseases, nothing was done. Not even the banning of TV advertisements of bad foods during children’s programmes. Nothing must impede the “markets”. (Wasn’t it lovely to read Andrew (Twiggy) Forrest doubled his salary and collected a handy $48.000.000 million in dividends from his company in just the one year, FMG?) Now there is the  market working for you.

With our fondness for Neo-Liberalism and letting Markets do the walking for us we now seem to have reaped a nasty fat bug. That’s of course apart from homelessness, our miserable state of mental health, the aboriginal disaster, old age care, hosts of other collapsing societal benefits including our hostile and unfriendly manner of dealing with a few thousand boat people. Yes, indeed, a more prosperous and freer society but not a more equal society. A bit of a looming lemon really. Oh, for just a bit of Denmark.

To markets, to markets to buy a fat pig…Home again, home again…

Don’t let Facts stand in the way of Truths (The getting of Wisdom)

09 Sunday Oct 2011

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We were so comfortable in the knowledge that the universe was imploding. We always knew things would end up to nothing much, just a shrivelled up bit of a rotten core, a tangled mess of imploded food processors and phone chargers.  Now, this fact has been un-facted by the latest discovery. Professor Schmidt, our proud Nobel Prize winner reckons we are expanding with increasing speed and the Universe will finally end up a dark, empty and cold place. We are all forever expanding, getting bigger. Blind Freddy could tell you that. Just walk around shopping malls and look at the food-court. Our Nobel Prize winning cosmologist has proven scientifically that instead of magnetic fields or gravity pulling things inwards and slowing things down, the reverse is happening and it is all getting further and further apart.

We were also happy with Einstein’s fact of his speed of light. It was the ultimate of speed, an ultimate fact. Nothing could go faster. If something were travelling faster than ‘c’ (speed of light) relative to a standing reference, we would go back in time, meaning an effect would be observed before a cause. That would be silly. It would mean I would end up with the horror of the 1956 Nissan Hut in Scheyville all over again. It would be paradoxical like an antitelephone. Still, the speed of light was fact. Irrefutable and only flat-earthers would deny the truth of this.

But….No wrong, in Italy, the country that gave the world Galileo, they made something go faster than light, deep inside some mountain range. Another fact dismantled. I think being disappointed in facts is so much worse than in truths.

So, is the truth a worthier cause to follow than facts? The truth is how things are now, not tomorrow or yesterday but now. For instance; it is raining outside and the road is getting wet. This is a truth for now.  However, and this is important, if the rain stops and the sun start to appear, chances are the road will dry up. Another truth, but the outcome is the total opposite of the previous one. Isn’t? Still, both hold true and that has to be nice and reassuringly optimistic for the future.

Facts seem to be unreliable and somewhat sticky, changing all the time, just like truths but unlike truths, facts were always supposed to be unmoving, cemented in situ. I wouldn’t trust them anymore. A truth, on the other hand is always there, even though for just that moment. It is so much more comforting, a bit like bed socks. They warm your feet but only if you wear them. If you keep them in the sock drawer, they are still bed socks but their truth of ‘warming feet’ has gone. One expects and (most of us would) accept those changes as normal. No one would object to the truth of bed socks not warming feet if they are not on the feet.

 There are truths so true, they are universal truths. The truth of the lentil for instance and its application towards frugality and living simple humble lives is such a universal truth that it warms the heart. Its truthfulness stands on its own and it would be a brave man who would say that a lentil is not true because it is really an apple or a bicycle.

The same for a good drop of Semillon Blanc. The truth of the capsicum lingering on or the lemon tang hanging near the middle palate together with its ambition or its sheer cheekiness, are truths that are unassailable.  But again, again this awful but …If letting stand too long in the hot sun or in its glass without drinking, the wine then become less truthful, even dishonestly intemperate. Then the truth (of a beautiful wine) has become spoiled and awful and warped. I would say that this truth then changes in another truth, the truth of spoiled wine. A bitter truth to swallow, but a truth just the same. In truths you can hardly ever go wrong. It just changes all the time and travels with you as you go along.

 Truths are deeply personal and always your best friends.

Milo’s walking the Talk

03 Monday Oct 2011

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If there is one word that really makes Milo spin out, it would have to be ‘walk’. As mentioned before with Milo’s magnificent flying skills, he is now also well advanced in language skills, for a dog that is. Back on the farm, the world was his oyster, his kingdom, his fiefdom. He was outside much more than inside. Here within the limitations of a town-house, Milo too had adjustments to make. No longer can he chase rabbits or stir up foxes. He used to love sitting around the corner of the shearing shed. The rabbits had their warren-home underneath the hard-wood slatted floor and multiplied themselves at amazing rates. Sooner or later, the kits had to leave home. Milo understood that part of life very well. He left home and mum when just a couple of months old. Even though cradled safely in Helvi’s hands on the way from his home in Goulburn to the farm, Milo would not stop shaking. He misses his mum. Poor little Milo!

 Anyway, some of the little fluffy rabbits were just a little too daring and unexperienced when it came to being out in this big nasty wide world. Milo darted around the corner like a flash. He held many in his jaws and would proudly leave their bodies on the choir matting near the front door. Good boy, Milo, good boy!  Sometimes I wondered though if Milo has a conscience. Killer Milo, a bad boy is Milo. Perhaps Milo knew the rabbits were in plague proportions, better still, he knew and understood that foxes too were lurking around the corner. He interpreted the nightly crying of the vixen’s kits near the river as their need for food as well; conveniently forgetting that he was well provided for and hardly needed to eat a wild rabbit. No, Milo has a deep-seated hatred for rabbits, ducks, magpies and horses too. He isn’t perfect.

Now for his language prowess: “I think I’ll take Milo for a ‘spazieren,’ I’ll say. If I use ‘walk’, he goes berserk. Even, the words ‘going for’ he understands and pricks up his ears. Helvi and I now have to speak German or even Finnish if we don’t want Milo to understand something in private. Of course, when I am ready I’ll just look at him and say it up front; ‘I am going to go for a walk’. He will then look at my feet and knows that no shoes mean no walk yet. His moment of triumph arrives with my feet shod and hands holding a lead. He squats under the door handle and jumps up and down manically trying to twist the handle. No luck so far, but he is getting close. I then open the door and he bolts (sorry for the reminder) out. He has his twice daily walk. I usually include a walk along a narrow flowing creek. He’ll spot the ducks well before me, straining at the lead. If only, if only boss would go off the lead. He would kill once more, please let me… No Milo, leave the ducks…. Be a good boy now.

Lentil Soup of the Week

01 Saturday Oct 2011

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Lentil Soup of the Week

If ever there was a sign that Abbott the Rarebit will never strut the world stage as a leader of anything, it would have to be his utterly uncalled for and ungracious remark about Julia Gillard on her 50th. ‘I wish her a happy birthday but…….. I am not sure she will have many more years as Australia’s PM”, followed by his very best and very special condescending sneer.

He just couldn’t leave that last remark out, could he? How silly and utterly telling of a small man no matter how often or how big he prances around in his speedos or hops from the bicycle.

Then there is the opposite; Julian Burnside making an apology to Tony Abbott for the words ‘Paedos in Speedos’, a remark he claims to have heard on a BBC comedy. A twitter Gaffe, apparently.  It’s all becoming very edgy lately.

Last but not least, a real cruncher on all world markets again, despite Europe promising to not let Greece go into faillissement, the markets are continuing their downward path . Finland is vehemently opposed to bailing out Greece. Is Europe now doing a US and print billions in order to stave off the inevitable?

Last but not least (again), the supermarkets are continuing their downward spiral as well, in rubbish food that is. The ready- made sauces, the instant noodles, the shelves groaning with all sorts of pre-digested sugar, salt and fat items. I saw cheese in a tube today! Just as a challenge for you piglets, try and find dried lentils.

 In the US, a voluntary set of nutritional standards on food was put into place together with information for shoppers to help make up their minds. It looked good but did not work. Which stressed mother/father has the time to read about kilo-joules or carbon hydrates on every item? Of course, when the setting of standards was left to those that profit from killer food items, it did not take long when Frooty Loops were found to be on the list of ‘high nutritional value’. It all came to nothing.

Anyway, the time for lentils might well be upon us. We will all start to lose weight and regain what was here before the Age of Aquarius.