I have become a victim of a hate crime

And I'm "all shook up", as Elvis Presley used to say.

As most readers of my blogs will be well aware, there are a lot of America-haters in America. The further Left you go, the more of them you meet. Even low-lifes like the Palestinians are seen as better than America by some Americans.

So it should be no surprise that there are a lot of America-haters in other countries too. And Australia is one such country.

I fly various flags from the flagpole in front of my house, depending on what is happening at the time. Last Thanksgiving, I ran up Old Glory in honour of that occasion. When I run up a flag, however, I tend to leave it there until something else crops up. So Old Glory was still flying at midnight on Monday.

Some young bigot didn't like that, however, so at midnight on Monday dumped a big rubbish bin full of domestic rubbish in my driveway. When I went out to see what the noise was, he went into a rant about what a dreadful place America is and what a bad person I must be to fly the American flag. He then strolled off down the street with his empty garbage bin.

Our bigot was not too bright, however. Among his garbage was something that probably identified him so I spent most of the next morning endeavouring to interest the police in what they saw as a trivial matter. I did manage to get them moving so I await developments.

If they catch him, I will try to have him prosecuted under State hate crime laws. That could be interesting. Such laws are very rarely used here but to have them used against a genuine hate crime would be good.

Update

On Tuesday afternoon I put some of the rubbish in my bins and got the council to clean up that part of the rubbish that was on the footpath

And some time on Tuesday night one of my wheelie bins disappeared completely -- contents and all! Did the nut who did the dumping realize that he had left identifying information in his rubbish and come back to retrieve it? If so he failed, as the police have it now.


Update 2

Just after 7pm on Saturday night (4th) I observed 3 police cars in the St just around the corner from my street. As I passed by, I observed the police hustling out of one of the houses there someone who appeared to be the garbage dumper. The police have not contacted me about it so far (Wed. 8th) but most likely the offender has made admissions and is at present going through the court system.

BBQ for visitors from Britain

Given the unending stream of people moving between Britain and Australia, a BBQ for visitors from Britain is quite a common social occasion in Australia. The visitors may be Australians returning or Britons visiting relatives who have migrated to Australia.

Today was an example of the latter. Kenneth has always been keen on keeping in touch with his immediate family in Britain and a few years ago even managed to get his sister Tracy to move to Australia. So relatives back in Britain now have a double incentive to come here. Today it was sister Pat and her husband Jon -- with the BBQ at Simon & Tracy's place in semi-rural Carbrook. Kickoff was at 2pm and I had faded by about 4pm

Jon has long been much involved in British politics -- mostly in the Liberal cause -- so we had lots to talk about -- given that I keep a close track of British politics. The British Liberals are moderate Leftists -- moderate enough to be in a coalition government with the Tories at the moment -- so Jon is very open to reasonable argument and we covered a lot of ground. We were of course both appalled at the proposed new arrangements for support of university students in Britain -- arrangements which are mainly the work of the Liberals but which fly in the face of all reason.

Some elements of the arrangements make sense but the net effect would seem to be the segregation of graduates from poorer families into low-income jobs and leaving high income jobs to the children of the rich -- and that is from a party that parades itself as friends of the poor! But Leftist politics are always a mess.

Simon was chef again as usual and did his usual magnificent job: Some of the best sausages and chicken kebabs I have tasted. And Maureen supplied a large and first-class Pavlova again.

There were over 20 of us present and poor Becky (Simon and Tracy's beautiful teenage daughter) was trying to figure out how she was related to everyone present. It is quite a complex tale but I think she got most of it in the end.

Anne spent a lot of time talking to Simon about Oberammergau and I spent most of my time talking to Jon -- largely about topics (such as the West Lothian question) that would have been pretty impenetrable to others present. But I rarely get the opportinity to talk to someone close to the action in British politics so I hope I didn't annoy anybody.

I provided three bottles of Australian Seaview brut "champagne" as my contribution to the deliberations and they went down well as usual. Maybe I am just a peasant but I find it hard to distinguish Seaview from Moet -- even though Seaview is a fraction of the price of Moet. I do buy Moet for special occasions with Anne (birthdays etc.) but it for symbolism rather than taste. I used to buy Veuve Cliquot for special occasions but I eventually concluded that I liked Moet et Chandon better. All three are nice wines, however.

But I used to like the now defunct Barossa Pearl so that pigeonholes me among Australian wine gurus ("old fool" would probably be one of the kinder epithets).

It was a hot day but Simon embraced the Australian/Indian tradition of wide verandahs in the design of his house so we ate at a looong table on the verandah, where it was perfectly cool.


A pretty good photo of late in the occasion. I am in the white shirt talking to Jon diagonally opposite me


The two bubbies getting to know one another. They were both very "good", without a cry of complaint out of either of them


Von will have one of her own in a couple of weeks

A small personal note on customer service in Australia and Britain

A Sunday morning reflection

I have spent time in England on three occasions -- including a Sabbatical year. There are a lot of similarities between England and Australia (the constant flow of English immigrants to Australia helps ensure that) but I noted one major difference: How customers are treated in shops, cafes and the like.

I am always pleased by the almost universal cheerful and friendly service I get in such establishments in Australia but in England customers tend to be treated like a bad smell. Just getting staff to recognize your presence is not always easy. Hence the old tradition of the "floor walker" -- immortalized in the TV comedy series "Are you being served".

Fortunately, however, most small businesses in England (particularly London) have now been taken over by people from the Indian subcontinent -- and all it usually takes to get good service from them is a smile.

But how did the English become such unhappy people? It seems to go back to a sense of entitlement. They mostly seem to think that they should not have to work at all -- and routine work in particular is greatly disliked. And the millions of Brits who have never worked and live on welfare payments is some testimony to that. "Pommy bludgers" are also a byword in Australia: Australians who see much of the English almost always end up seeing them as being in general work-shy.

So whence the sense of entitlement behind all that? It seems to be partly the result of official British propaganda, which the English are very good at. They are very good at trumpeting their own virtues in particular -- sometimes in an understated way but propaganda can be all the more effective for that. Even Hitler admired British wartime propaganda -- and he knew more than a little about that subject.

British government propaganda these days is nowhere as jingoistic as it once was but memories of empire persist and Britons almost universally believe that Britain saved the world from Hitler. The fact that over 80% of German wartime military casualties were on the Eastern front is rarely mentioned. It was Russia that defeated Hitler.

But perhaps the biggest source of the sense of entitlement is the welfare State. Since 1945 Britain has had an extensive and generous system of welfare payments which make work optional. Successive Britain governments have made it clear that Britons are ENTITLED to support from the government, come what may. So no wonder that those who do choose to work for whatever reason feel that they should not really have to.

It seems to me that Britons who have some go in them tend to emigrate -- to Australia, Canada, the USA etc. Britons abroad and Britons in Britain sometimes seem like two different races to me -- JR

Glasgow

Glasgow is a strange place. It has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime. The crime mostly consists of the "Jimmies" (usually young working class Glaswegian males) sticking shivs (an improvised stabbing knife) into the gizzard of one of their friends on Friday or Saturday night. Sinking lots of whiskies with beer chasers does that to you.

So it's not really serious -- and even the Jimmies don't seem to think it is.

I have a memory of standing outside a pub in Sauchiehall St that reminded me strongly of a traditional Australian pub. I guess we got our pub culture from the Scots. Scots certainly like a "wee dram" -- but only the males of course. The women drink tea to set the men a good example. But that is how it was. I imagine that younger Glasweginan women have now given up that futile effort.

Anyway, I even seem to rembember seeing outside the Sauchiehall St pub a woman sending in her children to extract her husband from the pub and get him to come home for his dinner.

Does that seem strange? Not to me. That was part of my life too. Men are very consistent about where they drink. So their friends and wives generally know where to find them after hours. And my mother did too. It was generally my sister who was sent in to get my father out of the pub (usually the "Crown" in Innisfail) but I guess I would have had that job if my sister had not been a cuter kid than I was.

So I rather like Glasgow. I feel that I understand it. The fact that my second wife was a very fine Glaswegian woman may have some influence on that conclusion, however.

Glaswegians are generally very good-humoured people (as long they are not talking to the English) and Joyce Anne Burns Lipp certainly has a full measure of Glaswegian good cheer. She even gets on well with the English! So that is extremely good-natured by Scottish standards.

Another "old times" night

Held, as before, in my backyard under party flares. I provided Seaview champagne and Pizza Hut pizza as people fuel. Maureen brought along a huge Pavlova which very much topped off the menu. Fortunately the rain held off once again. There were about 14 of us present. Sadly, Suzy was ill with the flu and Tracy's Simon had just done his back in so they were unable to get along. And Timmy must have been off "jamming" with his band or something.

Olivia and Davey brought along their baby and it was the BEST baby you could imagine: Looked cute but not a sound out of it all night. That Han Chinese patience really takes some beating.

We were all pleased to welcome George, whom we rarely see these days. He was in great form and personally provided about half of the funny stories about things in our collective past. And he topped his performance by falling off his chair! So that will be an episode to be remembered at future gatherings.

Somewhat embarrassingly, however, I fell of MY chair too -- shortly thereafter. My backyard was newly turfed about a year ago so the surface was rather soft after all the rain we have been having -- so the legs of chairs kept sinking into it, which meant that people were rather in danger of tipping over if not careful. Combined with champagne that peril was rather magnified. But the grass was very lush and the surface was soft so neither George nor I came to any harm.

Paul was his usual lively self and we even got Joe up to tell a few recollections of his childhood. We tried to get Vonnie's Simon to tell us about his happy childhood in Invercargill but we didn't get much out of him. People think Vonnie is quiet -- until they meet her husband. Simon is greatly respected however because he knows all about computers -- which we are all into in various ways, including two retired computer retailers among us. So when Simon DOES say something, it is valuable information which is much heeded.

I told my story about Ken the super salesman. Every time I tell that story it gets longer but my embellishments must have been not too far off the mark as Ken did not contradict any of it. The story is about how and why Ken "unsold" a lady off the carpet she wanted to buy when Ken had his carpet shop.

But we had hours of laughs and I was quite exhausted by the end of it

A recollection of my arrival at High School in 1956

When my parents moved from Innisfail to Stratford in Cairns they did not take me along to enrol me at a new school -- as it would be done these days. They left it entirely up to me. So I got on the bus from Stratford one morning and found my new school by myself.

I did not think much at the time of the fact that my mother or father did not go along to help enrol me but in retrospect it does seem odd. Though I suppose I was an independent little bugger (aged 13).

So I got onto the bus to North Cairns school only to be told when I arrived that I was at the wrong school. I needed to go to the High School in Sheridan St.

So I waited for the next bus and got on with no money to pay another fare. But the bus driver was indulgent in a typical country way so that was no problem. He just dropped me off at the High School.

By that time the High School was "in" so I just wandered around looking for someone to speak to. Coincidentally, one of the classes I walked past was being taught by a "Miss Gagno" -- who had taught me in Innisfail. So when I stopped outside her class, she simply said "Hello John" and took me down to where the Principal's office was.

Some luck there, I think.

Pavan Kumar

I have had many sharers/tenants over the years and most of them are just a blur in my memory now. But Pavan Kumar stands out. After 6 years of living at my place he has just moved out into an apartment of his own. He is going back to India to get married shortly so has to have a home of his own to which he can take his bride when he arrives back in Australia. He is an Australian citizen now so I hope the immigration department don't create difficulties for him.

He particularly stands out in my mind as perhaps the most cheerful person I have ever known. It's hard to put much more than that into words but it was a pleasure to have him around. He is certainly a great gentleman. I am sure he will have every happiness in his new life.

He is religious so if he does have trials and tribulations, his Hindu religion will be a help to him. Even Westerners go to India to sit at the feet of Hindu Swamis so there is no doubt that Hinduism can be very helpful to people. India is of course also the source of another great world religion: Buddhism. India does religion well.

The traveller returns

Anne has just arrived safely back from Germany. She came straight to my place from the airport and was wound up like a top -- but who wouldn't be after witnessing the magnificent spectacle at Oberammergau and seeing one of the great Mozart operas at the Bayerische Staatsoper?

I gather that the performance Anne saw closely replicated the original performance of Cosi fan tutti conducted by Mozart himself -- so that is hard to beat. I absolutely HATE it when some producer is arrogant enough to think that he can "modernize" a classical play or opera.

Germany/Austria is of course the home of the passion for Originalinstrumenten -- the view that the exact sounds originally intended by the great composers should be respected -- and I wholeheartedly agree with that. If that makes me a dinosaur so be it -- but that would also make the home of music (the German-speaking lands) dinosaurs. And I don't think that proposition is remotely sustainable.

Anne was very impressed by the quality of the music at Oberammergau. It was originally written in the early 19th century -- and subsequent changes and additions have remained true to the Romantic style. So it is very easily assimilable. Anne brought back a CD of it and I must say I am impressed too. Some of the chorales are as good as any chorale in the classical repertoire, in my opinion.

Oberammergau

The Oberammergau passion play (about the crucifixion of Jesus) is the last of the Medieval passion plays. They were once common but even in Oberammergau the play is now put on only once every ten years. So it is of course a great and famous cultural event.

And 2010 is one of the years that it is performed. And knowing how much Anne likes such things, I would not have been able to rest easily on my deathbed if I had not sent Anne to see it this year. I wrote her a cheque that made it possible.

Below is her comment on what she saw:

"What a magnificent show! Perfectly done and just the grandest occasion. A large choir, orchestra, wonderful props and costuming and a great story. I just loved it... Thank you so much. I have bought a book and a CD which I think you will enjoy. 400 in the audience and not a spare seat. And they came from all over the world. I followed the English translation all the way using my trusty torch for the last 3 hour session. The weather has been great and even though I took lots of warm clothes to wear only 2 layers were needed."

While Anne was in Bayern ("Bavaria" to the English) she also saw Neuschwanstein and Cosi fan tutti (by Mozart) at the Bayerische Staatsoper so she made good use of her time in Germany.

Her comment on what she saw at the Staatsoper:

"The opera was great. I went in early to find the place as I have found finding the entrance to these places can be tricky. I had dinner and a beer over the road.... traditionally Bavarian of course and then wandered over. I had read the full libretto in the morning and just took the synopsis with me. Was a beautiful opera with all the cast having great voices. Female conductor who also played the harpsichord. The venue was just magnificent..... similar in the theatre to the one in Paris. I was impressed with the velvet on the hand rails."

Seeing one of Mozart's most marvellous operas in Muenchen was actually an unusually good opportunity. Bavarians and Austrians are quite closely related and speak much the same Southern German dialect so Mozart's thinking would have been very easily followed there.

A small anecdote and some reflections on race and culture

A few days ago I went in to a private hospital to get my hearing tested and a hearing-aid prescribed. I've already got one plastic eye lens so a computerized ear comes next! That's aging for you.

Greenslopes private hospital does however have one of those murderous automated car-parks. You have to deal with a machine to get in and out. And it is not easy. I got so frazzled trying to get the machine to let me out that I left all the documentation from the audiologist on top of the machine concerned and ended up driving home without it.

It was only when I got home that I realized that I did not have my receipt etc. So what did I do? One thing I was NOT going to do was negotiate that accursed car-park machine again. So I just thought to myself that some kind person would find my documentation and take it to the audiologists -- who would return it to me. And that is exactly what happened. I received it in the mail today.

Now isn't that nice to live in a largeish city and still get treated with village courtesy? But it is no coincidence. I find that my fellow Anglo/European-Australians are generally like that: Good kind people.

And that largely happens because the Australian population is still overwhelmingly white. You would have to go to Eastern Europe to find a whiter country.

The most recent figures  I can find show that Australians are 70% Anglo-Celtic, 18% European and 5% East Asian, with most of the latter being Han Chinese racially. The balance are mainly Indians Pakistanis and Arabs, with Africans less than 1%.

Now it does of course sound racially bigoted to attribute Australia's friendly civility to race but it is in fact mainstream sociology. Robert Putnam in particular is known for his studies of racial homogeneity. Sociologists are almost universally Left-leaning and Putnam is too -- but he was man enough to publish his findings (after some hesitation) even though they did not suit him ideologically.

What he found was that people who live in racially mixed neighbourhoods (he is American so that means neighbourhoods with a lot of blacks or Hispanics in addition to whites) were much more likely to keep to themselves. They stayed home at night a lot more, for instance. Racial admixture killed community feeling, to put it bluntly.

Fortunately Australia has largely escaped that. Until recently our population had ancestry that was almost exclusively from Europe or the British Isles. And regardless of whether your origins were Lithuanian, Irish, Italian, German or English, we all saw one another as simply Australian. Ancestry made no difference in most cases.

In more recent years, however, Australia HAS acquired one largeish "minority": East Asians, mostly Han Chinese -- now about 5% of our population. But the Han are admirable people. They are in general quiet, peaceful, patient, intelligent, hard-working people who strive to get on well with everybody. So they fit in very well and do nothing to cause anyone to stay home at night. So even though they have disrupted Australia's racial homogeneity, they have, if anything, enhanced its social harmony.

So it was no accident that some kind person returned my papers. It is what happens in a society where people are in general kind to one another because they can identify with one another and sympathize with one another.

But all silver linings have a dark cloud and Australia has recently acquired one of those too. Australia has in recent years accepted a considerable number of African "refugees" and they already figure prominently in crime . Sad that they may destroy the remarkable and valuable harmony that Australia still has.

Mind you, Australia's native blacks -- Aborigines -- are not bad people. They often live in appalling squalor but they mostly keep to themselves and are undoubtedly one of the most polite populations on earth. They also have an excellent sense of humour and some perceptual abilities that are quite eerie at times. But alcohol is their great downfall. The lady in my life -- Anne -- knows them particularly well and has great affection for them -- something that I understand.

They are actually extraordinarily sociable people -- which is why it is so effective when they "sing" transgressors among them. The transgressor dies of grief.

Much to learn of human diversity. And shrieks of "racism" when it is discussed come only from fools or the ill-intentioned.

Update

With my permission, David at Majority Rights has posted there an "amped-up" version of this post in which he says more about the social science involved.

Travellers night

I put on a small discussion night last night for the recently returned travellers, Paul Susan and Ken. Jenny also joined us. The idea was to add a bit of background to things that the travellers had seen.

I shouted curry and champagne for the gathering and Susan brought along her latest creation -- a torte that even a Yiddisher Momma would have found entirely acceptable for her Kaffee Klatsch.

I talked initially about the UK being in fact a DISunited Kingdom and the conversation went on from there. Nobody knew what a Cockney really was and the West Lothian question was also a mystery. I dispelled both mysteries, remarking along the way that the people born within earshot of the bells of St. Mary le Bow are in fact most likely to be of Bangladeshi or Pakistani origin these days.

A small memorial to "Bluey" Ray

Frank Ray with my wife Joy

My father's real name was Frank Edward Ray but only my mother and his kids called him "Frank". To everyone else he was "Blue" or "Bluey" -- because he had red hair -- a feat of logic that you may have to be British or Australian to understand.

His religion was work -- hard manual work -- and he did that throughout his life. He started out cutting down forest trees for the sawmills -- with an AXE and crosscut saw -- long before chainsaws were heard of. And he also was a cane-cutter in his younger days. He would come home "as black as a n*gger" from that work -- as sugarcane was burnt before harvesting in those days,

But in his later years be worked in the tallow rendering section of the Queerah meatworks outside Cairns. He used his very developed biceps to move around 44 gallon of drums of tallow -- a job in which he seemed to be much appreciated by his employers. And if you have ever tried to move a 44 gallon drum of anything (usually motor fuel) you will know how heavy they are. And when filled with a dense material like tallow (rendered-down animal fat) they are REALLY heavy. But he would have enjoyed that challenge.

I also remember him while I was just a kid sharpening and "setting" his crosscut saws -- something that was part of his trade as a "timber feller" (lumberjack). He would be out in the bush during the week and come home for the weekend. And that was saw sharpening time.

He also had an old .22 rifle. He said that where he was camped out in the bush he could hear crocodiles roaring -- so he was definitely wary of them. What good a .22 would do in an encounter with a croc I do not know. If you were a good shot it might help, I suppose. But I remember him buying bullets off "Thompson" (the Stratford store keeper) as a prelude to a trip.

My brother still has the .22 concerned. If I ever had to deal with crocs, I would want a .50 cal sniper rifle for the purpose -- though I suppose an old .303 might also be useful enough (and a lot more available).

And, as I think I have mentioned before, Frank was a "king hitter". The biceps developed through many years working as an axeman were very handy for flattening anybody who disrespected him. He once hit a man so hard that he broke his hand. He did have a short temper. I remember his flashing blue eyes when he was annoyed. Though he never laid a finger on any of his family and was a real gentleman unless provoked. How can eyes flash? I don't know. But his did somehow.

I am sad that my father is no longer among us. He was a man of his time but was perhaps the better man for that.

Red hair

There is a lighthearted article in the Emerald City rag about red hair. The female writer says being a redhead is only a minor bother to her but some redheads get a bit disgruntled. Excerpt:

"I think I have suffered enough for my colouring," wrote one woman, who noted she had occasionally been asked if the carpet matched the drapes. "I don't think my own government should contribute to the belittling of a minority."

The carpet DOES match the drapes in my experience!

I have brown hair (now grey) but I claim associate membership of the red hair club on the basis that my father had red hair and my son has a red beard. My first girlfriend was a redhead, the first lady I lived with was a redhead and I have twice married redheaded ladies! So I am comfortably ensconced in my genetic niche, it would seem. I am always delighted to see redheaded children about the place.

England would seem to be the only place where there is actual prejudice against redheads, probably because they associate it with the Irish and the Scots. Old enmities linger on.

Update:

I should have mentioned that in my youth I did myself actually have some red hairs in my beard (all now gone white). So I am not only an associate member of the red hair club but am also to a very marginal degree an actual member of it!

Judith Middleton

This is just a small and disorganized memoir of a lady of whom I still think highly. Jude was the lady in my life before Anne. A curious thing about her was that she was what American sociologists call a "skidder" -- someone who moved during her life from the middle class to the working class.

Her father was a successful Melbourne businessman who sent both his daughters to Melbourne MLC (Methodist Ladies College) so she had just about the best education money can buy. MLC ladies acquire an accent, attitude and manners that enable them to glide easily into the "best" circles of English society.

An educated Australian accent is in any case pretty close to RP (Received pronunciation: The accent taught in British "public" [meaning "private"!] schools) and at MLC and other Melbourne private schools that accent is refined even more towards an English upper class standard. And Judy's sister did make that transition -- marrying a rich Englishman.

Judy however is a born rebel and all middle class values were not for her. She looked with horror at the middle class life that lay before her and wanted out. So she left school as soon as she could, took a humble job and never wanted anything more.

Mind you, she was very good at accents and could slip into a very good facsimile of RP if ever she wanted to. Though she normally spoke with a fairly broad Australian accent.

Another curious thing that quite stunned me was the effect of shoes on how she presented. I have never understood the way women collect shoes but Judy gave me at least a hint of it. She normally wore very flat shoes and in such shoes looked like the hippy she is. She just had to put on heels, however, and she immediately became a lady. Amazing. She is quite a pretty girl so that had something to do with it but I doubt that I will ever understand it fully.

And it was of course she who looked after her father in his final years. I am pleased to have known her.

Addendum

I know this is completely mad but I thought I might note another way in which Judith seemed to me to be something of a chameleon.

Optometrists make a great play of spectacles being some sort of fashion statement and it is undoubtedly true that different spectacles do somehow seem to convey different images of the person. And Judith's choice in spectacles did somehow convey the impression of a Melbourne Lady to me. She could be sitting in bed with her specs on talking on the phone and I definitely got the impression of being in the presence of a Melbourne Lady.

It was for a few moments almost like being in the company of the ultimate Melbourne Lady -- the redoubtable Susan Rossiter/Peacock/Sangster/Renouf -- a lady who definitely cut a swathe through her social circle in her time -- but in the nicest possible way, of course. No wonder Barry Humphries found/finds his native Melbourne infinitely amusing. Perhaps Jude was well out of it.

Addendum 2

I suppose this post is getting a bit discursive but maybe memoirs tend to be like that.

As I said, Jude was NOT a Melbourne Lady (and didn't want to be) but she did fleetingly remind me of where she came from occasionally. There was in fact another lady in my life who reminded me of Susan Rossiter/Peacock/Sangster/Renouf quite strongly: Jennifer Warner Wilson. And she was a Sydney lady rather than a Melbourne one. Jenny was a lecturer in Social Work at the Uni. of NSW while I was a lecturer in Sociology there. So we were formally well suited to one-another. She is a fine woman (do I ever get involved with any other?) and we got on well in lots of ways.

And she was demure and feminine but also with quiet assurance and a strong eye -- things that I see in Susan Rossiter (etc). I liked her confidence. Did she go to a private school? I don't remember but probably.

Lunch with Simon and Tracy

My sendoff for Simon in connection with his recent deployment to Afghanistan was a bit of a mess as I was too ill at the time to attend it. But a good time was had by all who were healthy enough to attend so when Simon got back to Australia recently, he and Tracy were kind enough to invite Anne and myself to a roast dinner at around midday last Sunday.

Simon is a talented cook as well as his many other virtues so he served up a feast.

One thing I particularly liked is that Dan and Becky ("the kids") joined us at the table and to a degree took part in the conversation.

Simon was in great form so our conversation covered a wide range -- from Jeremy Bentham to Julia Gillard. I was a bit surprised by Simon's wide reading. It would normally be only academics who had heard of Bentham (the "father" of utilitarianism in moral philosophy) but senior members of the military are often well-read and Simon is obviously one of those.

An exceptionally pleasant afternoon.

A welcome home night

On Saturday 5th I hosted a welcome home dinner at my usual Indian restaurant in Stone's Corner (the "Bollywood") for Paul and Sue after their 3 month world cruise. They got off the ship in Sydney on Friday 3rd so I left them a little time to to get a breather.

Ken and Maureen had also returned from a month of cruising around the Mediterranean a few days earlier so it was a welcome home for them too

We had a good turnout with 15 of us present. Suzy couldn't come because baby Sahara was ill so she sent her apologies at the last moment.

The conversation never stopped but I as usual spent most time talking to Joe and Paul: my "boys". They are both grown men by now but old guys like me are allowed to live in the past. I mostly talked to Joe about his academic activities and to Paul about the conclusions he had drawn from his trip. A pic of the occasion below. I'm not in it, thank goodness.

The clock in my head

I have in my head something which is, I think, exclusive to people of Northern European ancestry: A clock.

It is a clock which has both conscious and unconscious components -- and even works in my sleep. For instance, I wake up most mornings pretty well on the dot of 7am -- Sometimes literally on the dot of 7am. These days I mostly just look blearily at the clock and turn over and go back to sleep but 7am was once my getting-up time and my subconscious still thinks it is.

Another interesting example was when I booked my car in for servicing with Dieter, an old friend who also is my mechanic: He keeps my cars on the road. Dieter is German (as the name implies) and I told him that I would bring the car over at "about" 8am. I of course arrived on the dot of 8am and there was Dieter waiting in the driveway with his arms folded -- waiting for me. We understood one-another. Neither of us are in fact in any ancestral way Prussian but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. And there was a second occasion quite recently, when I said to Dieter that I would bring the Humber over for servicing at "about" 9am. I of course arrived on the dot and, as I arrived, Dieter had just completed the preparations he needed to deal with the servicing concerned.

There are many examples of this unconscious clock (Could I make it work deliberately? Perhaps not) but the most recent example is quite eerie. These days I buy a lot of frozen dinners that just need 5 minutes in the microwave to produce a very acceptable dinner at the end of it.

So I put on the dinner in the microwave and set it for 5 minutes. I then leave the kitchen and return to my computer at the other end of the house. After a while on the computer, however, I feel that my frozen dinner should be just about cooked so I get up to go and check it. And as I walk towards the kitchen what I often hear is the last chirp of the microwave announcing the end of its program. In other words, I go and get my dinner at exactly the right SECOND!

Even I am amazed.

"Old fashioned"

The meaning of words is often well outside what you will find in a dictionary. For instance I once asked Jill about her very kind regular visits to her severely disabled and demented elderly ex-husband. I asked her did she take him up snakes and milk-bottles. She replied, No, but she did take him up snowballs.

That could have sounded like all three of us were pretty demented but in fact it was a perfectly sane enquiry on my part and Jill understood it immediately. Snakes, milk-bottles and snowballs are types of children's candy and we both knew that Brian liked them.

So I wonder a little what people meant when during my childhood adults regularly described me as "old fashioned". I always took it to mean that I seemed old beyond my years but I wonder now did they mean it literally? Were my ideas during my childhood even then of a past era? It's possible because I was a great reader of old books almost from the time that I first learned to read.

I will have to find someone in their late 80s or early 90s to tell me what they might have meant if they had in their younger years described some kid as "old-fashioned"

Update, 3 Sept. 2010

Another culture specific reference which would, I think, boggle non-Australian users of English is the word "vanity". I said to Geoff, my handyman, today: "I'll get you to pick up a new vanity from Bunnings for me" -- where Bunnings is a hardware store. What could I possibly have meant? Any Australian could tell you. A "vanity" is a cupboard and sink for a bathroom. The full usage is "vanity unit" and must have been a bit of marketing puff from way back when.

A marvellous muffin

I went out to Jill's place this morning (Friday) and went before I had had any breakfast -- as I usually have my breakfast lateish and planned to have it after I got back from Jill's.

Jill however very kindly gave me a cup of tea and a large fruit muffin -- and that was a remarkably filling muffin. I got home about noon and did not feel at all hungry. By about 2pm, however, I thought I should have something and ordered a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich at my usual coffee place.

And that sufficed. I had one of my usual TV dinners at about 6pm.

I was out at Jill's place again to raid her books. She is moving soon so wants to reduce her library. I mainly carried off Bible commentaries that once belonged to her late clergyman husband. I am rather a sucker for Bible commentareies as the background to Old Testament stories in particular is not always obvious.

Something I covet in that line is a copy of the Companion Bible. It was put out by the Oxford University Press way back when and is about the biggest book you have ever seen. I have only ever seen one copy of it. Maybe I will chase it up one day.

2019 update: I now have a copy of the Companion Bible. Printed offset on Bible paper in America

Some rambling reminiscences with a small point at the end

Most people don't seem to realize that mechanical ability correlates quite highly with general intelligence. A good motor mechanic will generally be pretty bright as a lot of mechanical work is pure problem solving.

So while I have always been good at academic tasks, I was also pretty good with my hands as a kid. If the family toaster or electric jug ceased working, I would be the one to sit down and fix it. And if a fuse blew I would fix that too.

And when I was about 13 the family moved into a house that had been occupied by my recently deceased grandfather -- with some of his possessions still in it -- including all the books that the family had got as kids for school and Sunday school prizes. I read them all from cover to cover of course and still remember something of their content.

Underneath the house, however, we also had lots of bits of junk, including parts of defunct bicycles. I found enough parts to put together a complete bicycle and even got some paint and painted it a fetching shade of maroon. At one stage my father used to borrow "my" bike to ride to work on.

And when my mother was in hospital giving birth to my brother, I took her up a newspaper she liked to read: "The Sunday Truth" -- light reading and something of a scandal sheet. Newspapers become all messed up as people read them, however, so when that newspaper arrived in the house, I punched two holes in its spine and used them to bind the newspaper together with a piece of light wire. So when she got the newspaper it was in perfect order. I remember that being greeted with surprised appreciation.

And I have always been interested in locks. Any house where I live always has all its door locks working, complete with keys. I can't specifically remember fixing locks in the parental home but think that I must have. I could never fix clocks, however. I just used to end up with a collection of parts.

With adulthood, however, I found more interesting things than working with my hands and to all appearances became a "typical academic", who left such tasks for others.

That had an amusing consequence once when I was living in a shared apartment at Bondi with two bright and attractive ladies. The deadlock on the apartment door developed problems, so after taking one look at me they decided to fix it themselves. As soon as they got the back off, however, a spring went SPROIINNGG!!!, as springs do, and they just had parts scattered everywhere and no idea what to do further.

At that stage I gathered up the parts, put the lock back together and soon had it working perfectly. There was a stunned silence when I did that. They had no idea that I had it in me. I later married one of the ladies concerned so maybe being good with locks has its advantages.

Now the point of all this is that my mother and father had a very conflicted relationship and, somehow related to that, my father was often rather hostile towards me. I inherited my mother's serene self-confidence, however, so it never bothered me.

I always attributed his hostility to his devotion to hard physical work. In his life that had always been the way to make money so the ability and inclination to work hard was something of a criterion of virtue to him. And with my bookish ways he could never see me as living up to his work ideals. On several occasions he said to me in disgust: "You'd never make a quid in a week". A quid was two dollars and was even then a small amount.

It is only recently, however, that another explanation for his hostility has occurred to me. My mother had what my father called a "caustic tongue" and she certainly used it in arguments with him. So I am almost sure that there would have been at least one occasion when she said to him: "John does all the work around the house. You do nothing". That was pretty true in its way but would of course have been very wounding -- and could well have contributed to his hostility towards me.

In later years, however, my father and I got on perfectly well. When he heard how much money I was making in my university teaching job, he considerably modified his ideas about work.

NOTE: I am slightly embarrassed by the fact that I still have a small reserve store of 19th century rimlocks. There are not many Victorian houses in Brisbane and I have stopped buying old houses anyway. So I will never use them. My present house has some Edwardian rimlocks but no Victorian ones.

I built up most of the stock when I was in Sydney as it was not uncommon there to find Victorian rimlocks that were completely broken or gutted so could only be replaced rather than repaired.

So if anyone comes by this blog who knows what a Victorian rimlock is and who needs one, it might well be to their advantage to contact me.

WPR revisited

I think it must have been in 1969 that I rented a terrace house in Wentworth Pk. Rd., Glebe, in Sydney. It had 3 bedrooms so I asked among friends to find people who might move in and share the cost with me.

I was referred to two young men with a love of cars, Henningham and Croucher by surname. We almost immediately adopted the practice of addressing and referring to one-another by surname only -- indicating that the friendship we formed was a jocular one.

We greatly enjoyed our times at "WPR", in part because we shared attitudes that were at least not incompatible, including a liking for the music of Leos Janacek and "The wonderful world of Barry McKenzie" by Barry Humphries -- a comic book, no less.

In fact, when I was first introduced to Henningham and Croucher, they gave me the McKenzie book to look at as a sort of test of cultural compatibility. They regarded it then (and I think still do) as the apogee of Australian humour. After I had been chuckling over it for ten minutes or more somebody said wonderingly: "He's still on the first page". So my credentials were firmly established.

One interest we did NOT share was an interest in sporty cars so my purchase of a humble Mazda 1300 was greatly derided. When a car-lovers' "Bible" (called "Wheels", I think) came out and named the Mazda 1300 as "car of the year", there was therefore great embarrassment. That issue was hidden from me and no mention was made of it until many years later.

We were there only for a year or so but we had lots of fun ribbing one-another and laughing at many things generally so we have kept in contact ever since.

And with the arrival of the internet we were able to create a "virtual" WPR, with frequent emails exchanged: almost entirely of a jocular or even nonsensical nature. We even have a sort of strange language that we use only between one-another.

We have rarely met again in the flesh, however. But today we did. Croucher is on sick leave from his university lecturing job in China so took the opportunity to visit friends and relatives in Brisbane.

We met for lunch at the Cafe San Marco at Southbank, a pleasant but rather expensive place to eat. And for about 3 hours we sat and traded a mixture of serious and jocular conversation. The conversation was very discursive so I doubt that any of us could remember much of it except that we enjoyed it just as we did in times past. We did talk a lot about philosophy and I was able to enlighten Henningham on why we have 7 days in the week but other details are already lost to me.

It was just as it was in the days of the original WPR. We amused one-another just as we have always done for 40 years on and off.

Update:

I am reminded that other topics discussed were Henry VIII, the extent to which complex philosophical theories can be reduced to a sentence or two and the relationship between the underground and the state-sponsored forms of the Catholic church in China -- so we can be serious too.