Handel and the Skeptics

On Saturday night Anne and I went to St John's Cathedral to hear Handel's Messiah. It was a bit early this year. It is usually in December. As usual, it was put on by the Bach Society. The Bach choir always puts out a good sound despite most of the members being fairly elderly and the soloists were excellent this year. I enjoyed every minute of it. I go to it most years. The photo below is one internal view of St. John's -- with the current architect, Michael Kennedy, in the foreground.



Anne and I had decided to wait until after the performance to have dinner but the performance went from 7.30 to 10.30 so a lot of restaurants had closed by the time we got to Southbank -- which is probably Brisbane's busiest restaurant precinct. We eventually found a Chinese that was open, however, and their food was excellent. I had Satay chicken.

On Monday night I gave a talk on global warming to a meeting of the Brisbane Skeptics. There were about 50 in the audience. There appeared to be a few who already were skeptical about global warming so I hope I added a few more of those attending to the ranks of the global warming skeptics. I think there were quite a few who went away still true-believers, however. Skepticism has its limits. My talk seemed generally well-received. I described environmentalism as a return to mankind's original religion of nature worship and said that global-warming belief is so counterfactual as to prove that environmentalism is a religion.

I did not prepare my talk. Even when I was a university lecturer with an auditorium of 1,000 students in front of me I never prepared anything either. I have always felt that if you have to prepare a lecture you don't know your subject well enough. And speaking extempore always engages the audience more. There is nothing more boring than having a lecture read to you. To speak well extempore you have to be the type to whom public speaking gives no jitters at all, however.

On Tuesday night, I went out to Anne's place for dinner and she cooked us some good roast turkey in her recently acquired Schlemmertopf. I stopped at the big bottleshop on the way over and found some South African pinotage which I grabbed. South African pinotage can be very good. This one was a Nederburg, however, and had too much tannin in the aftertaste. KWV does a better job.

Gruene Veltliner

I went out to Anne's place for dinner on Tuesday and stopped by at the big liquor barn near there. They have quite a few overseas wines in stock and among them I spotted some Gruene Veltliner (Domain Wachau). I knew at once that it was a well-known Austrian wine but had never tasted it so I bought a bottle.

We opened it for dinner and, much to my surprise, it was a dry wine -- much like an Australian Hunter valley Semillion or Riesling. I had expected it to be fruity -- as German wines are. The rules must be different in Germany and Austria. It was a pleasant drink, though.

The Darby and Mozart

Rather a good weekend just past. The biggest highlights: dining with Michael Darby and another Mozart concert.

Anne and I dined at the Stone's Corner Thai on Thursday evening and we were pleased to see that they have developed a good clientele. They make excellent food and people obviously come back when they discover that. I always have the Penang curry myself. When we first started going there they were pretty empty as they are in a rather out-of-the-way place but they were pretty busy there last Thursday.

On Friday morning we Humbered out to Wynnum and breakfasted at Pommes Teashop -- and heard that the Immigration Dept. is reconsidering its order for them to return to Britain -- which is hopeful news. We both had the English Breakfast, rather unoriginally.

On Saturday night Michael Darby was up from Sydney so Anne and I dined with him and a lady-friend at Ahmet's Turkish restaurant at Southbank. Michael seems to get larger every time I see him. Like me, he spends too much time sitting in front of a computer. True to form, Michael recited some Australian poetry for us -- from C.J. Dennis. He is very good at that. It was a delight to see him. He is such an original.

On Sunday Anne was singing in a choir that was doing an all-Mozart programme at a suburban church in Chermside so I went along. I was glad I did. The programme was a bit odd: The Vespers interspersed with operatic arias. That worked well though. The glorious arias from Figaro etc. brought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion.

In praise of Janacek

Leos Janacek is not everyone's cup of tea -- to put it mildly. He was a very innovative classical composer who has a following only among very musical people. Probably only a minority of even classical music fanciers like his work. But I and several of my friends DO like Janacek.

One of the unsung virtues of Janacek is that he has a powerful room-clearing effect. Years ago, when certain friends and I used to give parties, we would sometimes get sick of our guests and wish that they would go home. It is a not-unknown problem -- one for which many people find no easy solution. But Janacek is a solution! When we got tired of our guests, we just took the popular music off the stereo and put on Janacek. We would be alone in 5 minutes after that! People would even leave things behind in their desperation to escape Janacek!

I recently had reason to re-use the Janacek effect. Some young people moved into the house next door to me. And like most young people, they like popular music and they like it loud -- music which I do not like at all. I at first tried the polite thing and went next door asking them to keep the volume down. That did not work. So I deployed Janacek.

Now if they turn their music up I give them a few minutes of Janacek's Lachian dances. If that does not work, I bring out the heavy cannon -- the Janacek Sinfonietta -- with its very discordant-sounding opening fanfare on the brass. The first time I did that, they went out. They could not bear it. Now they just take the hint and turn their music off.





I guess I'm a mean old guy but what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If they can play their choice of music as loudly as they like, so can I. And I do.

I get a living room

Although I live in a large old traditional Queensland house with 9 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms I don't use all of it myself. I have lived in quite limited accommodation for most of my life so, although I like large houses, I don't really know what to do with them. Filling them with kids was great fun at one stage of my life but that period is now long gone. So I normally let out my unused bedrooms to overseas students -- mostly from India.

Even so, I have for my own use 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, dining room, library, anteroom and verandah. So I thought I was treating myself fairly well. Anne has however told me often that I also need a living room so I have just converted one of the larger bedrooms that had become vacant into a new living room.

It is a largish room of about 4 meters square with a big East-facing window that gets the morning sunlight so is basically quite pleasant. It did however have an old carpet down so I bit the bullet, ripped the carpet up and had the timber floor underneath sanded and coated. The floor needed a bit of rehabilitation before the sandman came but at least no boards needed replacing. Anne and I just had to get all the staples, tacks, nails etc. out. I have done that sort of work on floors often over the years so it was not intrinsically difficult but was a bit onerous for an old guy like me.

Anyway, the sandman came on Thursday and for $440 I now have a gleamingly beautiful timber floor of slash pine. They used good timber for floors in the old days when my house was built.

I am furnishing it a bit sparingly. I have bought a brown velvet futon (sofa-bed) to sit on and also have a good single TV chair. Other than that I intend to have in the room only a TV, a coffee table and a computer desk. I am also on the lookout for an attractive traditional oriental rug ("Persian carpet") for the floor but I may get a Belgian cotton (machine-made) version rather than a hand-woven one. It will depend on what I see that I like. The Belgian ones are so cheap that it is embarrassing so I think I will look first at the Asian ones.

Donizetti and the 39 articles

On Saturday afternoon, Anne and I saw a performance of "Lucia di Lammermoor" by Gaetano Donizetti -- an opera about Scotland written by an Italian! It was performed at the Lyric theatre here in Brisbane -- a beautifully designed large modern theatre that gives just about everyone in the audience a good view of the stage. We had seats in the first tier up.

The scenery was pretty invariant in the modern way and the costumes were a bit mixed. I was pleased to see that the clergyman wore advocates' tabs, as Presbyterian ministers do, but there was not a kilt in sight! Very strange for something set in the Highlands. The odd Tartan cloak or sash seemed to be the only recognition of Scottishness in dress.

There were of course only the four main performers but I was amazed that the cast of chorus/extras was so large. There must have been 50 people on stage at times. I thought I could see government subsidy somewhere there. No wonder opera is so expensive to produce!

I am not much of a fan of 19th century Italian opera (opera for me stops at Mozart) and I usually have a nap of an afternoon so that combination was not good. I had trouble staying awake -- for all the drama unfolding on stage! The plot is incredibly silly by modern standards but I guess it made sense in the time it was written.

It was Anne who particularly wanted us to go along so she enjoyed it, fortunately. I gather that she particularly wanted to see the famous "mad scene" performed. That scene is a major role for a soprano and Anne herself is a singer (soprano) so I can understand her interest.

The opera had a curious aftermath. Anne cooked us some excellent sausages for dinner afterwards and a big storm with lots of thunder and lightning got underway as she was washing up. That inspired her to start singing "How great thou art", because of its allusion to thunder:

O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made.
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power through-out the universe displayed.

That hymn is one of the most powerful evangelical hymns ever written and it is a tremendous favourite of mine so afterward we put on a CD of hymn tunes and sang along together! Anne referred to it as "Religious karaoke"! We are both unbelievers these days but share a Presbyterian background and we both love the old hymns. But following Donizetti by hymns had to be a bit eccentric! I enjoyed the hymns a lot more!

Curiously, although Anne does not appear to believe in God in any way, she still has Presbyterian beliefs. How come? She still believes that: "it was all meant to be". The Scottish churches are of course all originally Calvinist and even the 39 "Articles of Religion" of the Church of England accept predestination in a convoluted sort of way but you never hear that belief preached from any pulpit that I know of these days.

But what the preachers have forgotten, the people have not. The old belief is still passed down in families. I remember my own mother and Aunt Maude also telling me with great confidence: "It was all planned out before we were born, John". Yet neither Maude nor my mother were very religious in any obvious sense. I guess there is a religious instinct there -- and I have certainly inherited that. So I happily sing songs of praise to a God I don't believe in. I may be the only atheist in the world who keeps a Presbyterian hymn-book by the side of his bed!

Immigration nonsense

Anne and I made a very sad discovery on Friday morning. We Humbered out to Wynnum with a 3-tier English morning tea from the very English Pommes teashop in mind and discovered that they will be closing down soon. What a loss! They make the best sausage rolls in Brisbane as well as providing the fanciest morning tea.



Apparently, Australia's idiotic Immigration Dept. has said that the proprietors have to go back to England. The fact that they employ 7 people and provide a greatly appreciated service does not matter, apparently.

They have done nothing wrong. It is just that they do not fit into any category that the bureaucrats allow to settle here.

Queensland State parliamentarian Paul Lucas is appealing on their behalf so emails to him deploring this silly decision would be a great idea.

Australia allows lots of unemployable people from places like the Lebanon and the Sudan to settle here and live off the Australian taxpayer but hard-working English people who create jobs are sent home! Only a bureaucrat could makes sense of it.



On Saturday I was out at Wynnum again. My old sweetheart G. came over to take up my standing offer of a trip in my recently acquired 1963 Humber Super Snipe.





We had ham & salad bread rolls on the verandah first for brunch then drove out to Wynnum and got takeaway coffee there to have by the water. Both Anne and G. are very outdoorsy but the only bit of the outdoors in the Brisbane area that I like particularly is the seaside at Wynnum.





On Sunday, Anne and I went to church.



Ann St Presbyterian is our old church for both of us (some notes about it here and here) and we have a sentimental attachment to it so we do go along on rare occasions. The church was pretty full and there were quite a few young people in the congregation. I was a bit sad to see that ALL the young people were Asian, however. Ann St has a big Korean congegation with regular services in Korean but many of the young members of the Korean families have gone to school here and obviously feel more at home with the English services. I am pleased that they come but sad that the older British-based congegation is not being replaced too.

Mr Brown

I thought I might put up a photo of the most frequent visitor to my place. I am holding him below. He is a beautiful Burmese cat from next-door who seems to visit everyone in the street regularly.



Why would I call him "Mr. Brown"?

A musical weekend

My "weekend" started auspiciously when Anne brought over a piece of lamb on Thursday evening and made us a roast dinner. There's no roast as good as a roast straight from the oven to the table. We listened to the music of Purcell and Beethoven afterwards, including Beethoven's 6th., one of the few symphonies I put on often.

On Friday morning we had a very humble but still excellent breakfast -- meat pies. We got them from Muzza's at Coorparoo. Muzza is in my view the best pie cook in Brisbane, which is a bit ironical as he is a Kiwi. Australia is undoubtedly the world headquarters of meat pie eating so it is a bit surprising that it is a New Zealander who makes the best pies. His cakes are good too: Definitely sinful. He even has tiny mini-tarts for weight-watching ladies!

We took our pies to the Brisbane Corso (by the river) to eat, together with takeaway coffee. We found a shady nook there, overlooking the wide brown expanse of the Brisbane river. The birds that came to share our breakfast were a couple of magpies, rather unusually. We usually see either ibises or seagulls. We listened to a couple of the late symphonies of F.J. Haydn after breakfast.

On Friday evening we went to another classical music soiree at Bill's. Bill had dug out some excellent recordings for us and we started off most auspiciously with "Steppes of Central Asia" by Borodin. We also heard a Vivaldi cello concerto, which was new to me. It didn't sound much like Vivaldi but was good nonetheless. I went to sleep that night with "Steppes of Central Asia" playing in my brain -- a pretty good lullaby!

Saturday night was the night of G.F. Handel. There was a choral concert at St John's of the anthems originally played at the coronation of King George II -- with Handel's famous coronation anthems featuring prominently, of course -- though music from Purcell, Tallis and others was also heard. The grand music of Handel and the grandeur of a great stone cathedral were a good match. And, as a monarchist, I was pleased by the frequent cries of "God save the King". Being a bit of a hermit these days, I would not even have known the event was on but Anne grabs every opportunity to get me out of my hermit cave and music is the best lever for that. Anne is as social as I am reclusive. She is definitely a "lady who lunches".

On Sunday morning we Humbered down to the seaside at Wynnum and found a place that sold quite fancy takeaway food. We got takeaway chicken sandwiches, frittata and quiche which we ate in a picnic shelter by the water, followed by a walk along the esplanade. It was a good morning for a walk, being bright and sunny.

On Sunday evening we went to another meeting of our private live-music group. Hearing classical music live has a certain edge over recorded music but I have never quite figured out why. I got a clue from a Haydn cello concerto we heard, though. I was sitting only about 3 feet from the cello player and the cello sounded completely different from what one hears on recorded music -- much deeper, more resonant and dramatic. I thought I knew what cellos sounded like. I didn't!

The cello player was a young but very competent girl. Since Jacqueline du Pre, the cello seems to have become a female's instument. I will forbear from the usual jokes about that. The ladies do an excellent job and that is all that matters.

A 3-tier brunch

Anne and I Humbered out to my favourite seaside suburb -- Wynnum -- to have brunch this morning.

We went there to go to the English tea-house. It is run by a patriotic Englishman who has filled his cafe with memorabilia and photos of England. Last time we were there we noted that he was offering a traditional English morning tea served on a 3-tier cakestand like the one in the pic below. I had never had such a morning tea before but Anne had encountered them before in her travels -- at the Raffles in Singapore, for instance.



We chose Darjeeling tea, which was served in a pot! A change from the teabags that have now become the norm in Australia.

We ordered rather a lot of food so we got a first course of pastries before the cakestand arrived. That man sure knows how to cook pastries! There were the best mini sausage rolls I have tasted plus some excellent slices of pork pie, which I had with English mustard.

When the cakestand arrived it had sandwiches on top (cheese and ham), filled sponge-cake and a lemon meringe tart on the middle tier and scones (which Americans call "biscuits!) and jam ("jelly") on the bottom tier. And it was all served up in a most polite and helpful way by the proprietor -- who was obviously modelling himself on a traditional English butler.

We could not eat it all of course so waddled out of the shop with the leftovers in a box.

A long weekend

Anne and I had a more eventful weekend than usual last weekend.

It started out on Thursday night, when Anne and I went to the local Stones Corner Indian restaurant. I had Balti curry (my favourite) and Anne had Moglai curry. We also ordered two spinach and cheese naan, which were superb. We ordered two lots but could not finish it so we took the remainder home and polished it off later as a midnight snack.

On Friday morning we Humbered out to K& K's Austrian Konditterei at Sinnamon Park.



Anne has recently returned from a trip to Austria but finds that the food at K&Ks compares favourably with what is available in Wien ("Vienna"). I usually have the Bauern Groestl at K& Ks but I changed for once and had their big breakfast. It included some herbed sausage that was especially good. Before we left, we bought an Austrian teacake for later.

We took the teacake with us that night as a contribution to the supper at a classical music soiree we went to. This soiree was a bit humbler than some we go to in that the music was recorded rather than live but it was very good nevertheless. We heard an Italian group playing the popular Vivaldi Lute concerto that was quite inspired. Plus lots of other good stuff.

On Saturday morning we Humbered out to the seaside at Wynnum and visited an English teahouse for brunch. Anne had a ploughman's lunch and I had roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. I am something of a devotee of Yorkshire pudding but you have to get a good version of it. This version was OK. We went for a stroll along the esplanade afterward, which was pleasantly breezy.

On Sunday we attended a family gathering to celebrate Ken's birthday. It was held in a park beside the sea on the South Coast at Paradise Point. It is a very pleasant park. The gathering centred around a BBQ lunch. Anne and I brought along Cevapi for the BBQ, which went down well. I gave Ken a bottle of Tyrrell's Verdelho for a present. Ken and I of course had our usual long chat -- this time about abortion, guns and other serious stuff.

A much more active weekend than I usually have.

Joe Green and British cars

I had an unusually interesting weekend just past.

On Saturday afternoon, Anne rang and informed me that there was to be a performance of the Requiem by Joe Green (Giuseppe Verdi) at the metropolitical cathedral of St John here in Brisbane.





St John's is a magnificent Gothic revival church with soaring stone pillars and arches inside that give a brilliant sound to music performed there and it is in fact a popular concert venue when not being used for services. There is not much faith left in Anglican churches these days (about the only thing sacred to most western Anglicans these days seems to be homosexuality) but they sure own some magnificent buildings.

St John's is only 10 minutes drive from where I live so we went along to listen. I am not much into 19th century opera (opera for me stops at Mozart) and Verdi is of course an operatic composer so all I really know of his music is the famous arias. So I had never heard his Requiem before.

It turned out that St John's was a magnificent venue for it. It is the strangest Requiem you can imagine. There was nothing religious about it at all. The music was pure opera -- with lots of crashing and thundering and drama -- all of which came across splendidly in the vast stone cavern of St John's.

I enjoyed it but the contrast with the dignity and restraint of the Mozart requiem or the Brahms Deutsches Requiem was severe. Still, the most famous piece of religious music there is was written by an operatic composer -- Handel's Messiah -- so Verdi cannot really be criticized for his approach.

And on Sunday morning we went along to an "All British Day" -- a gathering of British made cars -- mostly old -- held in a local park. I of course drove my 1963 Humber Super Snipe and joined fellow owners of Rootes Group cars. Anne and I did however have quite a big wander around the many wonderful old cars that had emerged out of Brisbane garages for the occasion. There was a big old Jag and a Riley that I particularly admired but there were all sorts of rarities there. Most pleasing.

Father's day

Today was Father's Day in Australia and I was delighted that my 19 year-old son came over in the afternoon and joined me in a drive down to Wynnum (another Brisbane seaside suburb) in the Humber. Joe (my son) has now got very high marks in all three years of his university studies (in Mathematics) so I am of course very pleased to have such an academic son. And he has never given me a moment of worry about his personal life either. There is a picture of him here with his Asian girlfriend.

We bought takeaway coffee and cakes as soon as we got to Wynnum and sat down on the grass a few feet from the sea to eat, drink and chat. We had no sooner sat down than Joe spilt his coffee. I am myself a bit clumsy so it is no mystery where he got a bit of clumsiness from. He was apologetic about the spill but I gave him half of my coffee and remarked that he would probably learn from what he did. I pointed out to him that I give him thousands of dollars every birthday and Christmas precisely so he can make mistakes on the stockmarket and learn from them. I want him to have learnt investing by the time I die and he gets my money to manage.

We talked about politics and current affairs and I pointed out to him the number of fronts on which I am doing battle at the moment. Some of the things I mentioned to him were:

On my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog I am doing battle with the obesity warriors and trying to get the results of the longevity studies known -- which show that it is people of MIDDLING weight, not slim people, who live longest.

On "Dissecting Leftism" I try to demolish the great Leftist coverup of their prewar liking for Fascism and I also pointed out what a myth is the Marxist claim that Fascism was "bourgeois" by referring to a scholarly study which shows that it was WORKING class people, not middle class people, who were over-represented in the Sturm Abteilung (Brownshirts).

I also mentioned to him a couple of things that I have publicized on my Scripture blog -- in particular that Christ plainly did NOT die on a cross but on a single upright stake. The words in the Greek New Testament that are usually translated as "cross" are "Xylon" -- which is simply the ancient Greek word for "wood" -- or "stavros" -- which is simply the ancient Greek word for "stake".

I did however advise him to keep out of all politics at university as it would be bad for his career. So we in fact spent most time reading poetry together. I read him poems by Keats, Coleridge, Blake, Burns, Fitzgerald, Hopkins etc which I myself had mostly read at school but which he had never heard of. Schools these days have robbed our kids of their literary heritage but I am doing my best to see that my son is not robbed in that way.

Life in a backwater

Anne and I got into my 1963 Humber Super Snipe this morning and motored down to the seaside for brunch. We took sandwiches with us and got takeaway coffee from a cafe close to our destination. When we got there, the park had a few people wandering around but the picnic shelter where we sat down was uninhabited. So we sat there in perfect peace and quiet and had our brunch looking out to sea across Moreton Bay. And there were no "minorities" to trouble us.



The English used to "motor" down to salubrious places once too but from what I hear these days, all that they now do is crawl along in traffic jams. I encountered no traffic jams or holdups at all and we drove through some quite nice green countryside on the way -- so if any English person had been with us it would have seemed to them like a trip back in time.

We did stop at a liquor barn on the way to pick up some choice Tokay. The liquer Tokay that Australian vintners produce is lightyears ahead of the rough red that Hungarian vintners make out of the same grape. Australian liquer Muscat is remarkably good too -- so, if you are a drinker of fortified wines, scrap the Port and go for Australian Muscats and Tokays. It will be a definite step up.

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of Anne and I meeting so we are going to celebrate by going to the smorgasbord at the Hilton. The Brisbane Hilton does an impeccable smorgasbord with lots of seafood -- of which Australians are usually very fond. They seem to do the best Sydney rock oysters in town -- large and succulent. If you have never eaten raw Sydney rock oysters, you haven't lived. I know of no other oyster remotely as good.

It is so nice not to live in a "vibrant" place.

A good student

Is an academic father entitled to be pleased that he has an academic son? Well, I am. The recent doc below pleases me greatly therefore.

Soiree thoughts

For all the frantic hate that the Islamists are directing at Western civilization, what they have managed so far is really no more than a fleabite on the vast body of that civilization. The number of us that they have managed to kill pales into insignificance compared with the road toll, for instance. And that is why we have so far tolerated them. We know that they do not seriously threaten us -- at least so far. So for 99% of us life goes on in its accustomed way.

I was moved to that reflection by my own experiences last night. I went to a classical music soiree in a private home here in Brisbane. Being a Sunday night, the roads had very little traffic on them so I zipped from my place to the venue in my little Toyota Echo in about 15 minutes. No Muslims were encountered on the way!

Unusually for me, I was a bit late, so as I walked up the stairs to the house I could hear the marvellously elaborate, ordered and complex music of one of Bach's Brandenburg concertos, which was a great environment to walk into. It was being played by a string quartet of young people but most of the audience were on the elderly side. After the Bach came a movement from one of Beethoven's string quartets -- which sounded quite chaotic after the ordered majesty of Bach. Then we had some songs and arias, mostly sung in the original Italian. Then there was some excellent piano and solo violin music, including more Bach.

I was pleased that the songs were in Italian. Italian was one of my matriculation languages and I have always thought it to be a particularly beautiful language. Translations of Italian songs certainly lose something. Fortunately, I know something of both main languages of music (German and Italian) so I can appreciate singing in both languages without too much trouble. Italians find Germans very alarming but, perhaps partly because I am a member of the world's dominant Volk, I happily get on with both Italians and Germans. Neither bother me and both have valuable strengths.

Although the audience at the concert was wholly Anglo, both the Han and the Ashkenazim were represented among the musicians -- as one expects at a classical concert in Australia these days. Both the Jewish violinist and the Chinese pianist were exceedingly competent -- again as one expects. Both Han people and the Ashkenazim fit effortlessly into Anglo civilization and tend to raise the level of it in so doing. If only we could replace every ten Muslims by one Chinaman, the world would be a vastly better place.

So life went on for me in its normal pleasant way, as it did for 99% of Westerners. People did of course talk about the sadly twisted Muslims but they had no impact other than that. If the Muslims ever do succeed in making a serious nuisance of themselves to large numbers of us, though, I am confident that they will be dealt with effectively. If we all felt really threatened by them, their end would be swift.

Two follies

Despite being midwinter, it is a beautiful day in Brisbane today: A cloudless blue sky, no wind and a temperature of something like 80 degrees in the old money. I could not stay indoors on a day like this so I got the Humber Super Snipe out of the garage and took a drive down to Wynnum -- a Brisbane bayside suburb. I went for a walk along the esplanade and bought a take-away coffee and cake to enjoy as I sat in the shade looking out to sea.

As I was sitting there, I was thinking about a report on the great difficulties that the U.S. immigration authorities put in the way of many LEGAL immigrants to the USA. It seems that the U.S. authorities go to as great length in avoiding their duties with legal immigrants as they do with illegal immigrants. They make it as hard for legal immigrants as they make it easy for illegal immigrants -- which is the exact reverse of what any sane person would want.

So the first thought that occurred to me was how heedless of all experience you have to be to think that governments can do anything well. As a libertarian, I would think that of course.

My second thought was about the people specifically highlighted in the article. They belong to the group that many people here believe runs America. If they run America, how come the American authorities give them such a hard time?

It seems to me that the influence Jews have in America is proportional to their intellectual clout -- no more and no less. And I am proud to belong to the Volk that gives them such influence. Voelker differ in wisdom as in other things and I think that the long term has shown my Volk to be unusually wise. And part of that wisdom is to tolerate the Judeophobic nonsense one often reads.

My 63rd Birthday bash at "A Night in India"

Here I am in all my faded glory -- with Anne:





Old friend George emerged from his hermit cave to help us celebrate:





My feisty stepson Paul with his accomplished and gorgeous wife:





Gorgeous stepdaughter Yvonne with husband




Gorgeous stepdaughter Susan with Nanna




Kenneth is always interesting to talk to






Ex-wife Jenny and Merlie




Son Joe with girlfriend Sam

TWO lots of Asian eyes??





Below is what I wrote about the occasion on Monday 17th. July, 2006:

Unlike a lot of bloggers, I don't write routinely about my personal life but occasionally I do break out and I thought that a birthday is a reasonable occasion to do so. So here comes a very rambling account of my 63rd birthday celebrations on the weekend just past.

The first birthday-related activity was when Jill -- one of the lovely ladies in my now rather distant past -- gave Anne and me a very fine lunch at her place. I drove my recently-acquired 1963 Humber Super Snipe to the lunch and Jill loved it. She did herself live in England in the 60s and at that time drove both a Hillman and a Bentley so she has a soft spot for old English cars.



I kept the Humber out of the garage when we got back from Jill's in order for Anne and me to take it out out that night as well. That night, we drove in it down to Wynnum, which is a seaside area of Brisbane. We had fish and chips on the esplanade, overlooking Moreton Bay, which was very pleasant, despite a rather cold wind. I know a place at Wynnum that does good fish and chips -- which any Englishman or Australian will tell you is important knowledge to have about where you live.

On Sunday morning, my ex-wife Jenny gave Anne and me brunch, with many good things to eat. My son Joe and his Thai girlfriend also attended. It was only a small occasion as the big family gathering was that night.

On Sunday night I hosted a dinner at a local Indian restaurant for "family" -- with "family" being rather loosely defined. There were 18 of us. The family concerned is unusually cohesive by Anglo-Saxon standards and gets together with considerable frequency for various occasions -- particularly birthdays, "visitors from England" etc., so it was certainly my turn to host something. We have a family "Christmas in July" coming up very soon -- an idea which makes sense only to English people living in Australia who have this odd notion that Christmas should happen in midwinter.

An Australian Christmas is of course in midsummer. My earliest memories of Christmas include seeing heatwaves rise like worms off hot bitumen roads -- in the tropics where I was brought up. That must be pretty incomprehensible to most of my readers, I am sure. It is sort of amazing that people could adapt to such extreme heat but the tropical-adapted population from which I come think nothing of it. We are definitely "white niggers" -- white people who are as at ease in the tropics as any black man -- though we get a lot more skin-cancer than black men do.

Anyway, as usual, the Indian food was good and we all enjoyed the occasion. In good traditional Australian/British style, the men mostly talked to the men and the women to the women but Anne is a great communicator so she talked to the men a fair bit as well. I am a rather silent type in person so I am always happy to have a lady in my life to do the talking. The late Hans Eysenck was the same. He wrote so much that he was at one time the world's most cited living psychologist but on social occasions it was his wife Sybil who did most of the talking.

So despite what may seem like some oddities, I greatly enjoyed my two days of birthday celebrations. I even managed to fit in more blogging than I thought I would. You can't keep a keen blogger down!

Cars in my life

I have always been a demon driver. People who get into my car often emerge shaking. So I buy very small cars -- which enable me to flash through traffic down lanes that are not supposed to be there. I remember one occasion when I upset some guy in a big Ford without being aware of it and he decided to chase me to remonstrate with me. I was just driving in my normal way but it still stretched him to chase me. By the time he caught up with me he was too exhausted to say much to me. If I had been aware of him chasing me, he would never have caught up.

But the cars I drive are not powerful ones. Not at all ones that rev-heads like The Good Blair would approve of. My first car was a VW and those since have always been small and humble too. Though I did at one stage have a Mini K -- which was an Australian version of the Morris Mini Minor but with an 1100cc motor in it -- and did that thing go! There is NO car that is as much fun to drive as a Mini.

At the beginning of 2005, I had two cars -- a 1991 Ford Festiva (really a Korean-made Kia) and a 1995 Daihatsu Charade.


Daihatsu Charade

The Festiva was as near as I had come to a Mini in terms of fun to drive. It was a real Go-Kart. But my son Joe was just starting university so I gave him the choice of which car he wanted to drive and he chose the Festiva. It was a VERY old car as small cars go, however, so at the beginning of this year the motor blew up and I reluctantly gave it away and gave Joe the Daihatsu instead.

I then bought a one-year-old ex-hire Toyota Echo off Hertz for myself.


Echo

I had always thought that my Daihatsu was the easiest car to drive ever made but the Echo was even easier. If you see them being driven around the place they are almost always flying and that is because they are such a Swiss-watch of a car. They feel like a single thing to drive rather than a mechanical device.

But that was not enough. I have always wanted a really old car as well, and now that age has slowed me down I thought it was time. Vintage cars are of course wonderful but you virtually need to be a mechanic to keep them going so I have compromised on a veteran car -- and not such a veteran one at that. I have just bought a 1963 Humber Super Snipe off a family who had been driving it since new. It is a big old English car and, as such, bound to need lots of work to keep it going but I have a mechanic friend living just over the road so I think I can afford it! I remember that when they were new the Humbers were being advertised as being able to cruise on the open road at 100 mph but I am not going to try that. I am sure it would blow up if I tried it at this stage in its life.

The difference in handling of the two cars is of course enormous but I used to be a cab-driver many years ago so I am not bothered by big clumsy cars. The style of the Humber makes up for all else, in my view, particularly as the car has been very well-maintained and looks immaculate.

Collecting the Humber yesterday morning was rather fun. Everybody who heard about the impending purchase was enthusiastic and none more than an old friend who was born and bred in Coventry, England, where the Humber was built. The first car he ever drove was a Humber so he couldn't wait to see my Humber and came along with me to collect it. And my stepson Paul was equally enthusiastic. He and his wife drove us out to collect it and both were delighted by the car.

When we got the car home, we all had steak pies, teacake and tea on my verandah to celebrate.

I have posted some photos of the Humber here

The Queen’s birthday

Seeing I am a monarchist, I am delighted by the following



LONDON: British soldiers in bearskin hats marched before Queen Elizabeth II and military jets saluted her with a flypast over Buckingham Palace on Saturday during a second round of 80th birthday celebrations. And for the first time in the Queen’s reign, troops assembled in the palace forecourt gave the feu de joie (fire of joy), a traditional military salute consisting of a series of volleys of shots interspersed with snatches of the national anthem. Thousands of well-wishers—many waving small Union Jack flags—yelled “happy birthday” to the Queen, who waved back with a white-gloved hand.

Elizabeth, wearing a deep purple coat and hat, rode down the Mall near the palace in an ivory carriage, built for Queen Victoria in 1842, for a morning of pageantry at the Horseguards Parade ground in central London. Mounted members of the Household Cavalry wearing golden armour rode before her.

Later, 49 aircraft—led by Spitfires, Hurricanes and a Lancaster bomber commemorating the World War II Battle of Britain—flew by as she and her family watched from a balcony at the palace. The Trooping of the Colour parade marks the Queen’s official birthday every June. She was born on April 21, but the official, outdoor celebration comes two months later, when the chance of warm weather is better.”

Sunday Night with "Don Giovanni"

A small memoir of a pleasant evening last Sunday (28th. May):

Even in quiet little old Brisbane, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart is a big deal -- with many concerts in celebration being put on. The latest one that I attended -- last Sunday -- was a concert performance of the famous opera "Don Giovanni".

Anne and I went with another couple, Jill and Lewis. Jill is actually an ex-girlfriend of mine but in my usual way I have kept in touch with her. We have a very similar love of music -- which is a very significant bond. Both Anne and Lewis put up with that past with good grace as they understand the nature of the bond.

Before the concert I made a simple dinner of sandwiches for us all -- thick-cut Gypsy ham with American mustard, lettuce and tomato -- on fresh grain bread. Being a sandwich-lover, I know how to make a good sandwich -- though that is about the limit of my culinary talents. We had planned to have the sandwiches in the park adjoining the concert venue but the weather looked a bit overcast so we had them on my verandah

As a concert performance, the sets for the opera were minimal but the costumes were reasonable and the singing was good. As always, I particularly liked the bass singer (Don Pedro), who was very competent.

It did however have the casting problem that plagues all opera: Singers wildly out of character but chosen for their voices -- as it has to be, of course. On this occasion, Don Giovanni was a quite insignificant guy and not at all convincing as a great lover -- but he had an excellent baritone. And in an amusing reversal, instead of large and aging ladies being cast as young girls, we had a young girl cast as an older woman!

The concert was in one of Brisbane's old powerhouses, converted some years ago into a performing arts centre now that Brisbane gets its electricity from vast generators situated alongside equally vast central Queensland coalfields. The conversion into an arts centre deliberately retained a fair bit of the original powerhouse interior. The idea of that was undoubtedly "arty" but it works well enough and I of course am very much in favour of retaining reminders of how we all got to where we are today.

The most surprising thing about the night was the audience. Far from being geriatric, there were people there of all ages, with a good representation of young people. I like to think that we have the universal appeal of Mozart to thank for that.