Red hair and another seder recollection

A VERY late arrival (about halfway through the seder) at my table was what I took to be a mother/son couple. The son was a serious but polite young man who arrived wearing what the Scots would call "trews": pants with a sort of loud tartan check in them. I gather that he was a rock musician of some sort (I know nothing about popular music. I am a Bach man). I am searching for the right word to describe the impression I got of him: "Eccentric" comes close but only in a way that is in my experience rather to be expected of pop musicians. I was for a time involved in selling music computers (Atari STs) so I got to see a lot of pop musicians at that time. And they do rather seem to live in a world not much influenced by convention.

He had VERY red hair which he wore VERY long -- and a short red beard to go with it. And his skin was VERY fair -- the sort of light-red colour that I recollect my father as having. My father was also a redhead. So how was this unusual person greeted by those present? He was greeted with great affection by many people. They had obviously known him for some time and loved him for the individual that he is.

I was greatly impressed by that. I too value individuality greatly and tend to find eccentrics most interesting. And I am MOST biased in favour of red hair. My first girlfriend was a redhead; The first lady I lived with was a redhead and two of the four ladies I married were redheads. And it gives me great joy to see redheaded children -- which I often do in the places that I frequent. I am most pleased with my son the mathematician (Yiddisher Mommas stereotypically like to refer to "My son the doctor" but I have a feeling that "My son the mathematician" trumps that) but there is a tiny twinge of regret that he is a blond rather than a redhead. There is red hair on his mother's side as well as on mine so it could have been.... I don't really know why I am mentioning these things but why not?

ANZAC DAY

Just a few notes for any overseas readers

Australia's main national day today, when we remember members of our families who died in the many wars where Australian troops have lent a hand to other people far away across the sea. And in one case -- the war with Japan -- we were actually threatened ourselves.

In WWII, the Japanese were stopped in their advance through New Guinea towards Australia by the CMF -- the "weekend warriors" of whom I was myself once a part. There are few weekend warriors any more. I myself served full-time for part of my enlistment and half of the American army in Iraq is made up of reservists. The CMF is now referred to simply as the "Reserves".

Commemoration of Anzac day traditionally includes attendance at an interdenominational "Dawn service" -- held at dawn to commemorate the time when the original Anzacs landed at Gallipoli. After that there is a huge march through the city featuring "ex-diggers" (former members of the military) and their relatives. It is a long time since I have attended the service or watched the march but my heart nonetheless goes out to the families who have lost loved-ones. Perhaps fortunately, the relatives I lost were distant ones whom I never knew personally.

But this evening I will do one very Australian thing: I will attend a family BBQ to celebrate a birthday. The picture above is from Brisbane's shrine of remembrance. It is most pleasing to note that the commemoration seems to get bigger every year -- with many young people involved.

Pesach seder (Passover celebration)

I went to my first seder last night. It was with a local Conservative congregation so there was lots of Hebrew chanted and sung -- and we used an Orthodox haggadah (order of service). I enjoyed it. It was a relaxed and happy occasion, as it should be. We even had some very pleasant Israelis present.

The haggadah was read out loud by various people during the seder and it was mostly read in English. During the reading I was at one stage called on without warning to read a paragraph, which I was of course delighted to do and immediately did. I actually took an active part in the seder rather than being a total visitor. It is lucky I was following what was being read, though!

Will I attend another seder one day? Perhaps. I am not religious so that is a counterindication. But I enjoy Biblical exegesis (rigorous interpretation) so if an opportunity came up to attend one in very scholarly company I would be keen. I have only a Christian knowledge of the Torah so I would appreciate a deeper discussion of it. But there are no Yeshivot (Jewish Bible schools) in Brisbane so I am not holding my breath.

I would be particularly interested in an exegesis of Exodus 12: 43-49. On the face of it, the Lubavitchers have got it right and the seder should be restricted to Jews only. But, as with all good law, there is a loophole: verse 48. I would fail the loophole myself but there other cases where defining the exception would be interesting.

I think that I should in closing express my great appreciation of the inimitable Garek Fish, who led the Beit Knesset Shalom congregation through the seder ceremonies with thoroughly admirable gusto.

A note about the shul (synogogue) that I went to: Like Christianity, Judaism is very fractious, with all sorts of sects. Beit Knesset Shalom is nominally a Progressive shul but is apparently at the most conservative end of that definition. They had a breakaway or threatened breakaway a little while back from a group of members who thought they were not progressive enough.

Interesting that the usual word used for a synagogue is "shul", which really means "school". It is a small hint of the intellectual orientation of Judaism.

Seder attendance arranged

I have long had a considerable correspondence with Jewish readers of my various blogs so I was quietly confident that my Jewish readers would do what they could to facilitate my wish to attend a seder. And that is why I reported online my difficulties with the local Lubavitchers. I have no quarrel with the chabad movement at all and wish all Lubavitchers well but their rules did prevent me from fulfilling my wish to attend a highly traditional seder with them. I am in fact rather glad to find a religious group that resists secularization of its rules.

One of my Jewish readers even went to the extent of emailing the Brisbane chabad leader and arguing my case with him. But that did not work of course. Another reader suggested some local reform congregations that might be more accomodating and I have now been accepted as a guest by the Beit Knesset Shalom congregation on 19th. I am of course completely delighted.

An amusing footnote, though. The congregation concerned has a seder for Ashkenazim ("Western" Jews) on 19th and a seder for Sephardim on 20th. It is only the seder for Ashkenazim that is open to non-Jews.

A busy weekend

On Saturday night, Anne and I were invited to dinner by my stepson Paul and his wife. Ever since he was a kid, Paul and I have always enjoyed a chat -- and dinner is a good occasion for it, of course. Paul is rather serious-minded and thinks a lot about the best way to live and behave so the fact that he has a psychologist for a stepfather is a useful coincidence. He always seems to find my viewpoint interesting, anyway. He can see that life has gone well for me so likes to draw what lessons he can from that.

Paul has very good memories of when he was a child living in my house. And he showed that by remarking that he would like to buy the house that we lived in at that time. It is a rather magnificent 6-bedroom "Old Queenslander" (traditional Brisbane timber house) with two large iron-lace verandahs -- so that is an understandable aspiration. The house I live in now is bigger but not quite as traditional.

Sue is a great cook so we had a feast. She served her own home-made calzoni as an entree followed by a sumptuous lasagna. She must have been in an Italian mood. And we had a very rich chocolate cake to follow.

Throughout the dinner we had the music of Philip Glass booming out -- which Paul and I both particularly like. I hope the neighbours liked it too!

And on Sunday we had another meeting of our Westside music group. Particularly notable was a Rachmaninoff piano and violin concerto. The third movement in particular had everyone transfixed. The violinist was a young guy who I believe was Jewish -- another brilliant Jewish violinist! Anne and I drove out to the Pullenvale venue in the Humber, which to my simple mind added to the occasion.

Passover Seder on 19th

As a non-Jew and an atheist, I have never attended a pesach seder but I have great respect for Judaism (note the flag that I fly on all my blogs) so I thought that I would like to attend one. The local Lubavitchers do advertise a seder so I thought I might go to that one. Alas! They are of course very strict so, even though I explained that I knew something of the teachings of their Rebbe, their person in charge told me as politely as he could that it was for Jews only.

He got a bit incoherent when I pointed out that the Rebbe preached love but that did not sway him, of course. As the Lubavitchers are very fundamentalist, I think we might perhaps conclude that we see the basic difference between Jewish love and Christian love there. Jewish love is for Jews and Christian love is for all mankind. Exclusivity is a feature of many religions so I support their right to be exclusive but I don't think it is wise -- as I have pointed out at some length elsewhere

There are not many Jews in Brisbane so I think I have now missed any chance of attending a seder this year.

Although I have been an atheist for all of my adult life, I did of course grow up into a Christian milieu -- with its characteristic devotion to outreach and proselytization -- so the attitude of the Lubavitchers was rather shocking to me. Nonetheless I should not have been shocked. There were gnostic sects of Christianity in the distant past and there are some survivals of that into modern times (Masons, Exclusive Brethren etc.).

But anyway, I think I may renew my contact with my Christian roots this Sunday by going to a service at my old church -- Ann St Presbyterian. Just the smell of old French-polished wood will make me feel good as I walk in there -- and the handshakes at the door won't hurt a bit either.

Cumberland sausage

Anne cooked us up a Cumberland sausage for our dinner last night -- which we washed down with a bottle of Australian red. As you can see above, a Cumberland sausage is a rather large item: One sausage is dinner for two. I vaguely remember having a Cumberland sausage in a restaurant in London over 30 years ago but I had forgotten what I thought of it. Being a sausage enthusiast, however, I was keen to refresh my memory.

The one we got for last night was from Sid, the brilliant British butcher from whom we also get our haggis. Sid's shop is in an out-of-the way place just South of Brisbane but he has lot of customers who know quality when they come across it and are prepared to go that extra mile to get it.

I was very pleased with how the dinner turned out. The sausage definitely had a different texture to the usual sausage. A Cumberland sausage is supposed to be at least 80% meat (pork) and with no colouring or preservatives added. There are of course various recipes for it but Sid's recipe was, as expected, excellent. We had the sausage with a salad, though I gather that peas and fried onions would have been more traditional.

Some photos from Easter Sunday

25 March, 2008

Some photos from Easter Sunday

Courtesy of Paul's wife Sue. At least SOMEONE brought a camera this time!


Jenny, mother of the three below. I don't know where Joe was. He must have been hiding.




Paul in his tennis shirt




Suzie looking more prim and less blonde than she really is




Vonnie in her pretty blouse

A good Easter Sunday

This year, Easter Sunday coincided closely with two family birthdays (of Paul and Russell) so we had a big bash to celebrate both birthdays and Easter together. There was no church involved however as there are no religious people in the family -- a common thing in Australia.

We had the do at Paul's place -- which is a large house in a quiet suburb with both a tennis court and a swimming pool. The pool was not used but the tennis court was. It was a lunch with the food impressively catered by Paul's wife Sue, assisted significantly by the twinny Suzie. The weather was warm and sunny -- very different from England's Easter -- so we mostly sat outdoors under a big sunshade. We had a visitor from England present who must have been very glad he was here and not there. They are having a very cold and wet winter over there at the moment -- all due to "global warming" supposedly.

I had a talk with both Paul and his twin sisters, Suzie and Vonnie, about babies -- making clear that it was about time they had some. The girls will be turning thirty next month. The girls were onboard with what I said but Paul was not at all keen. Anyway, I was glad I raised it as I now feel that I have done my duty in pointing them to where wise priorities lie.

I spent a lot of time talking to my son Joe too. We talked mainly about things that were rejected in their day but which became accepted later. The great example of that for me is that the composer of the most popular opera of all time -- "Carmen" -- died thinking his opera was a flop. Poor old George Bizet!

One of the kids present had dental bands on his teeth and that inspired me to mention to Joe the "grills" that young American blacks often wear. Blacks saw that rich white kids often had orthodontic bands on their teeth but almost never had them themselves. So they started wearing a blinged-up version of dental bands as a sign of high style. When I had told Joe about the phenomenon his comment on it sounded just like the sort of thing that I would say. He had himself had orthodontic treatment at the appropriate age so the idea of someone voluntarily putting ironmongery in his mouth did not impress him.

I also mentioned something he had not known: That when there was a literacy and numeracy test done on all the kids at his primary school some years back, the highest literacy scorer was not -- as one would expect -- a 7th grader but rather a pesky little 5th grader. And the pesky little 5th grader concerned was Joe. He seemed a bit embarrassed to hear that. But, like me, he is good at academic things.

I used the word "bling" above, which shows how often I read American websites. It is quite a recent term and originated among American blacks. It refers to any shiny personal decoration, such as the ostentatious and extensive jewelery worn by many American blacks on social occasions. "Grills" are usually shiny and can have gemstones of some sort set into them.

An interesting Good Friday

Although I am no longer a believer, I greatly appreciate the Protestant Christian traditions into which I grew up and which formed a big part of my teenage years. So I still like to honour the holiest days of the year -- Easter and Christmas -- by going to church.

In recent years I have oscillated between going to the Cathedral (Anglican) and my old church (Ann St Presbyterian). I feel very comfortable at Ann St but the Cathedral has magnificence going for it. As well as for services I also go to the Cathdral (St. John's) for classical concerts two or three times a year so it too has become a very familiar place to me.

This year, however, the Easter services at both were a bit pesky. Ann St had moved their service from 9am to 8am and the Cathedral service was at noon: Too early and too late for me. So Ann and I decided to go to the local Lutheran, which had a 9am service.



I had never been to a Lutheran service so I was slightly surprised to find that it was a little "high": Rather like an Anglican service. The first intimation of that was that the pulpit was off to the side and the altar was central. And the organ was in a loft at the back. The more common Protestant configuration is for the pulpit to be central with the organ behind it -- expressing the twin importance of the word and of music. And the Lutheran minister was dressed in a long white robe! And the service included a lot of responses: Almost unknown in Presbyterian churches.

Another thing I noted was how well organized the Communion was. People went forward and left in batches and each batch got a little address from the minister as well as the tokens. The usher who organized the batches did so without a word being uttered: Just a bit of eye contact, nods etc. It was rather a good demonstration of how much culture we share that he was able to do it all in silence.

And it was very pleasing to see that the congregation was not all elderly. There quite a few young families with their children. Even some little blondie babies! That the minister is also young may have something to do with that.

I was slightly disappointed that we had only three hymns but the ones we had were good and appropriate. We had, as usual, "There is a green hill far away". That hymn always moves me by its simple faith and devotion. But memories of it go back to my childhood so maybe sentimentality has something to do with that.

There is a green hill far away,
outside a city wall,
where our dear Lord was crucified
who died to save us all.

We may not know, we cannot tell,
what pains he had to bear,
but we believe it was for us
he hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiven,
he died to make us good,
that we might go at last to heaven,
saved by his precious blood.

There was no other good enough
to pay the price of sin,
he only could unlock the gate
of heaven and let us in.

O dearly, dearly has he loved!
And we must love him too,
and trust in his redeeming blood,
and try his works to do.

But there were three things that quite amazed me: There was no collection and the minister did not attend at the front of the church to shake hands with the congregation as they were leaving. And we sang the hymns sitting down! Is there no end to novelty?

Anne was quite pleased with the service. She still seems to have some residual beliefs. She seems to have the old Calvinist belief that "It was all planned out before we were born". I remember my mother and my aunties saying the same. It is a perfectly scriptural belief (Ephesians 1:5-12) and is even honoured (Article 17) in the 39 "Articles of Religion" of the C of E -- albeit in a cagey sort of a way. One does not hear that belief preached in the pulpits these days but it lives on in the families and among the people. It seems to be a comforting belief but I myself have never subscribed to it at any time.

A shared cultural background is quite an important thing. Anne and I have it in spades. For instance, not only is her background mainly Presbyterian but she and I are former regulars at exactly the same Presbyterian church -- Ann St., Brisbane:



So, although I have never been even slightly impressed by Calvinist predestination doctrine, it is nonetheless part of my background from childhood on and Anne's attachment to that thinking is therefore a positive rather than a negative for me. It feels familiar and "at home". Though I do tend to be a little amused by it. But I was amused when my mother said it too.

A big family dinner last night

I am a member of long standing in a family that is a family only in a rather loose sense. Everybody in it is related to someone else in it but not to everyone in it -- if that makes sense. Even that summary is a bit inadequate as we would tend to regard George as part of the family even though he is not related to anyone in it! Anyway we often get together and always enjoy doing so -- and have done so for many years. Some of the "kids" in the family are now in their late 20s and early 30s!

And I think we found last night how many people are in the family these days: 22. That is how many turned up last night. The occasion was a sendoff for Simon: an airforce member of the family who is being deployed to the Gulf this week as part of the Iraq/Afghanistan hostilities. I am actually no real kin to Simon at all but he and I have always got on well at various past family gatherings so I was delighted to have the privilege of hosting his sendoff. Having some military background myself, I was the first to appreciate that his deployment was a significant occasion that should be appropriately marked.

I invited everyone to dine at my expense at my local Indian restaurant -- which is first class. I can host only a few people at my own house and the Indians are such good cooks that it would be hard to imagine better food anyway. As is often the case, I spent much of the time at table talking to my son Joe and stepson Paul. I sat at the head of the table and had the two young men on either side of me. The three of us get on very well. Anne sat with the ladies at the other end of the table.

My stepson Paul was bemoaning the fact that he had lost $100,00 on the stockmarket over the last month or so. I assured him that I had lost $300,000 and I wasn't worrying so I think that helped him a bit. Joe said that he is just not looking at the market these days -- which is reasonable. It is just a waiting game for wise investors at this stage. Only fools sell during a downturn -- but there always seem to be plenty of them. I have BOUGHT a couple of small parcels, myself.

Joe has been eating good Indian food for most of his life, off and on, as his mother Jenny is an excellent cook who does even the most complicated Indian dishes well. So my local Indian restaurant is also Joe's favourite restaurant. Somewhere along the line he has picked up a taste for lassi -- so he always orders that for a drink -- rather to the bemusement of other Anglo-Saxons present.

Ken (Paul's father) also joined "the men" at my end of the table, as he usually does. He and Paul disagreed about just about everything during the course of the evening, as they usually do, but it made for a lively discussion. I get on very well with both Paul and his father, myself. Paul and Ken work together in their computer business so their constant wrangling doesn't seem to do any harm. There is zero animosity between them and lots of trust. They just can never convince one-another of anything!

Speeches were mercifully short. At the beginning I spoke for about two minutes leading up to a toast to Simon and later on Simon spoke with similar merciful brevity. He will be away for 6 months and it is already clear that he will miss his wife and children badly whilst away -- but having so many people turn up to wish him well before his departure will no doubt help a little.

I have often remarked that our frequent family gatherings have given my son Joe a typical Italian upbringing. None of us are in fact Italian but I have always thought that the Italians could teach us a lot about how to live. And frequent big family gatherings around a long dining table are a traditional feature of Italian life. And Joe has grown up in exactly that sort of environment. Forza Italia!.

I have never been to Italy but the place where I grew up (Innisfail) was 50% an Australian country town and 50% a Mediterranean village -- and Italians have always impressed me as top quality people. They have their foibles -- like anyone else -- but their virtues (hard-working, good humoured, hospitable, family-oriented people and only a little bit crooked) greatly outweigh their vices in my opinion. But I like Indians too so maybe I am a bit of a Pollyanna. I have certainly been accused of that. I definitely do have the gift of contentment, something unknown to the political Left. I can get bothered by things at times but it is a rarity. I don't let anyone push me around, though. I am pretty good at pushing back.

Busy weekend with Kipling and Humbers

Last night I had another poetry night for my son Joe. He was robbed of 99% of his literary heritage by the Left-dominated school system of today so I do my best to restore to him that which was lost. Fortunately, he is very much like me and so enjoys our excursions into great poetry.

Last night the theme was British heroic and patriotic poetry -- something which gives a window into a now mostly vanished value system, but a value system that was immensely powerful, influentual and transformative in its time.

The occasion was a dinner held mostly on the verandah of my big old "Queenslander" house. It was a very hot day yesterday (it reached the century in Fahrenheit terms) but the verandah is very good at catching a breeze (which is what verandahs were designed to do) so we were perfectly comfortable. Present were myself and Joe, Anne, Jill and Lewis. Jill's 70th birthday had been a couple of days before so it was also a birthday celebration.

The dinner comprised mainly some excellent "family" pies from "Muzza", our local genius pastrycook. Americans think of pies as a dessert but in Australia a pie contains meat (usually small pieces of beef) -- and in this case tomato and onion as well. And for dessert we had a quite wonderful trifle that Anne made out of an old recipe book she has. I will put the recipe up on my recipe blog when I get time. And after dinner we cut a birthday cake for Jill, of course.

The poems I read out at various junctures through the dinner were: "Breathes there the man, with soul so dead" by Sir Walter Scott, "This England", From Richard II Act 2 scene 1 by William Shakespeare, St. Crispen's Day Speech from "Henry V" by William Shakespeare, "Vitai Lampada" by Sir Henry Newbolt, "He fell among thieves" by Sir Henry Newbolt, "The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling, "Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Boadicea" by Cowper and "The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke.

As I read Kipling's poem, I could not help noticing how relevant it is today, so I wrote the following for my main blog:

A PROPHETIC POEM

One does occasionally hear the term "The white man's burden" as a mocking reference to the claim that the British and other empires were good for the native peoples whom they dominated. I wonder how many people are aware that the term was originally the name of a poem and that the poet was Indian-born British poet Rudyard Kipling? Some, no doubt. But I would not at all be surprised to hear that NOBODY reading this was aware that the poem concerned was inspired by the deeds of a famous American "Progressive". Let me explain:

Right into the 1960's, the American Left (e.g. JFK) was patriotic and nationalistic. Nowadays they mostly make only a shallow pretense of patriotism. Getting the votes of minorities is their desperate aim these days and glorifying America does not serve that aim very well. And with Obama, even the pretense seems to be fading.

And the most nationalistic icon of the American Left in history was undoubtedly TR (Theodore Roosevelt), founder of the "Progressive" party. TR was the first Fascist leader of the 20th century -- where Fascism is conceived of as Leftism plus nationalism. He glorified war as a purifying force for the nation, built lots of battleships and invaded and took over three countries. And on the home front he attacked big business. Fascist enough? His conquests were in fact in the last few years of the 19th century but his Presidency of the USA continued into the early 20th century.

The British empire had however never been Fascist. It was run by conservatives most of the time and when the Left came to power they were much more inclined to wind it down than expand it. And, as the saying goes, the empire was mostly acquired "in a fit of absence of mind". It was not acquired as the result of any deliberate expansionist policy but rather as the byproduct of pursuing other objectives -- such as containment of the French. And if anyone doubts the humane impulse that formed British policy of the time, just reflect that it was in 1807 that Britain became the first major country to abolish slavery. And, unlike Abraham Lincoln many years later, the British both attacked it outside their own domain and abolished it at home. Lincoln's war "against slavery" was fought while permitting slavery in the North! Lincoln's war was really a power-motivated war with slavery as a thin pretext.

And India is an excellent example of the non-imperialistic origin of the British empire. The British first came to India as the representatives of a private company, the British East India company, and the aim was trade, not conquest. The company encountered various attacks on its operations, however, so gradually built up a private army to defend itself (perhaps a bit like the security guards employed by Halliburton in Iraq today). And when Indian princelings took on the company in battle, the company tended to win -- meaning that it eventually had large parts of India under its private control. At that stage, the British government got a bit concerned that the company was not treating the natives well and took over the company's military and rulership operations. So the British government in a sense "inherited" India rather than invading and conquering it. The history I have just given does of course simplify much for the sake of brevity but that is the essence of it.

And the humane thinking (mostly of Christian origin) behind British policy is spelled out in Kipling's poem. Kipling saw the British as having a civilizing mission and saw that mission as one of replacing savage values with humane and Christian ones. And he persuaded himself that TR had such values too. He wrote his poem as a commentary on the American takeover of the Philippines. He saw America as joining Britain in the mission of civilizing savages.

And what he wrote was very prophetic. And it was good prophecy because it was based on experience -- British imperial experience. He prophesied that the gift of liberty and humaneness that America would give to other nations would not be appreciated and would instead lead to resentment of America. And that was long before the liberation of France from the Nazis and the liberation of Iraq from Saddam! Here are some excerpts from a wonderful and idealistic poem that is now almost always misrepresented:

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;

By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;

And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--

That's amazingly good prophecy by my lights. Very wicked of him to mention skin color judged by today's hysterical political standards but Britain and America WERE largely white countries at the time, and still are.

And this morning I drove my 1963 Humber Super Snipe to the static display of the Rootes Group car club by the seaside at Wynnum. There was even a 1908 Humber on display there, which was marvellous. A pic of my Humber below:




Update:
I have now put up on my Recipe blog the recipe for Anne's superb trifle.

Jai Hind!

As anybody who knows me well by now will be aware, I am very pro-Indian. I imagine that anyone who likes Indian food as much as I do would HAVE to be pro-Indian but I may be wrong about that.

Anyway I have lots of Indian tenants occupying the spare rooms in my big house and as one moves out another one magically appears. I gather that there are not many landlords who welcome brown men so my fame as someone who PREFERS Indian tenants has spread a little.

Anyway, I was discussing just such a transition with two of my Indian tenants yesterday and the cheerful Pavan Kumar remarked how easy it was for me to get my preferred Indian tenants. Now, my knowledge of Hindi is almost entirely non-existent but I did know one expression. In reply I said: "Jai Hind" ("triumph to Hindustan" -- an Indian patriotic expression) -- which got a quite delighted response. And that pleased me too.

It's not the first time that my scraps of foreign languages have come in handy. Shortly after Patrick Heaven (a fellow academic psychologist) emigrated from South Africa, we were both at a party on a boat in Sydney harbour when Patrick said: "Lekker party". I replied in Afrikaans: "Baie lekker" (very nice). Patrick was much moved to hear his native language in a place where he never expected to hear it. He replied: "Don't say that. You'll make me cry". Emigrant South Africans do tend to miss their home terribly. But it's the wise ones who no longer live there.

The laser again

It is a couple of years since my last visit to the laser but last Monday I had to go again. When my skin cancers get too big for excision or freezing, the laser is the last option before a graft.

So about three weeks ago I rang the best dermatological surgeon in Brisbane -- Russell Hills -- and made an appointment to see him a few days later. He agreed that it was laser time and booked me in for the procedure a couple of weeks later. If I had gone through the public hospital system, I would still be waiting for a consultation and the procedure itself would be a year or more off.

As I have had so much dermatological surgery over the years I am a connoisseur of it so when I say that Russell is the best, I am in a position to know. His excisions and joinups are so fine that they heal with maximum rapidity -- which is the main thing from my viewpoint. That skill does however make him much in demand by ladies for their facelifts etc. You can't see the scars where Russell has been.

Anyway I arrived at Northwest Private Hospital at the appointed time in the late afternoon and went through all the introductory bureaucratic procedures that are mandatory these days. I was however at the end of the day's listings so I was the victim of all the prior medical misadventures of the day. Russell's anaesthetist had been much held up by unforeseen circumstances on his morning list (surgery that was more complicated than foreseen and which therefore went on much longer than planned) so I was two hours late going into theatre. Russell came out personally to apologize and explain to me shortly after I arrived, however, so I kept my cool about that. Being treated with courtesy makes a big difference to my responses.

And in theatre I was given only locals at my request so I was awake and alert there. And I had the odd chat and joke with Russell and the nurses while my lesions were being attended to. It was very civilized.

So Brisbane private medicine is a dream as far as treatment of patients is concerned. I guess not all patients are on first-name terms with their surgeon but it can happen for repeat customers like me.

But there is a but. It costs a lot. Not nearly as much as in America but a lot by Australian standards. Russell charges $140 for a consultation versus $40 for a GP consultation and he charged a $850 co-payment for the laser work. The hospital charges were all covered by my insurance.

So if you get an education, work hard and save your money instead of spending it all on beer and cigarettes, you can get the first-class medical service in your declining years that everyone aspires to. I did and I do.

As I sat down to write this little memoir, I was listening to "Goodbye" (from "The White Horse Inn"). Most pleasant.



There is a small picture of the white horse referred to here

Seoul and the good saint V

As far as I can see, there are a number of customs that one observes on St Valentine's day. The lady will expect:

Kiss
Flowers
Card
Present
Dinner

And you are lucky to get away with leaving any of those out. I did leave one out this year: Flowers. So the other elements had to be good. And I think they were. For a present I got Anne a big box of a particular Turkish Delight from Greece that she really likes --



-- and also promised her that I would buy her a ring with a sky-blue stone in it the next day.

For dinner I took her to a local Korean restaurant. I am a great fan of Korean food. It is always an excellent restaurant and is notable for the variety of side dishes that come with your Bul Gogi (or whatever main course you order)

So I arrived there last night with Anne in good confidence of a first-class dinner -- only to find that they were "under renovation". I made quite a grimace when they told me that, however, so they took us in anyway -- as they did have "friends and family" dining there despite being "closed".

And the meals were great -- an even bigger variety of dishes than usual! And there were quite a lot of Koreans present. We could almost have been in Seoul.

But the crazy thing was that they wanted to give us it all for free! Their taking us in was entirely an act of grace! I did of course leave some money anyway but it was all a most interesting experience -- and Anne loved it! She likes things that are out of the routine.

Long live the Republic of Korea!

And while we were in the restaurant I did see a rather extreme example of the "yellow peril" at work. In Australian history, "Yellow peril" refers to a fear of Asian immigration but I am using it in a sense common among American college women: Lots of Asian ladies rather fancy big burly Caucasian men. And with their characteristic patience and politeness they often get what they want. So Caucasian college women do sometimes feel that all the good men have been lassooed by clever little Asian ladies -- the "yellow peril".

And one couple near Anne and myself were a rather extreme example of that. The Asian lady would have been about 5' tall and slightly built while the fair-skinned blue-eyed Caucasian guy was about 6'2" and solidly built. And the lady seemed distinctly bright and cheerful! The guy looked a bit confused though.

And my own son (strongly-built, 6' tall and blue-eyed) also finds that a lady of Asian ancestry fills the bill! I have posted earlier about that but I might note here that I entirely approve of competition!

Update:

We went into "Monty's" (Brisbanes's biggest pawnshop) the next day and found a ring with a large rectangular-cut sky-blue topaz in it so Anne got lucky. I had told her that I would only buy her a ring if I could find one with a sky-blue stone in it. But by going to Monty I maximized the chances of success -- as they have a huge range of rings from all eras.

Ethan is out of his humidicrib!

I have not mentioned this before as I find it all a bit upsetting -- even though it affects me only very indirectly.

Anne's grandson Ethan was recently born prematurely at 1.7 kg -- about half full-term weight. In these days of very insightful care, however, that is a fairly good weight for a premmie and no long-term ill-effects can reasonably be expected.

And it is indeed going well. He has continued to gain weight and he has progressed first out of intensive care and now out of his humidicrib. Everybody involved is of course overjoyed. I suppose I am a sentimental old fool but even I shed a tear of joy over it.

Mid-March Update: Ethan has done well and was 2.5kg at his due delivery date -- which compares well with a normal delivery weight of around 3kg. His brother is small so 2.5 kg is probably right for him.

Christmas letters

When people send out Christmas cards they often include a report of their doings in the year concerned. It is a valuable way of keeping in touch.

I have always been a bit slack about sending out Christmas cards -- mostly leaving it to the ladies in my life. When it became clear that permanence among the ladies in my life was not to be relied upon, however, I did lurch into sending out some Christmas cards on my own account. And I DID eventually get around to including some sort of bulletin with each one.

From 1996 to 2002 I included a printed letter with each card and in 2004 and 2005 I put up an internet file which I referred people to. From 2006 on I have simply referred people to my personal blog right here.

It has occurred to me, however, that I could make my personal blog more comprehensive by posting backdated copies of my old Christmas communications on it. So I have now done that. You can access them here

Don't ask me what happened in 2003. I have no record of it. If anybody does, please tell me.

Anne's birthday

Anne's birthday was actually over a week ago but she had a family do on the day so we postponed our celebration until last night. I took her to Siggy's, an upmarket restaurant in a beautiful old Victorian building that now forms part of the Stamford Plaza hotel in central Brisbane. It has the most marvellous winding staircase in solid polished timber. And the decor of the restaurant generally is very much in keeping with a high Victorian theme. For my taste it is probably the most beautiful restaurant I have seen.

The cuisine is French and international there, which I normally do not enjoy much. I like ethnic food. But they did have chateaubriand on the menu -- which I DO like. I guess it is ethnic French. You rarely see it on menus anywhere these days so I had to have it. At $120.00 for the dish it was not economy dining, however. But that feeds two, of course.

A small problem is that it takes 40 minutes to cook and I am a fair candidate for the world's most impatient person so we went for a walk after we had ordered -- by arrangement with the Maitre d' of course. The staff were in fact most obliging at accomodating my various requests, which is what one SHOULD get in an upmarket restaurant but which is nonetheless not always the case. They had a LOT of staff there too, which was probably one reason why we got such prompt and obliging service. Before I set out I had in fact gritted my teeth in expectation of the usual tardy service that one gets from French and international restaurants but there was nothing but the best service at Siggy's.

Below is a cartoonist's view of the snobby service one often gets in French restaurants:



Anyway, while our meal was cooking, we went for a walk in the nearby Queen's park -- a Victorian establishment again -- better known as the Old Botanic Gardens. It runs alongside the river so is very scenic and Anne in particular really enjoyed that part of our outing.

And the meal when we finally got it was first class. The sauce Bearnaise was a little more vinegary than I am used to but it was fine. Neither of us actually finished the meal as the fillet was a very large one. So we had no room for desserts, which was a bit sad.

While we were eating, another couple walked in who amused me slightly. The gent was wearing a suit, which is a bit unusual on a Friday night and almost certainly means that he is a salesman. And a salesman in that restaurant would almost certainly be using his expense account. The lady with him was very well-groomed, tallish, very slim and with a very large and well-displayed bosom. So you can see the transaction there: Boob job gets you taken to fine restaurants. I hope he got what he wanted afterwards. He almost certainly did as Siggy's is very impressive -- as was the bosom.

After we got home, we opened a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and drank the lot. A very pleasant night.

And this morning we had croissants for breakfast -- with Syrian apricot jam ["jam" = "jelly" in American parlance]. The Syrians put the kernels out of the seed in the jam, which gives it a stronger taste. I think the Austrians do that too.

But I like my own ethnic food too -- and there is nothing more ethnically Australian than Vegemite -- so I followed the croissants with a couple of pieces of toast with VEGEMITE on them. The English understand Vegemite because their Marmite is a close relative of it -- but it remains a profound mystery to most Americans. Even when they try it, they hate it. But here mothers put it on babies' tongues -- so it is profoundly entrenched here. And I love all of my Australian heritage.

Stray thoughts about my life

I am aged 64 now. My father died at 65. I would be surprised if I had more than another 10 years above ground. So perhaps it is a time for me to look back and review a few things occasionally.

I have undoubtedly had a charmed life. To detail it would be to boast. But I have regrets too. The chief regret is that I have had only one child. My son is however all that a father could ask. He is tall, well-built, socially pleasant and already an academic like me. And he has blue eyes. Since both his mother and I have blue eyes that was a slam dunk.

Having had a lot to do in my life with persons of the female persuasion, I have looked close-up into a lot of blue eyes and I am firmly of the view that blue eyes are the most beautiful -- totally "incorrect" though that view now is. Mind you, I am no fanatic about the matter. I am so pro-Indian that my house is full of them, and almost all Indians have dark eyes, of course.

Because I always speak frankly about race, I am sure lots of people have me tagged as a racist but you show me any anti-racist (let alone a white racist!) who has as many brown men living in his house as I have in mine! I am thinking of renaming my house as "Jai Hind", in fact, so Google that! I have long wanted to go and live in India but family reasons rule that out, of course. When I am in India I feel that this is real life -- that this is in some way how it ought to be. And I am talking there about the attitudes of the people, not their poverty. Lots of people of British ancestry do get that sort of feeling when they go to India. But I have it both ways to some extent. If I cannot go to India, I can have India come to me! And the clatter of spoken Hindi is now always about me.

And because I have explained to him how to make money on the stockmarket, my son should have a financially comfortable future. What millions of people would like to know my son just got told casually one morning by his father. As a certain wise Jew once said: "To him that hath, more will be given him".

I do of course have a few minor regrets as well as the major one I have been talking about in a rambling way. One of the minor regrets is the fact that I have not been given a D.Sc. It is not a regret that I go to bed thinking about, of course, but I HAVE had over 200 papers published in the scientific journals so I am qualified for one. But the D.Sc. (Doctor of Science) is an HONORARY degree. You only get it for being a good guy in some way. And I am NOT that. I keep saying things that upset the applecart -- even if they are also true things.

So,if I ever do get a D.Sc., it will be posthumous. That will do ME no good at all but it might serve to highlight my writings. I am a graduate of the University of Queensland, the University of Sydney and Macquarie University so those are the institutions that COULD award me a D.Sc.

Immediately after writing the above I re-read one of my favourite Bible passages: Ecclesiastes chapters 1 and 2 -- just to make sure I did not lose perspective.

Busy, busy

I see myself as something of a hermit these days but the people around me get me out of my cave rather often. Anne is a going-out girl so she gets me to the occasional classical concert and I take her out to dinner once or twice a week. But family connections get me out a lot too.

But the last 24 hours have been really hectic by my standards -- caused by the confluence of two dates: The birthday of Robert Burns on 25th January in 1759 and the arrival of the first white settlers in Australia on 26th January, 1788. Both anniversaries are much celebrated and I celebrate them too.

Last night Anne and I put on a small Burns night for Jill, Lewis (old friends) Joe and Sam (my son and his girlfriend). We did most of the customs: Saying the Burns grace, bringing in the haggis to pipe music followed by the Scotch whisky. reading the Burns ode to the haggis with knife raised and stabbing the haggis at the appropriate point in the poem -- followed by a toast to the haggis.

And the haggis we had was really good -- not at all something to be dubious about. After the meal I read out a speech to the Immortal Memory followed by a toast and then we read a few more of the poems. I even went through the mouse poem and explained what all the strange words meant.

We also had three desserts: Clootie dumpling with cream, tablet and shortbread. If you don't know what tablet is, you haven't lived. It's not remotely pharmaceutical. It's a sort of fudge.


Tablet

And today I went to a family gathering. For many years my relatives on my mother's side have had a family get-together over a BBQ lunch on Australia Day. It was a bit smaller this year but I enjoyed it as ever.

A distinguished birthday

I attended a birthday celebration for Anne's mother today. There must have been about 40 people there for a lunch. Anne is in her 60s and her mother has just turned 90. Her mother is still mentally alert and articulate but just in the last year or so has had to adopt use of a walking frame. Some good genes there.

The function was at Beerwah RSL club and was very efficiently catered. The meal was a traditional Australian lunch -- a piece of roast chicken, a big slice of ham and a salad. The salad comprised lettuce, tomato, onion, cucumber and pickled beetroot but there was no dressing on it. I gave my piece of beetroot to Anne. Dessert was apple pie or Pavlova.

There were quite a few short and affectionate speeches -- in which it was repeatedly noted what a demon housekeeper and outstanding cook of lemon meringue pie Doris (Anne's mother) always was. She did seem to enjoy the occasion and answered back a few times during the speeches.

Bill, Doris's husband, was there. He is even older than Doris and also cannot get around well but he was still the perfect gentleman that he has always been. He is not a gentleman in any formal sense. He spent his working life in sawmills. But, as my father was, he is a natural gentleman. A lot of the old "bushies" (forest workers, country people) were. Apologies for the lame translation of "bushie". It is yet another part of Australian English that just does not yield well to translation.