Schwarto and Queensland police indifference to car theft

Rob Schwarten is a long-standing Labor party member of the Queensland parliament who has served in various ministries. He has a reputation for being aggressive -- even physically intimidating. So I was amused to receive from him a letter that was typically Schwarto -- a sort of verbal punch. Before I show you the letter, however, I need to tell you what led up to it:

In a nutshell: My car was stolen and the Queensland police showed not the slightest interest in apprehending the thief or thieves, despite the ID of one of them being handed to them on a plate.

More detail: Someone reported my abandoned car to the Redcliffe police about a week after it was stolen; the Redcliffe police checked their reports of stolen cars and notified me accordingly.

When I got the car back, most of the contents that I had in it were missing. This bothered me greatly as some of the contents were of considerable value to me. On checking through what remained, however, I found a library card belonging to someone I had never heard of. It was for a library in the Redcliffe area. It seemed clear to me that one of the thieves had inadvertently dropped it while they were in the car. Eureka! Just trace the person and I might get my stuff back!

So I took the card to my nearest cop-shop -- at Dutton Park. I was greeted at the counter by a dickless Tracy by the name of Turgeon. I told her my story, she listened and said she would look into it. I had no sooner stepped outside the building before I realized however that she had not taken a single note or asked for any details, let alone fill out a proper report.

I went back in and urged details upon her -- registration number, dates etc. She grabbed a torn-off scrap of paper and jotted a few things down. That was it. I left in great doubt about whether I had been taken seriously.

So I followed the matter up in the following weeks and months. In the course of that I was told two things by various police persons:

1). The card could have been dropped by anyone so was no proof of anything. Police logic, I presume. They seemed to think that I might have been driving around with people unknown to me in my car.

2). The person on the card had been checked and found to have no "form" (no criminal record) so there was no point in pursuing them. More police logic. How one ever gets form in the first place under those circumstances was never expained.

I was of course not remotely impressed by those pearls of wisdom but they came from more than one police officer, including a rather senior one. It stood out like dog's balls that the Queensland police were not remotely interested in catching car thieves -- unless of course you could catch them at the end of an exciting high-speed chase. No wonder Queensland has the highest rate of car theft in Australia. If you don't catch the baddies they will continue doing it.

So I started writing to the politicians in order to get some action. I got some very ill-considered replies from them too but it emerged that by that time the ID card had been "lost" and they could not therefore investigate the matter even if they wanted to.

That was quite appalling. There are of course strict police rules about the recording and preservation of material evidence and those regulations had obviously been ignored. It's not much of a guess to conclude that the Virgin Turgeon threw it straight into the bin, in fact.

I asked for disciplinary measures to be taken and Inspector Volk of Dutton Pk. station assured me that they had. For all I know that was just hot air, however. Clearly, Constable Turgeon had simply been following informal police rules.

I was rather stumped at that point but eventually made what was probably the only move left to me: Sue for compensation for my loss of car contents. I accordingly wrote to the Minister in charge of police with a claim for $500 in compensation for the loss of car contents that police negligence had prevented me from recovering. I got the usual ill-considered reply -- presumably written by a junior ministerial assistant. So I wrote again to point that out.

It was then that I got my amusing letter from Schwarto:

Judy Spence MP
Member for Mount Gravatt

Queensland
Government
Office of the
Minister for Police and
Corrective Services

Ref: 5627 F6 GM

23 May, 2008

Dear Dr Ray

Thank you for your further letter of 19 March 2008 concerning your dealings with police regarding the theft of your motor vehicle and property stolen from the vehicle.

I note you have received several replies from the Honourable Judy Spence MP since 2006 regarding associated issues.

While I have noted your further comments, as the Acting Minister for Police I am unable to intervene in any particular police investigation or operational decision, or interfere in the Police Service's handling of any particular complaint against its officers.

In the circumstances, your correspondence has been forwarded to the Police Service for consideration and you should take up direct with the Service on any further issues of concern.

Neither Ms Spence nor I am can assist you further in this matter and therefore do not intend corresponding with you in future on this issue.

Yours sincerely
Robert Schwarten MP
Acting Minister for Police, Corrective Services and Sport

He appears to think he can shut me up!

No further correspondence from the Police Service has arrived in the two months since Schwarto wrote so I suppose that an action against the Constable in the Small Claims tribunal will have to be my next step.

I have put this post and most of the letters I wrote on the matter up on a special blog called "Queensland Police Negligence". You will see there that I even wrote to the body that is supposed to act on complaints against the police but that they simply referred the complaint back to the police -- as they usually do.

What I would most like to see at this stage is a public enquiry resulting in visible disciplinary action against the police officers primarily responsible for the unofficial policy of not investigating car stealing.

An interesting night -- with cheesesteak

I have always been impressed by what I hear about the way Philadelphians are devoted to Cheesesteak sandwiches. Being pretty cheesy myself, I have always thought that they sound yummy. Sadly, however, they are unknown in Australia (to my knowledge) and a trip to Philadelphia is not on my horizon so I had to find another way of getting to try one.

So I gathered together various screeds about them and a couple of videos about how to make them and did my best to get Anne to create one from those sources. I bought the Provolone cheese for starters. Provolone too is little known in Brisbane but fortunately there is a large Italian deli only a few minutes drive from my place so that was easy.

Last night Anne got inspired enough to have a go at making some -- and they were deLISH! In principle they are pretty basic -- good steak sliced or diced, provolone plus onions in a bread roll. But the cook still needs to have talent to get it right -- and Anne did. You would be hard put to get a better meal in a good restaurant.

Later Anne and I were talking about religion and she made some derisive reference to it but I pointed out that she was herself a good Calvinist. As with me, her background is Presbyterian and Presbyterians are the representatives of Calvinsm (predestination) in the English-speaking world. I tried to get her to see that there was some alternative to predestinarian thinking -- such as Lutheran salvation by faith -- but it was uphill. She informed me that she never has got on well with Lutherans anyhow. She definitely has a Presbyterian brain. Fortunately, I am very much at home with that. My mother and aunties were the same.

Anne reminded me of something that had rather passed me by. The Governor of Queensland, Quentin Bryce, who is soon to become Governor General of Australia (both largely ceremonial posts but very prestigious nonetheless), is an active member of Ann St Presbyterian church -- which for both Anne and me is our old church -- and one which we still like to go to occasionally.



Quentin Bryce is a feminist lady in various ways so I had always been pretty dubious about her. Feminists can be pretty nasty. So my opinion of Her Excellency rose enormously when I realized her church affiliation. Ann St is a pretty old-fashioned gospel-oriented church so it is not the church you go to for social show. She would have gone to the Cathedral if that had been her aim. She may have a Presbyterian brain too.

Some fun times

The weekend started out early on Thursday. In an event somewhat reminiscent of a potlatch, Anne and I gave one-another blankets that day. I gave her a cotton blanket and she gave me a woollen blanket. As astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington once said: "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine"! That applies to life on earth too.

We dined at home on some very good fish 'n chips from a nearby fish-shop that night, accompanied by some J.P. Chenet sauvignon blanc -- our favourite fish wine.

And Saturday went well with Anne cooking us some roast pork -- one of my favourites

And Sunday was the 21st for my son Joe. We had the celebration as a dinner at our usual Indian restaurant at Stone's Corner. There were 22 people present, partly Joe's friends but mostly family. Paul was full of beans as usual and livened everybody up. The rest of us are a pretty quiet lot so Paul is a great help.

The cake was a rich chocolate cake with profiteroles on top. Ken's slice did not come with any profiteroles, however, so he protested and got a special plate of them. Paul thought his curry was not hot (as in spicy) enough so he got another one which really burned him up! Joe seemed to enjoy it all, which was of course the main idea.

Joe did not know the old "21 today" song so I sang it for him and presented him with a huge antique brass key during it.

The 21 year old with Sam and empty champagne glass:



Cake topped with profiteroles:



Jill and Lewis were there:



That fat guy paid the bill:



Joe and Paul with Nanna:



Paul with the photographer:

An eventful day

Eventful by the standards of my quiet life anyway.

Not long ago I had a flagpole installed at the front of my house and since then I have bought various flags to fly from it to suit various occasions. The fact that my morning drive takes me past one of Brisbane's two chief flag suppliers has something to do with that.

Anyway, I decided yesterday that I would like to fly the English flag in honour of my English ancestors so I dropped in at the flag place and asked for one. A printed flag there retails for $44 so price is no big deal. They only had a sewn St George flag in stock, however, which is much dearer. So they sold me the sewn one at the wholesale price of $80. There are benefits in being a regular customer -- but being a regular customer at a flag factory is undoubtedly eccentric.

Note that I said the English flag and not the Union Jack. The Union Jack is the flag of the United Kingdom. The St George flag is the flag of England. Since devolution, flying the English flag has become popular in England, even though the lower echelons of British officialdom sometimes describe that as "racist"! Thank goodness British officialdom does not speak for all Englishmen (or even the majority of Englishmen in this case). I suppose some blighted souls would also describe the historic toast "To St George and merrie England" as racist too. Schoolkids in England have even been punished by teachers for flying the English flag!



The English flag is also often flown by Englishmen who object to the non-solution of the "West Lothian question" and I am entirely in sympathy with that protest, so I was glad to have the proud and historic red cross of St George flying over my house yesterday.

And in the afternoon, Paul came over to deliver my new UPS (uninterruptible power supply). We do have momentary interruptions of power supply here at night fairly often and there is talk of strikes from electricity unionists so I definitely need a UPS.

While he was here Paul also installed a DVD burner in my computer and installed the AVG viruschecker -- which he recommends. I have always found viruscheckers more trouble than they are worth so I hope this one turns out better.

Then in the evening Jenny had Anne and me over for a paella. There are very few restaurants in Brisbane where you can get a paella and Jenny's home-cooked paellas are as good as they come so it was much enjoyed. I took over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot to aid the deliberations and we had an excellent pavlova for dessert.

And today I have just had the termite man over. The house is under fairly heavy attack from termites at the moment so we have to do what we can to kill them. We are using Termidor this time. You never get rid of them entirely, however, so you just have to put occasional repairs down to maintenance.

Sunday lunch

14 July, 2008

Jill gave a small party of us lunch yesterday. Present at her place were: Jill, Lewis, myself, Anne, Henningham, Helen, Jenny, Joe and Sam. Jenny, Joe, myself, Anne and Sam Humbered out to River Hills. Jill likes my verb "Humbered". But when you have a 1963 Humber Super Snipe Series IV, you do such things.

A snipe is a waterbird and it always amuses me the way the English name lots of things after waterbirds: boats, cars, locomotives. Who has not heard of the Mallard and Bittern steam trains? How can a steam locomotive be like a duck? Search me!



The lunch was on Jill's large patio, surrounded by garden. Jill's garden has grown up tall and lush so it was a very pleasant setting. Jill made us some tagliatelle with seafood, which everybody liked. And pavlova for dessert -- one of Australia's few notable contributions to cuisine.

Henningham was in his best jovial form so it was a very relaxed occasion.

As part of the festivities we did a small play that I wrote especially for the occasion. Henningham is an amateur thespian so he got the part of the old man. I got a round of applause for writing it and it does seem to have amused those present. It was rightly noted that the play was very cynical, however. You can read it here or here

Vin ordinaire report

After the fuss that the do-gooders kicked up about it, I thought I should try some of Dan Murphy's $2 wine. I bought a couple of bottles yesterday -- a shiraz and a chardonnay. Anne made us quite a nice moussaka for dinner (recipe here) so I opened the shiraz first. I am afraid that it was tres ordinaire -- with a definite barnyard taste. I tipped most of it down the sink.

So then I opened the chardonnay and was surprised to find it perfectly passable, with quite a pleasant fresh taste. I would not be embarrassed to serve it to guests. I don't plan to buy any more of it as I am rather fixated at the moment on Tyrrells verdelho and Taylors Promised Land unwooded chardonnay but if anybody is a bit short of the shekels these days, stocking up on the chardonnay would not be a bad decision -- though tastes do differ so try it for yourself first. Maybe I just got a rare good bottle.

Death

My sister Jack (Jacqueline Margaret Ray aka Ward) died this morning of the family illness -- breast cancer. Her death was expected and her female companion was with her until the end.

She was only 2 years younger than me but we were not close. I had seen her only once in the last quarter century -- at my brother's wedding.

She leaves no children.

A McGonagall night

Ever since I was introduced to him many years ago by my friend Mel Dickson, I have been a great fan of that great Scottish poet William Topaz McGonagall, who is widely regarded as the world's worst poet. He is so bad, however, that he rises to genius at what he does. His poetry is so bad that it is hilarious. A reading of McGonagall is one of life's greatest amusements, in my view. The laughs never stop coming.

So I was delighted that I was able to enlist Mel to come up to Brisbane from his home in Sydney and give us an evening of McGonagall readings last night. Mel is from the Dunedin area of New Zealand originally so can do a reasonable Scottish accent. He also has a fancy for the theatre so does well-dramatized readings. I flew the saltire of St. Andrew from my flagpole in honour of the occasion.

The occasion was particularly for the benefit of my son Joe. It was one of the occasional poetry readings that I arrange for him to introduce him to the literature that he should have encountered at school. I doubt that McGonagall has ever been on any school curriculum but he should be.

Present were Joe, Jenny, Mel, myself, Anne, Jill and Lewis. We started at around 7pm with dinner. In honour of McGonagall's origins, we tried to make the dinner Scottish. So we had a mainstream Scottish meal: "Mince and tatties" (ground beef and mashed potatoes). It's pretty plain food basically but Anne managed to make it very passable. And it was followed by a dessert that any Scot would approve of: Trifle. Why is trifle Scottish? Because it originated as a way of "using up" old cake. Anne makes a trifle heavy with apricots which is absolutely delicious. The recipe is on my recipe blog.

I was delighted to note that Joey "got" McGonagall immediately. I think he had at least as many laughs during the evening as I did. Joe seems to have a keen sense of the ridiculous, which is what you need for McGonagall. I presented him with a McGonagall "encyclopedia" as a memento of the occasion. It was the second time that I have flown someone up from Sydney to entertain Joe with poetry so I think I am well ahead in my fatherly responsibilities. He is at present busy with a literature review of non-linear partial differential equations so it certainly provided a contrast for him.

It was also good to see Mel again after many years and we had some good chats. Amusing that it took McGonagall to get us back together. Mel is the retired head of the electron microscope laboratory at the University of NSW.

My backyard

Anne took a few pics of my backyard a week or three ago. The cassia is particularly pretty in autumn. And even the old wooden chair looks good in an autumn context!



Click HERE for a larger image of the chair pic

More Music

Another meeting of our Westside Music Group last night. Held in a very new and rather grand house out in the wilds of Pullenvale. Pullenvale is where people go for "acreage" (large) blocks of land. I had trouble finding it and went within a hairsbreadth of crashing my car at one stage. I was wise enough to go in the Echo rather than in the Humber, however, so that helped. The Echo is a lot better at U-turns and narrow roadways.

Our host was an Anglo-Australian but his wife was Indian (Sri-Lankan Sinhalese more precisely). That's quite an unusual combination. Little East-Asian ladies with burly Anglo-Australian men is quite a common combination but Indians seem quite endogamous. And it was the lady who is the musical one, apparently. They were both very pleasant and hospitable anyway.

The gathering was larger than usual but still mostly elderly. There was one lady who must have been somewhere in her 40's but who had kept a very good figure and was very attractively dressed. I wondered a little about that but all was explained the minute I spoke to her: A clear South African accent. South African ladies are VERY particular about their appearance. She was a good pianist anyway. She is a music teacher and did a few duets (four-handed pieces) on the piano with one of her students. It was a very good sound.

Unsurprisingly, our violinist looked very Jewish. I don't know if he was but there is a look that is Jewish even if lots of Jews don't look like that! The number of blue-eyed Jews I know (two of whom were present last night) tells me that Jews have long been less endogamous than their religion would seem to require. Perhaps it all goes back to the story of Ruth.

And we were honoured to have Brisbane's best-known violinist in the audience: Spiros Rantos. I was rather amazed that he was allowed to get away without playing, however. Even born-fiddlers need to listen sometimes, I guess.

And our main pianist was a little Chinese lady, though Australian-born, I think. She was very good. It was great to hear Mozart pouring out from those clever little Asian fingers. It is quite a wonder the way East Asians have taken to Western classical music. Most of the pianists at our concerts seem to be Chinese. Australia is lucky to have had so many high-quality Han immigrants (The Han are the majority race of China but they are also often found in other parts of Asia).

More Birthdays

Another family birthday yesterday. A combined do for four family members who have birthdays at roughly the same time: Jenny, Davey, Tracy and Paul's Sue.

We gathered at Paul's place, as we often do, and had a lunch together. It was not a BBQ, for once. It was buffet style but all the food came from the kitchen.

Tracy's Simon was there -- on a week's furlough from his deployment in the Gulf. So Simon, Ken and I spent most of the time talking about the war over there -- and military matters generally. Simon did have some interesting stories. He sees a lot from his vantage position as an air-traffic controller.

There were a lot of Paul's Sue's relatives there, which was a change. The disagreements there seem to have been resolved. It was the first time that I had met her mother.

I had a bit of a chat to Joe about how universities work but I think he is already well ahead of me in his ability to deal with the system there.

I also had a chat with the Croesus of the family, Lady Von (Jenny's daughter Yvonne). Von and I were very close when she was a kid and we still enjoy a chat. She has just made a mint on selling her old house and now has two houses -- one in Brisbane and one in N.Z. And she is buying another one in N.Z. as well. She has also just been promoted at work, with an extra $20,000 a year. She is now an adviser of some sort. Not bad considering the poor marks she got at high school. But she has plenty of brains for things she is interested in. And she is good natured and good looking as well! So it's not surprising that she has had a pretty easy run through life so far.

Father knows best?

Not always! But I think that there is nonetheless widespread agreement that sons need their fathers. Some hormonally-challenged feminists and Lesbians (two considerably overlapping categories) disagree but I don't think that evidence is one of their concerns.

Joe has always been mega-independant -- ever since he could crawl. He would screech if we went to carry him up a flight of stairs that he thought he could crawl up. And his first-known sentence was "Don't help", when he was trying to do something and having trouble with it. In the psychology textbooks there is a lot about independance-training and thoughts about how to foster independance in kids. Joe needed no such training. It was in his genes. I have always been very independant too (guess where Joe got it from?) so I entirely approve of Joe's independant traits. Some might find independance in a one-year-old rather strange but I thought it was great. And that independance has continued to this day. Joe wants to make his own way in the world and solve his own problems. Those are traits that were important in his pioneer ancestors and ones that show that he is a true descendant of those strong men of yore.

So it is rare for Joe to bring any of his problems to me -- less than once a year. But when he does I have always so far been able to solve those problems for him. The fact that he and I are similar in many ways obviously facilitates that. And we are even both academics so I can have both personal experience and work experience to draw on in any advice I offer.

Last Saturday Joe had got quite upset over some problems he had been having with his honours mathematics course at university. Partly at his mother's urging, he did however eventually ring me about it and in a few minutes I was able to put him on the right track. I could not of course tell him anything about mathematics but I could tell him how to deal with the situation. So I was able to relieve his mind immediately and get him acting adaptively. He did roughly as I suggested and with his own hard work and positive personality came out of it all with flags flying (as it were).

I have never criticized him and have always been able to help him so I think in that situation that even Mr Independence will in future allow me to help whenever he comes across really big problems.

So yes: Boys may not NEED their fathers but fathers can nonetheless make a big difference --- even where very independant sons are concerned.

A "mystery breakfast"

On Sunday I invited a few people over to my place for a "mystery breakfast". The mystery was what the breakfast was for. There was apparently a lot of speculation over what it could be. As soon as everybody had arrived, however, I announced the answer. It was held for two reasons: 1) As a birthday bash for Jenny, who turns (somewhere in her '50s) on Tuesday. 2). To celebrate my restoration (at absurd expense) of most of the windows in my old house to their original form. The house originally had casement windows throughout but someone before I bought the house had replaced some of the casements with sliding aluminium windows -- which was very out of keeping with a 1930s style "Queenslander" house.

There are two common traditional patterns in Queensland for the coloured glass in the quarterlights of casement windows: One with all amber and another with alternating red and green. I put all amber down one side of my house and red/green across the front, as I like both patterns. For the benefit of any non-Queenslanders who come by here, below is an illustration of some casements without any colours in their quarterlights.



In attendance at the breakfast were Jenny, Anne, Ken, Maureen, Jill, Lewis, Henningham and Helen.

Anne prepared a marvellous Bircher muesli for starters and we also had lots of cold meats and bread in the Northern European style. We ate out on the verandah with a bright winter sun shining in. It was very pleasant. Several of the people present had recently been on visits to Austria and central Europe so a lot of the conversation centred on that -- and on travel generally.

Below is a picture of the verandah. As you can see, I have not yet defeated ALL the aluminium windows in my house. Festina lente



A little joke I had centred around a black octagonal dinner plate that I had found downstairs. It had apparently been left behind by a departing tenant. I happened to know that Jill had an octagonal dinner set which she very much liked so as soon as she arrived I presented her with her own special black octagonal dinner plate for her to use during the breakfast. She got the joke immediately and I afterwards insisted that she take the plate home with her to add to her collection.

Some of the people present seemed very favourably impressed by my amber-quartered casements and Helen particularly liked all the brass and copper fittings I have on both my windows and my doors. I was rather glad about that as I had Jeff over the day before to do various cleanup jobs, with buffing up all the brass being a big part of that. Ken in his usual way thought that all my casements, brassware etc was a lot of nonsense. Ken has always strongly favoured new things over old things. De gustibus non disputandum est.

A rare family photo

The photo below is (left to right) of my niece Katie, my brother Christopher and my sister Roxanne. My sister Jacqueline was also in the original photo but she is terminally ill with the family illness (breast cancer) and not looking good at all so I think I am being respectful in cropping her out of the photo below. Katie is the daughter of Roxanne.



Taken a few weeks ago

A pleasant morning

Anne came over early and made us a breakfast of cevapi and eggs. Then we went to church. It must be over a year since I had been to Ann St Presbyterian and I like to visit there once in a while. For both Anne and me it is our old church and I get a good feeling when I go there. Ann St is Brisbane's street of churches. The magnificent Anglican cathedral is there plus two Presbyterian churches, one Methodist church, the Salvation Army City citadel and a rather grand Masonic hall.

Ann St Presbyterian church would puzzle a Catholic. It is completely unornamented inside -- no "graven images", as befits an old "Wee Free" church. It does however have the most beautiful woodwork throughout.



And it was quite full! The old church was still gathering people to it. It obviously has good outreach activities. And there was even a baptism of a little baby. Very pleasing to see. One hears a lot about empty churches these days but ones that stick to preaching the gospel of God's love still do well. There were people of all ages present, but with a weighting towards grey heads.

The minister gave a good sermon, recounting the story of Jonah and pointing out its implications. Mr McNicol is from Edinburgh and I greatly enjoyed hearing his Scottish accent as he spoke. The word "church" comes out as something like "churruch" to Australian ears. He is a tall, dignified but friendly man and suits the church perfectly in my view.

After the service we came home and had a cup of tea on the verandah.

A busy weekend

Anne came over on Thursday evening and we went to the "Mado" Turkish restaurant at Southbank.



I had a sucucluk pide there (something like an Italian calzone) as I usually do and Anne also had a pide. Excellent food. It's getting hard to park the car near there though so we had a walk as well -- which pleased Anne.

Anne stayed overnight and next morning we took a trip to Austria for breakfast -- to the K& K Konditorei at Sinnamon Park. We Humbered out there. It really is like a slice of Austria -- but set in a backstreet of a Brisbane suburb. They even sell Almdudler (A herbal lemonade imported from Austria). I had the Bauern Groestl, as I often do, and Anne had a Kransky with Sauerkraut, Roesti and bread. And we both had two cups of their excellent coffee -- which was a bit over the odds for both of us.

Then on Saturday Anne's sister Merle had a celebration of her 50th wedding anniversary. It was a dinner held in the hall of the Carina Presbyterian church -- an awful big soulless modern place. Not the sort of Presbyterian church hall I was used to at all. Merle and her husband Ralph do however go regularly to that church so it must have something -- good outreach, I gather.

The occasion was in fact a very Presbyterian one: low-key but friendly. Definitely no wild singing and dancing. We did however at one stage have some harp music! It wasn't a Western concert harp so I think it must have been some sort of Korean harp. The lady playing it (Yes. It was a lady. Why are almost all harpists female?) was Korean. You meet Koreans anywhere you go among Australian Presbyterians these days. Why? Because there are now far more Presbyterians in Korea than in Scotland! The main reason Presbyterian missionaries were so successful in Korea is that they were not Japanese. Koreans loathe the Japanese and all their works and do their best to differentiate themselves from the Japanese. Another feature of the evening was a slideshow of family snaps, which everyone enjoyed.

There were four generations of the family present, which was impressive. Anne's 90 year old mother was there as were Anne's two little grandsons. Baby Ethan was looking healthy, which was very heartening. His premature birth was very stressful for all involved but he seems to have suffered no harm from it -- due in part no doubt to the excellent care he got at Brisbane's Mater Private Hospital.

The food was predictable (roast etc.) but pleasant enough. There was of course no alcohol in evidence and we did start the dinner with one of Merle's sons saying grace. I imagine that some people might have found the occasion boring but I felt on familiar and comfortable ground there. I am rather pleased that Anne has revived my Presbyterian connections to some extent. Our similar background is very congenial.

Then Sunday was of course Mothers' Day. As I usually do, I took some good lunchy things over to Jenny's place. She's not my mother but she is the mother of my son. My mother passed away long ago. Jenny's mother is however still hale and hearty in her 80s and she was present at the lunch. Others present were Paul, Joe and Samantha. It was a very pleasant lunch. My contribution was prosciutto, terrine, antipasto and some King Island cheese.

Then for dinner Anne came over again and made us some Reuben sandwiches -- using some Dutch Leerdammer cheese -- a Dutch version of Swiss cheese. And I still managed to keep up my usual blog output through all that!

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.