For St. George and merrie England!

Today is St. George's day, the national day of England (not Britain. Britain includes Scotland and Wales) so I have just hoisted the flag of St George from my flagpole. It has mostly in the past not been much celebrated in England but, thanks in part to Boris Johnson, the "Turkish" Mayor of London, it will be this year. Boris is a great joker. He does have some distant Turkish ancestry (Turkish Jewish if I remember rightly) but even his grandfather was an RAF bomber pilot in WWII and he himself went to Eton and Oxford.



Anne flew out to London for 7 weeks holiday yesterday and I have heard of no aircraft crashes so I assume she got there safely. But did her luggage get there too? Always doubtful when you are using Heathrow airport. There have been cases where people's luggage arrived at their holiday destination only after they had returned home!

De rerum novarum

Sorry to misappropriate the name of a Papal encyclical for my heading above but today WAS a day of new things for me. We had our Westside classical music gathering tonight and one of the performers brought along a real live Basset Horn and played it. Mozart is the only composer who wrote much for the Basset Horn and it fell into disuse soon thereafter -- so very few people even had much idea of what it was until recently. Someone found some originals in an old castle somewhere, though, and it has now been revived -- with fingering the same as for a clarinet. It was the first time I had seen one. It looks like a small sax but has a surprisingly bass range. The guy who bought it along is a clarinettist and he played us some Mozart on it.

The second surprise was that we had a young composer among us who played us some of his music. That would normally be a trigger for some big groans but this guy was surprisingly good. I actually enjoyed some recently-written music tonight! His conventions were of the 19th century, however -- not the raucous screeching that usually passes for modern music. One hopes that the agonized substitute for music that characterized the 20th century died with that century. I speak of MOST 20th century music however. Exceptions like Philip Glass and Joaquin Rodrigo were of course brilliant.

And the third but much more minor surprise was that our usual Asian contingent comprised this time a violinist and a cellist. A Jewish violinist and an Chinese pianist would be our more usual pattern.

Good Friday today

Well. I made it to the service at my old church: Ann St Presbyterian. Good Friday is a major religious occasion for Christians in Australia, with Easter Sunday secondary. I gather that it is the other way around in some countries. So I got up at 8am and managed to be at the 9am commencement of the service with time to spare. The church is only 10 minutes drive from where I live so that helps. Anne came along too as it happens to be her old church too. It was a communion service so went on a bit longer than usual. It felt good to be back among the sort of people "from whence I sprang". And it was good to hear a Scottish accent from the pulpit too. I feel sorry for Leftists who don't appreciate such things. It must be very unpleasant to be angry with the world about you all the time. I certainly don't think the world is perfect but I don't hate it. I just enjoy getting on with my own life in my own way.

The congregation was mostly Caucasian with only a few Asians present. The Koreans who used to attend have now built their own church. The pews at Ann St were still pretty full though. The minister, Archie McNicol, is one of the old school who is not afraid to mention "The machinations of the Devil" and such things so it is real religion that gets preached there and not conventional bromides. I noticed that the long prayer included a supplication for the conversion of the Jews. Traditional of course. But I would have been happier if it had also included a prayer for the safety of the Jews.

The reading was from John Chapter 19 and I was struck by the great lengths Pilate went to NOT to crucify Jesus, but the Pharisees were relentless and finally accused him of disloyalty to Caesar -- which Pilate of course could not risk. Many of the claimants on righteousness today -- Warmists, Leftists, obesity warriors etc. -- are just as nasty and hostile in my view.

The service ended with the hymn "Rugged Cross" -- one of my top favourites.

There is occasionally a furore when secularists or Anglicans (but I repeat myself) remove the crucifix from some church or chapel. We had an example of that very recently in Australia.



They would be perplexed how to attack Ann St. Presbyterian, though -- because it has neither cross nor crucifix in it. That is because it is an old "Wee Free" (Free Church of Scotland) church and its Scottish fundamentalist builders weren't going to have any "graven images" in it -- and CERTAINLY no "idolatry". With all the polished wood in it, the interior is still a beautiful one, though. See below. I feel immensely at home there.



A small addendum

The former Governor of Queensland, Quentin Bryce, was a supporter of the Ann St. church and it appears that the present Governor, Penny Wensley, has stepped into her shoes in that respect too. I believe I saw Her Excellency at the service. She is certainly going to be present at the Anzac Day service at Ann St., just ahead. Anzac day is Australia's most solemn day of commemoration. Penelope Wensley is a Queensland-born career diplomat so her appointment as Governor is appropriate.

Unlike the USA, a Governor in Australia is an appointed office rather than an elected one. The governor represents and inherits the powers of the Monarch, which are large, though they are very rarely exercised. I am sure that many Americans wish at times that there was someone who could dismiss their government if it got too uppity. At both the State and the Federal level, that power does exist in Australia. Monarchy has its advantages.

Sandwiches

These memoirs are a pretty idiosyncratic affair. I make no attempt to keep them systematic in any way. My life is a very routine one -- which is how I like it -- so the the major events in it tend to be family occasions and my encounters with the medical profession -- surgeries to remove (iatrogenic) skin cancer, mainly. I had a CT scan of my head recently and I am rather pleased to say that they found nothing wrong with it!

So something as simple as a sandwich can be a major event for me. And last Tuesday Anne made an excellent Reuben sandwich for me. I discovered Reuben sandwiches on my trips to the USA and -- lover of sandwiches that I am -- the unavailability of Reuben sandwiches in Australia has always been a great regret to me. But last Tuesday Anne had cooked up some pickled pork that she thought would go well on a Reuben sandwich -- and so it did. She made it with Jarlsberg cheese -- which is a sort of Swiss cheese (from Norway!) -- plus the usual sauerkraut and thousand-island dressing -- and it was great!

I have also got her to try her hand at Philly cheesesteak sandwiches -- which she does for me on rare occasions with good results. If I were younger I would fly us both to Philly to try Geno's version but I am afraid that it is too late in my life for that. I have started to mention Denver (Western) sandwiches to her but no results yet.

Update:

Yes. I know that pork of any kind is the LAST thing you should have on a Reuben sandwich. I am sure that a Jew dies somewhere every time you do (To quote a famous joke) but it tasted good anyway

My son the white van man

Yiddisher Mommas are famous for referring to "my son the doctor" -- though I imagine that that was mainly an older generation of Yiddisher Mommas at work. Perhaps it has to be "My son the Professor" these days.

So the fact that my son is a white van man would no doubt be looked upon with pity by some. In fact it would be looked on with speechlessness in much of English society. "White van man" is the euphemism for the working class in England these days. And under them in the hierarchy are "chavs" -- loud young people who may or may not work but who are flashy rather than bright -- an important distinction.

So I was much amused to be told by my son last night that he has some part-time work delivering computers that people have bought from his brother's business. And he delivers them in a white van! He does it only to earn some pocket money while working towards his doctorate in Mathematics so I suspect that I might still be able to hold my head high in the company of Yiddisher Mommas. The Yiddisher Mommas I have known have always been perfectly pleasant to me so I did not really have any doubts about that. Though one of them did refer to me as "the doctor", so draw your own conclusions about that!

This all transpired at a birthday dinner for my stepson Paul -- his 33rd. There was the usual big family dinner around a long table for the occasion -- this time at an excellent Indian restaurant at Mt Gravatt. My son Joe lives with his mother so I see him mainly on family occasions but they are frequent so not much is lost.

I was pleased that Joe seems well set in his academic career path now. He finds the work he does easy and is enthusiastic about it so getting a doctorate in it should be plain sailing. His supervisor is Chinese and the Chinese in general do seem to have a higher mathematical aptitude than the rest of us so Joe was understandably talking about learning Mandarin. I warned him about how hard that would be. Joe has however always got on well with Chinese people so I think a visit to China is on the cards for him some time in the future.

Avoid the Camerata of St John's

Last night Anne and I went to a concert given by the Camerata of St John's at their home base in the cathedral. It was awful. The concert was called "Four seasons" and of course featured the Vivaldi work of that name. Before we got to the Vivaldi, however, we had to endure some screeching modern crap, which put me in a bad mood for the Vivaldi, which is hard to do.

And to cap it all, there was an interminable amount of talk injected into all the proceedings. I go to a concert to hear music, not to listen to some idiot's "artistic" ramblings. They even had the yap in between the different "seasons" of the Vivaldi. What an insult to think they could improve on the music of Vivaldi! It must be the least enjoyable rendition of Vivaldi that I have ever heard.

It was my own fault for going, however. I should have checked the full programme beforehand. I just thought that any concert featuring "Le quattro stagioni" had to be good. I was wrong. Trying to be positive, the best I can say for the performances is that they were energetic.

A saint's day observed

Once it was only Catholics who celebrated saints' days but now lots of us do: St Valentine seems to be going from strength to strength. I think I did my bit: red roses, a card, a present and a dinner prepared with my own fair hand for Anne.

I actually prepared a big antipasto for our dinner: Something we both like. It had giardiniera, olives, feta, sweet pickled cucumber slices, tinned mackerel and tinned salmon in it. It went down well. We washed it down with a bottle of Moet.

I even wore an Hawaiian shirt for the dinner, which seemed to please Anne. My usual taste in shirts these days is predictably conservative -- whites and pale blues -- but Anne is keen on colour.

We were going to take the dinner to a riverside park to eat but rain supervened so we had it on my verandah.

After dinner we listened to the great music of old Vienna in the form of a medley of Strauss walzes

Burns nights of yesteryear

"Marty", a relative of mine on my mother's side, enjoyed my account here of my recent Burns night. He sent a copy to an old friend of his of Scottish heritage. His friend reminisces as follows:

"When I was a member of the pipe band in Cairns we used to celebrate Burns Night in the upstairs ballroom of the RSL on the esplanade.

Staying true to custom the haggis was piped in cut and distributed, toasts were given, we all got pissed and had a bloody good time.

I was never and still am not keen on haggis I likened the taste to damp sawdust but to stay true to the cause managed to eat a wee bit.

I remember reading about some bloke taking a haggis through customs in Spain, I think it was, and the Spanish customs listed it as fertilizer and they wouldn't have been far wrong.

We never turned out in full Highland dress even on Burns night, it was too bl**dy hot.

The pipe band used to be invited to just about everything that was going in Cairns and surprisingly even in summer the kilt, being made of wool, was pretty cool to wear. I still get the gear on in November when Linda and I go to the Highland gathering in Nambour.

That Andy Stewart clip bought back memories, Linda and I went and saw him at the civic center in Cairns and there was a bloke called John McDonald playing a piano accordion, I could have sat and listened to him all night. My old man used to play accordion and he was pretty bl**dy good but he was not in this bloke's class."

I think it does take talent to cook haggis well. The haggis I get is cooked by a local Scots cook and is excellent.

Susie's wedding

Susan Vanessa Johnson got married last Saturday. Ceremonies were supposed to start at 1:30pm, which is when I arrived, and ended around 10pm. Susie is my stepdaughter and I helped to bring her up. And she was always a happy little girl so we had lots of fun together while she was a kid. So although she is now 30, there has always remained a feeling of closeness between us. When she was little, I used to call her "Lady Fun" and her happy nature is still there today.

I think her love of fun may have partly been why she got dressed for her wedding in a very fine but rather traditional off-white wedding dress, complete with train, which tripped a few people up a couple of times. She looked gorgeous.

The ceremony was a garden one, in one of Brisbane's many parks. It was conducted by newly-minted marriage celebrant, Simon Bartlett, her uncle by marriage. The words of the ceremony were mainly written by Susan and her husband Russell, as is often the way these days. And the words chosen were very fine words of dedication and by the end of the ceremony Simon seemed a bit choked up. All the family love Susan and Simon clearly has a sentimental streak. I am a great sentimentalist too and it takes one to know one. Susie too was obviously a bit overcome by all the goodwill directed her way.

After the wedding, we went to the Mt Gravatt bowls club for the reception. From 4 to 7pm the idea was that we would all play lawn bowls, as the family is a very games-oriented one. I am no gamer, however, so I spent most of that time talking secret men's business with my son Joe. It was good to have the chance of such a long chat.

The dinner started at 7pm and least said soonest mended about the cuisine. There were various speeches, including a speech of utter dedication to Susie from Russell. I think we all felt that Susie was in exactly the sort of good hands we would wish at the end of it. Ken, Susie's father, was even induced to make a speech, which was generally well-done, despite Ken's well-known aversion to public speaking. I think I may have been the only one to get Ken's best joke, however, which was hilarious.

I then gave a little talk about a couple of the amusing events from Susie's childhood and then the night gradually transformed into dancing of various kinds. Susie came and got me on my feet so I had the privilege of dancing with the bride.

Being an old traditionalist, I felt a certain gap in that there were no religious blessings on the couple at any time but the family is such a non-religious one that it was really no surprise. As an atheist myself, I could hardly step into the breach.

Addendum:

I have no doubt that any readers not steeped in Australian culture would have been a little puzzled by my reference above to "secret men's business". It is of course a joke and refers to Aboriginal customs. Google "secret women's business" to get an idea of what it is all about.

A sympathetic caricature

I like the work of conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG and do what I can to promote it. As a thank-you Zeg has done the caricature of me with my son Joe below. I think it is great.



And, yes: I DID wear the kilt to Susie's wedding.

The Asian influence

As a conservative, I treat people primarily as individuals, regardless of any group to which they may or may not belong. I leave obsession with race and class to Leftists. From Marx up until shortly after the Hitlerian catastrophe, Leftists were very pro-racist. Now they are very anti-racist but the obsession with race remains. They seem unable to treat people as individuals and can only talk about people in terms of broad and very oversimplified categories.

But as well as being a conservative I am also a sociologist. An Australian government (NSW) paid me a lot of money over a 12 year period to teach it. And as they are nearly all Leftists, what is the chief interest of sociologists? Race and class! So I still mull those topics over in my head quite a lot -- with always in mind the one piece of wisdom I remember from my mother's incessant chatter: "There's good and bad in the lot".

I am, for instance, very pro-Indian; I think that Indians tend to have admirable characteristics. And being the forthright sort of person I am, I put my money where my mouth is and have mostly Indian sharers living with me in my large house. Usually, I even fly the flag of the Republic of India from the flagpole at the front of my house and have been known to greet Indians living here with Jai Hind ("Long live Hindustan")! And that orientation serves me well in that I am very satisfied with the people that I have living with me. But I have also kicked two Indians out. Even though I think Indians are mostly fine people there are some pesky ones too and I have no trouble treating them accordingly. There is good and bad in Indians too.

So on to my thoughts about East Asians and the Han Chinese in particular. I have probably commented on this to a boring extent already but I never cease to be amazed at how well Australians of Asian and British ancestry get on together in Australia. One sees Anglo/Asian couples around the place all the time: Older Australian men with Filipinas and younger Anglo-Australian men with Chinese ladies.

And I myself am quite Sinophilic as well as Indophilic. It is in a way fortunate that I am as I have two old friends who now live in China with Chinese wives. And another old friend has a Japanese lady in his life. I myself however have never got involved with East Asian women, though I did once have an Indian girlfriend. My son however has a girlfriend with Han ancestry and has Chinese friends as well. There are all sorts of background differences and some genetic differences between Anglo-Australians and Chinese but at the individual level there is also often a great appreciation of one another. One can only applaud that. And my conclusion is that the differences between East Asians and Anglo-Celts are complementary: Each has strengths where the other has weaknesses and vice versa. But I might tread on toes all round if I went further into that thought.

The present revival of this theme in my thinking was provoked by a visit from China by one of my old friends, Croucher. He arrived in Brisbane yesterday with his Chinese wife and his two very impressive Eurasian sons. So we all went to dinner together with the Henninghams. Henningham, Croucher and I have a friendship that goes back many years. We always refer to one another by surname only, indicating a sort of jolly friendship, I suppose.

Perhaps in need of a change off Chinese food, Croucher wanted some Middle-Eastern food. So we went to a Turkish restaurant near where I live. Parking around there there is either very difficult or very expensive so I crammed us all into my 1963 Humber Super Snipe and delivered everybody to the door of the restaurant in that. The Humber has bench seats front and back so can transport more people than many modern cars.

I was feeling a bit depressed due to my upcoming minor surgery but fortunately everyone else was in good form with nonsense being talked for most of the night. We did however have occasional serious moments in which we agreed, for instance, that global warming was a great steaming heap of ... Henningham, Croucher and I constantly talk bantering nonsense to one another in emails -- which we greatly enjoy doing -- but it was best of all to do so in person, of course. All three of us are academics so there is also occasionally some academic talk between us but not much.

But it is still a little surprising to me that wherever I go there is a Han presence -- a presence that seems to be completely harmonious. At the classical music group I go to there are almost always Chinese performers giving renditions of Western classsical music to a very high standard; and at the recent annual gathering of my relatives on my mother's side there was also a Han presence: A cousin once removed is married to a Chinese lady and has attractive Eurasian children. I actually now have relatives with Han ancestry!

So if only all minorities fitted in as well here as the East Asians do! Australia is indeed lucky that its largest visible minority is East Asian -- people whom I see as generally patient, clever, flexible individuals who work hard and contribute greatly to the community as a whole. They are not saints (though their rate of crime is very low) but they do seem to fit in with the rest of us remarkably well. And anyone who values social ease and harmony will value that.

Australia day

Australia day is always a hectic time for me. Anne has her birthday on 23rd. I have the Burns night on 25th and then Australia day on 26th. Anne's birthday is no problem. I just take her to the Hilton Smorgasbord or Siggy's -- both of which are very upmarket places to dine. It was the Hilton this year as Anne is devoted to the excellent oysters that they always have there. But Burns Night is a BIG occasion and at lunch on the very next day I have to be recovered enough to attend the annual reunion of the C** clan -- my relatives on my mother's side. There are heaps of us all over the place but even the Brisbane contingent is substantial and we have been having a BBQ lunch together on Australia day for many years.

This year it was, as usual, at the home of my very pleasant brother Christopher. One could not ask for a nicer brother and he lives a mere 10 minutes drive from me but I still see him only once or twice a year. Such is the way of many Australian families. It is to overcome that tendency to disconnection that we all make a point of getting together on Australia day.

I was this year as always impressed by Peter, my cousin once removed. He is a fellow academic but I am still always impressed by the breadth of his knowledge. There seems to be no topic you can raise on which he does not have a useful contribution. He, Joe and I spent some time discussing battles of WWI and WWII and such things. Peter is married to a Chinese lady and has a most detailed knowledge of Chinese matters. He also has most attractive Eurasian children who were there with us. Joe's girlfriend is also of the Han so the Chinese influence is well into the family. Being Sinophilic myself, I am entirely pleased about that. I see the Han as a civilizing influence.

A Scottish "seder"

Last night I celebrated, together with family and friends, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. And we did almost all of the customs that are associated with a Burns night. The Scots have customs and rules for most things and a Burns Night is certainly no exception to that. There just ARE certain things you do on a Burns night and I think all 25 of us present enjoyed carrying out the customs concerned. Even people who are not normally particular fans of the monarchy, for instance, were glad to join loudly in the loyal toast ("God save the Queen").

The extensive customs involved reminded me in a way of a Jewish passover seder. A seder in its present form shows strong Hellenistic influences so is probably around 2,000 years old whereas a Burns night is only around 200 years old but they are both examples of enduring and complex traditions that are greatly enjoyed by the participants. And although I have the utmost repect for the Orthodox haggadah that we used at the seder I attended last year, I think the poems of Robbie Burns also have a powerful and didactic effect. And maybe might last just as long.

It saddens me a little, however, that, as with Jewry, there has been a loss of culture among us descendants of the British diaspora. Most people these days don't even know how to respond to the loyal toast. The response to "God save the Queen" is of course simply "The Queen" but lots of people don't seem to know that.

I struggled into the kilt for the occasion and led the proceedings. Present were mostly the "old gang" of family members who seem to meet for one reason or another every month or two. But in addition to that we had two visitors from Scotland and two visitors from Sydney. From Scotland came Ken's sister Pat and her daughter Anna. From Sydney came my old friend Mel Dickson and his wife Diana. Mel is Dunedin-born so still can do an approach to a Scottish accent -- so he very kindly read some of the poems for us all. He also gave a brilliant "Address to the Lassies" that amused us all.

Anne did a great job of cooking the haggis, tatties and neeps and she even did some cabbage as well -- at my particular request. I think she does great cabbage and great neeps. It was all good peasant food, but very well done.

We had clootie dumpling as the dessert but I corrupted that custom a bit by having custard with it instead of sugar. After that we had the nearest I could find to "Dunlop" cheese accompanied by either oatcakes or salty biscuits.

The occasion was very kindly hosted at Daisy Hill by my stepson Paul, as I can only fit 7 or 8 people at my place.

BBQ for visitors from England

A "BBQ for visitors from England" is quite a common social occasion in Australia. Emigration to Australia from England has been going on continuously for the last 200 years and it is still big today. So many English-born people live in Australia but like to keep up with friends and relatives back "home". It also works the other way. Most Australians seem to visit England some time -- mainly in their youth -- and some settle in England. So some of the "visitors from England" are actually Australian-born and coming home to touch base with relatives and old friends.

Ken's sister Pat and her daughter have recently arrived in Australia for a few weeks. She is English-born but lives in Scotland these days. So we had a welcoming BBQ for her last Saturday -- with just about all "the gang" present -- 20+ people I guess. It was at Simon's place and Simon once again did us proud with his cookery (kebabs, sausages, drumsticks etc) but left the desserts to the ladies.

I talked mainly with Ken, Simon and Joe as I normally do. I also talked a bit to Paul about the stockmarket and tried to give him a longer perspective on it. I was pleased to see that Paul and Sue have overcome their differences. Sue was looking more glamorous than ever. I previously told Paul that he was mad to fall out with such a nice-looking and nice-natured wife and he seems to have taken that to heart. I think everyone took Sue's side in the matter, as a matter of fact.

Much future activity soon: Annes's birthday at the Hilton Friday night, Burns Night Sunday night with 20+ guests and the Austalia day BBQ with my mother's relatives on Monday lunchtime. I will be worn out at the end of all that.

A VERY quiet new year's eve

All that happened at my place was that Anne came over and cooked us an excellent lamb roast & veg. for dinner. Very traditional. She also provided some good Tasmanian triple cream cambembert for appetisers. Less traditional. We washed it down with a bottle of Moet & Chandon champagne from the Hexagon.

After that we just lay about and listened to classical music for a while and then at 8.30 turned on ABC TV to watch the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. It is filmed in Scotland in September, I think, but the ABC always broadcast it here on new year's eve. I think it is an instinct that you have to have something Scottish on new year's eve, an instinct that I entirely approve of. So watching the tattoo here on TV at that time is rather traditional too. You have to like pipe music to really appreciate it though. I was pleased to see that an Indian military band was part of it this year. And there were Gurkhas too!

But I still think that the Scottish regiments in full Highland dress are the most magnificently attired military men. There is no other uniform that comes close to it, in my view. The terribly plain uniforms that the German army wear these days are something of a tragedy in my view. Bring back the Pickelhaube!

Just before the new year broke Anne and I retired to the verandah and waited for all the noise (fireworks etc.) that would greet the new year. We toasted the new year in with the remainder of the Moet.

Update:

Being a literary sort of character, I do lapse into obscure language at times. But being a born pedagogue, I also feel impelled to explain things. So what is that business above about a hexagon? It is just a common French synonym for France (strictly, metropolitan France). Look at a map of France and you should see why.

A double Christmas

Our big family Christmases normally happen on Christmas day. While the "kids" (now all in their 30s) were young, the day started early in the morning (some time between 6am and 7am) as the kids were unleashed on a pile of presents under the tree. After the present distribution, people would either sit around talking, play games or go back to sleep until the big lunch. In more recent times, however, just a lunch after midday has been the custom followed by a swappable mystery present game that everyone plays.

This year, however, we went European and had our big occasion on Christmas eve rather on Christmas day. It was at Simon's big new house out in the boondocks (boondocks from my viewpoint. I have long been a central city dweller). Anne and I Humbered out there. Showing how versatile members of the military can be, Simon cooked up a big and first-class traditional Christmas dinner for us (around 20 people) all by himself on his big new stove.

The house had been designed by Simon to accommodate entertaining and its 9ft wide verandahs were certainly good for that. It was a very hot day but the verandahs were cool. As usual, I talked mainly with Paul, Joe, Simon and Ken but I did get in brief chats with Von and Suz. Von is doing amazingly well. She gets a very high salary and owns three houses. Having a practical streak plus being both nice-looking and happy-natured has certainly delivered the goods for her. I was pleased to see that both girls are still wearing their hair long too. It looked great on both of them.

Joe has been working on his honours thesis lately and is finding no problems with it. He hopes to finish it by March and hopes to get employment in the actuarial field some time next year. He has certainly been consistent in his wish to become an actuary. Academe seems to be only a second preference for him. His mathematics degree is of course a good starting point for actuarial work but he told me that his knowledge of the stockmarket is helpful in interviews too. So my setting him up to get stockmarket experience has had an unexpected side-benefit. I gave him the usual large cheque for Christmas for him to invest. I want him to make most of his investment mistakes before I die, when he has to take over my portfolio.

After the mystery present game, which was very raucous and jocular and must have taken an hour or more, we got our Secret Santa presents. Paul was my secret Santa. Because I sometimes used to give him trick presents when he was a kid, he gave me a trick present this time. The present was ostensibly a circular saw in a circular-saw cardboard box -- even though my Secret Santa request had been for a towel and a sheet. But I rather spoilt the game by neither commenting on the apparent present nor opening the box. Paul however, pushed to get me to open the box and it did after all contain a towel and sheet.

Cake and desserts came after the present exchanges and Simon got me into a discussion of ethics and meta-ethics over dessert! As part of that I suggested that there are some things we can be certain of and "Global warming is crap" would be one example of that. There was no disagreement. I am always a bit surprised by how many global warming skeptics I encounter -- even people in relatively humble occupations. Suzy's husband-to-be, Russel, is a rigger (assistant to a crane driver) but even he could tell you all about ice-cores and such things and why they disprove global warming. I am inclined to think that only an intellectual could be stupid enough to believe in it.

Anyway, Jenny knew that I am a creature of habit and would miss my usual Christmas lunch so she put on an excellent lunch next day just for me, her, Joe and Nanna. Anne was elsewhere attending her own Christmas lunch. We had a small present exchange first and Joe got a Nintendo Wii games machine out of it, which he was really pleased about. They really are an amazing advance on the old games machines that I remember. The dinner itself included two types of kebab, both of which tasted as good as they smelled.

An interesting morning

Anne is a neophiliac. She likes each day to be new and different. And I am an old stick-in-the mud. I prefer everything to be the same day after day. But reality somehow suits us both.

Yesterday morning we started out taking my ironing to Flo, which I do about every 2 weeks. But this time I managed to give Flo (a pensioner) a $50 note as a Xmas present -- despite some resistance from her. I mentioned that to Anne and she of course approved.

On our way back from Flo, I nearly ran into a police car, which no doubt jangled Anne a bit. But it was one of those ambiguous merging situations so the cops did not pull me up.

Then we went to Vincenzo's for breakfast and Anne decided to try the vegetarian breakfast. She nearly starved. She even ate up all her toast for want of much else. They should have included some potatoes with it. I of course had the bacon and egg breakfast that I always have there -- day in and day out.

Afterwards we called into the hot bread shop and bought a rather sinful bun of some sort with icing and walnuts and mixed fruit on top. Anne said she did not want anything but I knew she would have some of mine.

I noticed as we were leaving the shopping centre that I was almost out of petrol -- another excitement -- but we made it to a service station in time.

Then we went to the huge Garden City shopping mall so that I could visit Lowes and buy myself a pair of shorts. Which I did in a rather grumpy way. I am a reluctant clothes shopper these days. Another departure from routine anyway.

Then we visited the local Lifeline (thrift shop) and I bought a pretty little butter dish I saw there.

Then we went home and had a cup of tea (with the bun I bought earlier) on the verandah amid a very pleasant breeze. And while were were there we tried to figure out -- to much hilarity -- the big set of very strange fibre-optic Xmas lights that I had bought recently. We rather failed at putting them up so I rang Jeff and gave the problem to him. He very obligingly agreed to come over next Sunday and put them up.

So Anne certainly got a lot of the non-routine events that she likes.

Humbers and Music

The Humber club had its annual Christmas lunch on Sunday -- at "Botanix", of Wellington Pt. So Anne and I Humbered out there. It was infernally difficult to find but we did find it eventually. It is a really big place with a garden shop etc. as well as the restaurant.

And the head chef there must have been quite a whizz. There were lots of diners but the dinners kept pouring out of the kitchen and they all looked good. Our dinners arrived quite promptly and were excellent. The steamed pudding was particularly good.

But the highlight of the occasion for me was seeing TWO Type 2 Humbers parked side by side. They looked magnificent.



My Humber is a type 4. It has nothing on the gravitas of a Type 2.

Then that night we Humbered out to the Xmas do of the Westside Music Circle at Pullenvale. The quality of the music was as usual a bit uneven -- something to be expected from an amateur organization. I used to run it myself so I know. It was uneven when I ran it too. There was some awful modern violin music and some quite inspiring Vivaldi.

But the star of the evening was undoubtedly a brilliant Russian violinist named Attilla. Yes. I am not making that up. His first name really is Attilla. He actually looks Turkish rather than Russian so I was not surprised to see that he was born in one of the Muslim countries of the old USSR. He honoured us with his presence at our Xmas do last year too. As well as being a born fiddler he is a great entertainer who sees fun in everything. He will go far.

The crowd was probably our best yet. About 40 at a guess. I talked mainly to Jill and Lewis. I seem to have corrupted Lewis. He was wearing shorts for the first time. He knew I would be.

Poetry

An old but shambling friend of mine has condemned these memoirs as far too boring. I agree. I like a quiet life so they SHOULD be boring. He has however suggested that I liven this site up by adding some poetry to it. That is of course a challenge to which I am somewhat susceptible. Quoting poetry by someone else on a personal blog does however seem to have hairs on it so I thought I might put up a short poem of my own. I wrote some poetry back in the '60s which I now think very little of but the one below may be a bit of fun:

DEFIANCE (Sonnet)

Fine was the knight of old with fatal mace.
That fighting breed has left a lasting trace
On our ancient, ever nascent British race
Expressed in business, battle or the chase.
When pressed we know we'll always set the pace,
Be commerce, fighting or any endeavour the race.
Our heritage we never could debase
By any act that e'er could bring disgrace
So let us present crises far outface
Try not our steps long past now to retrace
With glories past, "Alertness now" replace.
For a fighting future minds and hearts strong brace
That we may turn to all a happy face
Successful still and pressing on apace.

It is of course a technically boastful (and peculiar) sonnet but it does convey that I was then, as now, pleased by my origins.

A small dinner

A small dinner tonight to celebrate Joe's successful completion of a 4th year at university. We went to our usual Indian destination and the food was as good as ever.

I left the guest list to Joe and he simply invited all his close blood kin only, plus their partners. So I think there were only 11 at table.

Paul was his usual ebullient self despite his recent split with Susan and mainly talked about the stockmarket. He has been going to AGMs lately and finds them amusing.

Joe seemed confident that his next year at university will be a doddle. He took it a bit easy this year by doing courses only so next year he has to do a thesis only to get his honours degree. And he already has it part written.

St Andrew's day

I mentioned elsewhere recently that St Andrew's day (Nov. 30) is Scotland's national day and am pleased to report that Anne and I did do something towards celebrating it last night. I flew the saltire of St. Andrew from my flagpole that day and we had Forfar Bridies (from Sid's) for our evening meal and listened to Scottish music both then and afterward. And the songs we listened to were the in the main the old favourites that are so deeply felt among the Scots -- Scottish Soldier, My Ain folk, Loch Lomond, Skye boat song, Scots wha hae etc. etc.

I have spoken a little lately of how conservatives have few inhibitions about group loyalties (such as patriotism) and mentioned the Eton Boating Song as an instance of how such loyalties can be deeply felt. And I also noted at the time that loyalty or a feeling of connectedness to your own group does not necessarily imply contempt for other groups or a wish to dominate them. And the Eton Boating Song exemplified that well. And so does the Scottish song I put up recently elsewhere. Although it is called "Scotland the Brave", it again contains no aggression or hostility towards others. It just talks about Scottish people and the beloved Scottish landscape. But it is still capable of bringing tears to Scottish eyes. The feelings it conveys are intensely felt.





So I am going to press the point a little further by putting up here the words of another beloved Scottish song: Scottish Soldier. I am sure that any Leftist would immediatey assume that such a song must be glorying in the crushing, dominating and extermination of other people. But it does none of that. As a song about a soldier it does indeed refer with pride to his distinguished military past but the song is not about that at all. Once again it is about his memories of his own country whilst serving abroad and how his dying wish to be buried in Scotland was honoured.

Scottish Soldier



1). There was a soldier, a Scottish soldier
Who wandered far away and soldiered far away
There was none bolder, with good broad shoulders,
He fought in many a fray and fought and won
He's seen the glory, he's told the story
Of battles glorious and deeds victorious
But now he's sighing his heart is crying
To leave these green hills of Tyrol.

Chorus: Because these green hills are not highland hills
Or the Islands hills their not my lands hills,
As fair as these green foreign hills may be
They are not the hills of home.

2). And now this soldier, this Scottish soldier,
Who wandered far away and soldiered far away
Sees leaves are falling, and death is calling
And he will fade away, on that dark land
He called his piper, his trusty piper
And bade him sound away, a pibroch sad to play
Upon a hillside but Scottish hillside
Not on these green hills of Tyrol

Chorus:

3). And now this soldier this Scottish soldier
Who wanders far no more, and soldiers far no more
Now on a hillside, a Scottish hillside
You'll see a piper play this soldier home
He's seen the glory, he's told the story
Of battles glorious and deeds victorious
But he will cease now, he is at peace now
Far from these green hills of Tyrol

Chorus:

In case I seem to be just blowing smoke in saying above that Leftists tend to see patriotism as implying hostility towards others, I might mention that there is a very large academic literature in psychology which assumes exactly that -- starting with the work of Adorno et al. (1950) on "ethnocentrism". I might also mention that my own survey research into exactly that question repeatedly showed exactly what I have asserted above -- that patriotism does NOT in general imply hostilty towards others. See e.g. here.

Reference: Adorno,T.W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D.J. & Sanford, R.N. (1950). The authoritarian personality New York: Harper.