An army recollection

This post is a bit indelicate so perhaps anybody feeling delicate should stop reading now

In the great scheme of things, my time in the army was undoubtedly of the most minuscule importance that you can possibly imagine -- but I enjoyed it and that is what matters to me.

One very amusing recollection is when we were "in the field" (at Tin Can Bay) and we had our first experience of army sanitary arrangements. With perfect good sense, the army does not make allowances for privacy in such situations. When you have to "go" in battle no privacy may be available. So you need to get "broken in" to primitive arrangements.

In Tin Can bay the "restroom" consisted of a number of "thunder boxes" set in a semi-circle with no partitions between them. This lack of privacy did have a considerable constipating effect on a number of my "brothers in arms". I have chronically loose bowels anyway, however, so I was not held up to any degree at all. I just blurted away, rather to the envy of some of the others, I imagine.

One occasion when I did surprise myself, however, was when we were all in the back of an army truck returning from leave in town. In good army style, our leave had involved much beer. And beer consumption can suddenly hit you hard with an urge to "go". So I did. I stood up at the back of the truck and peed it all out on the road as the truck bounced along. I would not be able to do it sober. Nobody else did likewise but I have always had a rather weak bladder so maybe their need was not as great.

I think my performance did earn me some kudos, however.

Earth day

Anne and I celebrated Earth day in appropriate style. Everybody was supposed to turn all their lights out at 8:30 pm.

So at 8.30pm I turned on every light in the house and Anne served up our dinner on my verandah. We had Forfar Bridies from Syd's, with salad, and they were of course excellent. We washed them down with some Wynn's Coonawarra Shiraz

I live within earshot of "The Gabba", one of the holy grounds of cricket. They had a well-attended (judging by the roars of the crowd) football match there last night. It was of course held under huge floodlights. And they certainly were not turned off at 8.30pm. Thank goodness for sporting Australians.

Some pictures from scenic Lumsden

With Von and Hannah





The beach looks very English -- but it is a river beach, not a seaside beach. I note that Von is warmly dressed while I have the airconditioning on! A difference between the shaky isles and Brisbane of course.

Paul's birthday

Paul has his birthday this week so I put on a small birthday dinner for him tonight at my place. We managed to fit 9 people onto my small front verandah but that meant that we were close enough for everybody to hear one-another.

Present were Paul & Sue, Anne & myself, Ken & Maureen, Jenny, Nanna and Timmy. So the lad had his mother, father, grandmother and his old stepfather all present. Not that he's really a lad anymore. He is a man in his 30s. But all the relationships seem to be much as they always were.

It was good to have Timmy present. I always enjoy telling stories about what he did when he was a kid. Fortunately, he seems to enjoy the stories too.

We had curry as usual for the main course and an impressive range of desserts brought by the ladies. Paul managed -- just -- to blow his candles out and ate heartily as usual. Paul and Ken are both great eaters so there was no curry left over but I was rather pleased that there was half a Pavlova left. It is in my fridge at the moment but will not last long. Maureen made the Pavolova as usual.

I can't remember what we talked about: Mostly politics, I think. Though we did spend some time talking about the Royal succession. Australia is a monarchy and who will reign is a topic most Australians have an opinion about. I favour Prince Charles and I think Paul agreed

Before everybody went home, I sang them a song! It was an old Australian favourite -- "Click go the shears" -- which almost no Australians understand these days. You have to know:

Why the shears go click?
What is a blow (not what you think)?
What is a ringer (nothing to do with bells)?
What is a snagger (not a sausage maker)?
What is a "bare bellied yo"?

I explained it all and everybody seemed to enjoy that little bit of Australiana. Ken was the only one to know any of the answers and he is a Pom!


Self flanked by Anne and Paul


The gathering, with Paul's gorgeous and pregnant wife Sue on the far left. Sue helps me to take lids off things! And does many other kind deeds

Abraham's bag factory and Gearco

My first job in Brisbane in 1964 was as a clerk at Abraham's bag factory out at Rocklea. I bought an old Army B.S.A. 500cc motorbike (for ten pounds) to get to and from work. I loved that bike: Manual advance/retard and all. It was a couple of months before I discovered that it had a fourth gear! Tram tracks are very dangerous to bikes and I once slipped on them and came off in the middle of Ipswich Rd. I was lucky not to be run over.

I eventually wrote the bike off in another accident in which I broke my leg. Where I came from that was almost a rite of passage for young men. I went back to my parents' home in 308 Mulgrave Rd in Cairns while I recuperated. It was then that I took the picture of Roxanne as a little girl that now hangs on my wall. She always was the good-looking one.



I stayed at the bag factory for only a few months but had some educational experiences there. I was a stock clerk so was sort-of half way between the office-workers and the factory workers, most of whom were female. I kept factory hours, however -- starting at 7am. The office workers started at 9am. It was my introduction to class distinctions and was all very new to me at the time. I was struck by how the factory girls seemed to live in a different mental world to me. I hardly understood them at all. My head at that time was full of writers from Thucydides to Ruskin and that would have been greeted with great derision had I mentioned it.

I was at one stage given the chance of driving the forklift but a veil of silence over that is probably best.

There were a couple of freemasons working in the factory and that was new to me too. The factory foreman -- a very important man named Henry Trenerry -- was a Mason and there was another guy too. The manager was a former salesman named Garlick. It was my introduction to the idea that salesman often become managers.

The factory made bags (paper sacks) for one of the sandminers on Stradbroke Island and Henry had to ring them up at times. I still remember their phone no.: "Dunwich 16".

I cannot remember why I left Abrahams but I imagine that I got bored with it.

I then went to work for Harry Beanham (usually resident in Sydney but he visited his interstate shops occasionally) at Gearco in the city. The job was to run a business selling second hand factory machinery and some new machinery: Mostly to do with lathes and other machine tools. I found it interesting.

Harry was in partnership with another bloke (Bob Naesmith) selling new and secondhand photographic gear. I ran my side of the shop and the other side of the shop was run by George Smith and Mrs Staer. I had for many years a SLR Pentax camera I acquired from the other side of the shop when it came in second-hand.

I made my mark in Harry's mind by being a very successful seller of diehead chasers. There was a complexity to them that interested me. He eventually sent his total stock of them up to Brisbane for me to sell. Don't ask what they are. You don't need to know. Mechanical engineers know already.

Jill's birthday

I very naughtily forgot Jill's birthday recently but she forgave me when I offered to take her and Lewis to the Kafe Meze as a late offering. So we went there tonight.

The Kafe Meze has a large array of excellent appetizers so I ordered a selection of 7 or 8 different ones as the meal for us all. The Kafe Meze is set up for that.

That was very well received as we had a mini-banquet of very tasty dishes (the food on them was good too). As usual, the keftedes were much praised but the Taramasalata was much enjoyed too, as it usually is. I believe I also had the privilege of introducing Jill to Haloumi, slightly to my surprise. A Greek meal is not complete without Tarama and Haloumi.

Anne and I had a sort of parfait for dessert while Jill and Lewis played it safe with Baklava. The parfait was comprised of walnuts, yoghurt and honey, a combination new to me -- though yoghurt is very Greek of course. In fact, the first time I ever tasted yoghurt was at the Innisfail Greek club, where I was taken by the inimitable Panayotis Kokkinidis. Isn't that a marvellously Greek name? Anyway, I enjoyed the parfait.

I was glad that I booked in advance as the customers kept pouring in to the restaurant. A majority of them seemed to be young too. It clearly is in fashion with the youth for their weekend outings at the moment. The restaurant is a big one but when I went to pay the bill, there seemed to be no vacant tables anywhere. The restaurant is not a cheap one so I guess quality counts.

Update

I cannot leave mention of Panayotis Kokkinidis without paying some tribute to him. I have a photo of myself with him when I was about 16. He was a very happy man. His happiness was part and parcel of the fact that he was a God-filled man. You get men like that in all Christian denominations and in Jewry. His utter faith in his Lord gave him a degree of happiness and confidence that most of the rest of us can only aspire to.

Last I heard of him he was doing some sort of missionary work in Vietnam. That would be just like Taki (his nickname). His faith would carry him through all sorts of situations that would daunt other people. Compared to him I see myself as "Thy poor earthbound companion and fellow mortal", as Burns put it.

An amusing thing about Taki is that he looked very Greek and yet had somehow acquired a good command of Italian. So when Italians heard Italian words coming out of this very Greek face they tended not to believe it. That of course amused Taki. I know of it because he told me. I can vouch for the fact that he spoke Italian and looked very Greek and the rest I can imagine.

The world has been a better place for having Panayotis Kokkinidis in it. I hope his Lord has been kind to him in the 50 years since I last saw him.

Australia's surprising origins

Australia started out as a military dictatorship. That sounds like a bad start but the military concerned was subservient to the parliament of England so it was fairly humane and permissive by the standards of its day. But most Australians know that (I hope).

What is perhaps more surprising is what a modern place Sydney was in its earliest days. Stories surrounding my two convict ancestors help illustrate that:

From Sydney's newspaper of the day ("The Australian" -- particularly the issue of 30.7.1828) we learn that when the convict ship carrying my male ancestor arrived in Sydney harbour, there was smallpox on board.

So what did they do? Just say a prayer and disembark everybody straight away? No. The illness was immediately notified to the appropriate authorities. The ship was then sent to Neutral Bay in quarantine and the Sydney population warned. Thousands of people had cowpox vaccinations as a result. After official investigations, the ship was eventually allowed to disembark on August 5th at Spring Cove. Pretty modern! Precautionary vaccinations in 1828.

So Sydney was a pretty sophisticated place by 1828. A "visiting English gentleman" writing in "The Australian" of 13 August 1828 under the pseudonym "Delta" was surprised to find Sydney comprised of substantial brick and stone buildings instead of the mud huts and log cabins he had expected. He found it "a bustling, elegant and extensive city" with shops as good as London's but with much cleaner air. So the convicts had built well in their first 40 years.

A subsequent writer in "The Australian" found "Delta's" encomium a bit exaggerated but did nonetheless still see Sydney as a place with opportunities that might well entice emigrants from England.

And when my female ancestor from those days was being transported to Australia in 1840, the convict ship departed from Kingstown, about 12 kilometres south of Dublin city centre in Ireland, and now called Dún Laoghaire (or Dunleary). So how did she get from Dublin to the port? By steam train! The railway from Dublin to Kingstown opened for business in 1834 and terminated near the West Pier. So Australia started out as an offshoot of the most advanced country of its day. And it has always been a "modern" country. Around the year 1900 it was by some accounts the richest country in the world.

Two departures

Vonnie, Simon and Hannah are departing soon for the Shaky Isles. And they are going via Christchurch! So I organized a big family sendoff dinner at my usual Indian restaurant on Saturday night. There were 21 people plus three babies present, including George, who was in excellent spirits.

I managed to get in a bit of a chat with Von about baby matters but found, rather as I expected, that she was already thinking along the same lines. She is a very sensible young woman and we have always got on well.

The occasion was also supposed to be a sendoff for Joe but something came up and he had to leave on Saturday morning so missed the big family dinner. He actually drove down to Canberra in his Toyota Corolla, much to the disquiet of his mother and me.

I did however manage to corral him for a Friday night curry dinner on my verandah. There were only six of us for that dinner (including Paul, Sue, Anne and Jenny) but it was quite a fun dinner with lots of chat.

I spilt rather a lot of curry on the tablecloth at one stage, which greatly amused Joe. His sense of humour has not changed since he was 2. At that age, his favourite joke was: "The boy fell in the mud".

Joe told us quite a bit about his exploratory trip to Canberra and the ANU, including his encounter with the endemic socialism there. His exploratory trip (by air) was to enrol and to arrange accomodation; and he did manage to get college accomodation.

He will be starting his Ph.D. studies anew at the ANU school of mathematics, the first two years being mainly involved in courses and reading, with the writing of his dissertation (using partial differential equations) left to the third year. So he should have plenty of time to enjoy the student life, which I am pleased about.

Update March 1

Joe had a relatively uneventful trip and arrived safe and sound in Canberra.

I forgot to mention something amusing about the dinner:

Suzy and Lena had a highchair and a pram to accomodate their babies at the dinner but Von had neither. Little Hannah was passed around like a parcel all night. She is a very placid baby so everyone who wanted a cuddle could get one. She was very popular.

Update 2

I hear that Joe has done a bit of quizzing of the many socialists at ANU. A bit unwise perhaps but it interested him to see how little thought many of them put into their beliefs.

Something that happened at his sendoff dinner was amusing. He said that he always orders the same thing at Indian restaurants. This was greeted with some surprise so he explained that when he found something he liked he couldn't see the point of ordering something that he might not like. Various people then said to him: "That's what John says", which is of course true. I doubt that he has ever heard me say that so it is another example of the power of genetics. He is not like me at all in appearance and personality but other similarities are numerous.

Update 3

Some pictures from the sendoff dinner:


Bottlescape: (champagne and water) with Jenny, Pam and Anne (L to R) in the background


A good photo of Russell and Sahara


Paul's Susan with Hannah and Timmy

Celebrating the day of a delisted saint

St. Valentine's day is named after about 14 early Christian martyrs named Valentine. Valentine was a popular name in those days. The holy day was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD. The saint himself, however was deleted from the Roman calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI.

I bought Anne a big lot of small red carnations for the day, which I thought looked nice. Red roses were sold out by the time I got there. Anne seemed to be pleased with the offering.

We then went to the Kafe Meze for a Greek dinner. The Kafe Meze is a bit upmarket so is not usually busy but it sure was busy today: Glammed up ladies and nervous-looking men everywhere. The Kafe Meze looks small from the street but has been very extensively done up and goes back a long way so it can accomodate a lot of people. And it did exactly that tonight.

I have been there several times before so I recognize the owner. He was looking in very good spirits tonight! To give him his due however he had prepared well with lots of staff on hand and also pitched in himself to wait on customers etc. So our dinners arrived reasonably promptly and were superb. At one stage I asked him (as he was passing by) for more keftedes. He replied, "Of course!" -- as if that request were the most natural thing in all the world -- which it of course was on that occasion. His keftedes are normally good but tonight they were a pitch of perfection. And I wasn't drinking while I was there so that is a sober judgment! I didn't want to drink and drive so Anne and I waited to get home before we cracked a bottle of champagne.

We also had some dessert at home. Anne knows that I like plum pudding so she had brought some of that over -- with custard. We had dessert on the front verandah -- enjoying a cool breeze while watching the possums leaping about in the Mulberry tree outside.

Kammerphilharmonie Köln

Last night Anne and I went to St. John's cathedral for a concert by the Kammerphilharmonie Köln. As the name, implies, it is a chamber orchestra from Cologne, Germany. Having a chamber orchestra in such a large venue is slightly odd but the acoustics at St. John's are on the brilliant side -- all that bare stone -- so it worked well.

The program was (with one exception) some classical favourites by Bach, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Handel. That was obviously popular -- as the whole of the nave of the cathedral and most of the transept was taken up by the audience. And St. John's is a large cathedral.

There were about 10 musicians on hand but not all were on stage at the same time. Who appeared depended on the piece. As is common with chamber groups there was no conductor. The finale of an excellent concert was Handel's beautiful "Ombra mai fu" (a largo from the opera "Xerxes"). It was well sung in Italian by the soprano. It's probably as well that it was in Italian as it actually a song in praise of a tree!

For me an interesting question was what has become of Volker Hartung? The occasion at St. John's had all the hallmarks of one of his ventures but he was not mentioned in the program notes nor is he mentioned on the orchestra's site.

When it was run as the Junge Philharmonie Köln he was the founder and director but something seems to have changed in 2003, when the new name was adopted. Was there a parting of the ways or has he simply retired behind the scenes? Maybe he has just gone on to other challenges. He seems to work as a professor of conducting and chamber music in Singapore these days: A long way from Köln for a Kölner!

Termite toast

This could well invite great opprobrium from Greenies and nature-lovers generally but I have just destroyed another termite infestation in my house so I am not feeling too kindly towards termites at the moment.

Fortunately the structural timbers in an "Old Queenslander" house are hardwood, which termites find a bit hard on their little jaws -- so infestations tend to do no serious structural damage in such houses. So the various attacks on my house don't take much to repair.

Anyway, the point about this post is to pass on a bit of old bush wisdom that I learnt many years ago from my father: Termite mounds (in the bush) burn. So if you knock the top off one and light it up, you have a very good damped fire for making toast. Just throw some bread on and you will soon have some of the tastiest toast you have ever eaten. It has a unique flavour. Though I guess it could depend a bit on what wood they have been eating.

So there is ONE good thing that comes from having termites around.

While I am talking about termites maybe I should dispense some termite wisdom. I am an old termite warrior from way back so I have seen a lot.

When most people are told that they have termites in their house they basically run screaming. And if the house is a modern brick veneer that is about all that they can reasonably do. The structural timbers in a modern house are pine -- which is a very soft wood. Termites go through it like a buzzsaw and soon your walls are flapping in the breeze. And at that point all you can usually do is pull the house down and start again.

In an older house, however, it will be only the softwood (floors, walls etc.) that is destroyed. The hardwood framework will have been attacked but not enough to reduce drastically its load-bearing capacity. Hardwood is amazing stuff. So you poison the termites and nail new floorboards or wallboards onto your framework and you are as good as new again. It just costs you a bit of timber and a couple of days work by a carpenter or handyman.

But most people don't know that so run screaming from old houses too. And that is how I bought my house for a tenth of what it is now worth. It had a whole bedroom floor eaten out by termites when I bought it. The floor concerned was just a couple of inches above the ground, however, so I just got a rubbish man to cart it away and poured concrete where it had been. I'd like to see the termites try their jaws on that!

But in my experience you never get rid of termites and I have had at least half a dozen infestations in the last 20 years or so. To me it's just routine maintenance to deal with them.

Pest control people always try to talk you into spending thousands of dollars on putting a poison "barrier" around your house to prevent future infestations but that is just malarkey. There are at least 3 reasons why such barriers don't work:

1). The termites are inside it already;

2). The chemicals these days are pissweak. They degrade in around 12 months so don't bother the termites for long. If the Greenies would allow us to use Dieldrin instead, however, there might be some point in it. Dieldrin never seems to degrade from what I can see. We used it for years but it is now "carcinogenic", they say.

3). Most flying ants are termites so they can fly right inside your property without having to burrow through any soil. I get an annual flight of them.

And pest control people are mostly a laugh anyway. On a couple of occasions I have had them tell me that one of my properties is "clear", only for me to say: "Put your listening gadget here". "Oh yeah"! they then say. They miss a lot. They are good at pumping Termidor into an existing infestation and killing it -- but not much else.

There are a few people who try to evade termites by building steel-framed houses. I mustn't laugh! You need to be pretty noise-tolerant to live in a steel house. Steel expands and contracts according to the temperature -- something that timber does not do. And it makes a lot of noise as it expands and contracts: pops and creaks and groans etc. Some steel houses "sing". There's no "get out of jail free" card with termites. You just have to be vigilant.

There's always the old double brick construction method, of course. Nothing for termites to eat there. But you have to be on very stable ground and your dampcourse has to hold up. Once that fails you have rising damp -- and that is VERY hard to defeat. Been there. Done that.

Speaking of Dieldrin, I had a great pest control guy years ago whom I used to get to spray my houses for pests such as cockroaches. I suspect that he must have collared a good supply of Dieldrin before it was banned because he would first spray my houses with the "safe" chemicals (safe for bugs too) and if that did not work completely he would come back and spray some of "the good stuff" around -- which always worked like a charm. But he did die of cancer in his mid-50s ...

A grand imperial conclave

With Anne, I attended today my very first Grand Imperial Conclave of the Knights of the Red Cross of Constantine -- at my local masonic hall. The occasion was the enthronement of a most illustrious grand sovereign. That is he above. You would think they would give him a crown, wouldn't you? He's a very nice guy actually. The local masons have chosen well.

It was a very elaborate ceremonial carried out very well. We also had a modest lunch afterward. I was slightly surprised at how Christian the whole occasion was. Pomp and circumstance has been associated with religion for a very long time so the Masons are bearers of an old tradition in that regard.

I enjoyed the old hymns ("Onward Christian soldiers"; "When I survey the wondrous cross") and was also pleased to hear both the Australian national anthem and the Royal anthem rendered well. We had a loyal toast during lunch too, as is appropriate in a monarchy, which Australia is.

They had a beadle-cum-M.C. running the show who was very impressive: Stern and stentorian but with a keen sense of humour that burst out from time to time. I asked him if he was an ex-army man but he said not. He would have made a great RSM

Freemasonry is not my cup of tea but I wish them well. I am sure they are a positive influence. There was a lot of joy in the gathering I saw. Anne liked the fact that the men were all spiffingly turned-out -- in formal white jackets etc.

I myself do in fact own a grey tailsuit, complete with dickey-fronted shirt, white waistcoat and white tie but I can't fit into it these days. At age 67 I am still a growing boy -- but not in the right direction, unfortunately.

Update:

I wonder if I should mention a VERY small point about the lunch:

For drinks we were offered: light beer, Lemonade, Golden Circle Sarsaparilla and Ballantynes's Scotch whisky. Being an old Queenslander from way back, I chose Sarsaparilla. So I am slightly embarrassed to say that I toasted the Queen in Sarsaparilla! I have never liked drinking alcohol during the day and Sars is a real Queensland drink. It is only in recent decades that you have been able to get it in Southern states. Americans would recognize it as a form of root beer.

"And well we weren esed atte beste"

That's the English of 600 years ago.

Being old can be rather disturbing. It alerts you to what is possible. And one thing I know to be possible is that one can in country schools of no distinction gain an infinitely better education than one gets in just about ANY school today. I know that because I had such an education.

My education at Innisfail State Rural School and Cairns High School left me with an awareness of Homer, Chaucer, Robert Burns, Tennyson, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, G.M. Hopkins and many others. It even introduced me to Schubert Lieder, Dvorak, Bach and that marvellous prewar tenor Josef Schmidt. I doubt that even Eton does as much these days. Yet all those things remain with me and give me pleasure. Even the Latin I learnt then has often been helpful.

And note that some of the authors were distinctly "difficult". What is a "daimen icker in a thrave"? To understand one of the most famous Burns poems you need to know that it means "a single ear in a sheaf". And we learnt that. And to this day I celebrate the birthday of Robert Burns every year.

The Chaucer quote at the head of this post did pose some difficulty, however, The teacher didn't know what it meant and nor could I figure it out at that age. Some time in recent years it has become clear to me what it means, however, and it is of course very simple. It means "And well we were eased, at the best". The Tabard was obviously a very good inn on the way to Canterbury 600 years ago. It would be a rare schoolboy today who knows of that journey, however.

And if the greats of English literature and classical music seem irrelevant, let me also note that I learnt enough physics by age 16 to see immediately (many years later) what a hoax the global warming scare is. One only has to know the melting point of ice to see that.

Would you believe that when Warmists talk about recent temperature changes, they are talking about changes in terms of tenths and even hundredths of one degree? Just look at the calibrations on any of their graphs.

How such tiny changes are ever going to melt the VERY cold Antarctic boggles the imagination

Secret men's business and philosophy

Tonight was one of the occasional "educational" nights I put on for Paul and Joe. The topic was analytical philosophy but while Anne and Sue were away picking up the curry, I also went through some secret men's business with Paul and Joe. I took them through my old house and gave them the names for all the fittings in it. I identified for them:

A nightlatch plus its tongue and keeper
A batten holder and a surface switch
A padbolt and a barrel bolt
Sweeps
A breadloaf handrail, stringer, treads and a Newell post
A bargeboard, guttering and a hosecock
A bibcock, Fiddian hosecock and a pillar cock
A mortice lock, an Edwardian rimlock and a Victorian rimlock
An architrave, a picture rail, a casement sash
A cabin hook, a telescopic casement stay and a Whitspur
French windows

And if you don't know what all those things are, neither did they. They both made a great effort to remember it all though. It was a revelation to them how many everday things they did not know the names for.

Then we went on to philosophy. I trotted them very quickly through the major questions: What is mind, cause, knowledge etc.

I spent a bit of time on moral philosophy as that is an issue of some general interest. I pointed out that the idea of an objective or discoverable right and wrong has big problems but went on to trace the idea to the fact that we are all born with certain moral instincts and that those instincts have evolved to enable us to function as part of a group. It is those moral instincts that are the location for some ideas of non-arbitrary rights and wrongs. More on that here.

We had a very lively discussion and both Paul and Joe were thoroughly involved with the questions concerned.

Sue provided an excellent Schwarzwalderkirschentorte for dessert and everyone ended up full of curry, cake and complicated thoughts.

A gorgeous lady in pink

Baby Hannah at 8 weeks old

Australia Day today

It commemorates the arrival of the first white settlers in Australia in 1788 and has become an increasingly popular celebration. As the Left-run schools have robbed Australians of their history, the few shreds that remain in people's consciousness are seized on eagerly. The same goes for Anzac Day, which goes from strength.

My family on my mother's side have for many years celebrated the day in a good Aussie way -- with a family get-together over a BBQ lunch. It was held today, as usual, at my brother's place and I enjoyed the lively conversation as usual. The occasion was "dry". We had no need of alcohol to make us sociable. On my way there and back, I saw quite a few cars with Australian flags on them -- something that is a phenomenon of recent years only.

I was pleased that two young relatives at present in high school expressed a considerable interest in history and knew quite a bit about it. They were scornful of how it it taught in the schools and expressed regret that so little British history is taught -- on the grounds that British history is both more interesting and more important. And the very vivacious girl (Michelle) who expressed that most strongly is half-Chinese!

I heard sounds of partying from a couple of places near me during the day so my relatives were not alone in making good use of the holiday.

Burns Night

All around the world people celebrate the birthday of Scotland's greatest poet on 25th January, and I have been doing that since sometime in the '70s. There is no other poet who attacts that devotion but if you have got any of the sentimental Celt in you, you just have to read his most famous poems to see why.

I had just a small gathering, as my entertaining area is quite small. It is a verandah that gets lots of good breezes, important in the midst of a sub-tropical summer. I had over my son and stepson (Joe and Paul), plus old friends Jill and Lewis. Paul's admirable wife plus Anne and myself completed the party.

I managed to get some very fresh neeps (Swedes) for the dinner this year and Anne is good at cooking them anyway so that really helped the dinner. I got the haggis from "Syd's Pies" as usual and it was excellent as usual. Syd is a brilliant cook. Paul was particularly enthusiastic about the haggis and proved it by eating up all the leftovers.



We had three desserts: Tablet, some very light shortbread and clootie dumpling. Anne did a great rum sauce to go with the clootie dumpling.

As usual I skipped a few of the customs but we did most of them. Saying Grace and the loyal toast are a bit old-fasioned these days so I made sure I did both of those customs. The Grace was of course the Selkirk Grace and a toast to the Queen is entirely appropriate in Australia, considering that she is Australia's Head of State.

I flew the saltire of St. Andrew from my flagpole in honour of the day and wore the kilt. In recognition of the climate, I teamed the kilt with an Hawaiian shirt!

The conversation was largely about politics. Luckily we are all on the conservative side of that divide. I did at one stage tell the remarkable story of Tsutomu Yamaguchi and pointed out how thoroughly it undermines the conventional hysteria about ionizing radiation.

And it was a very traditional Scottish occasion in that the men just sat around and pontificated while the women did all the work! I try to give my son Joe a good example!


About to carve the haggis




Two views of dessert time

Anne's birthday

I gave Anne a new laptop computer for her birthday as the old one she was using was too slow to handle a wireless broadband connection properly.

Getting Telstra's system to recognize the new computer was very much the battle I expected however. I installed the connection up until the point where Telstra's system demanded a password. Crash! No password worked.

Anne spent about two hours on the phone to the Telstra helpline before she could get connected. It was such a marathon effort that she flattened the battery of the cordless phone she was using along the way. It was fully charged when she began.

Anyway Anne has a lot of patience (she puts up with me!) so she was a bit exhausted at the end of it but pleased with her new computer. It was "as slick as a chick", she said.

That evening we went to a local Thai for dinner, where the food is always first class.

A frog

I gather that all the rain we have had in Brisbane in the last few months has been good for the amphibian population.

When I was at Anne's place last night, we left the front door open. And as we were sitting on the settee not far from the door, a small green frog came hop, hop, hop into the room through the door. His body would have been less than an inch long but he did hops about six times that distance.

Anne freaked, of course. She is pretty pro-life but things that hop unnerve her. So I had to shepherd the little fellow out the door again. After he landed on the mat outside the door he stopped there for quite a while, no doubt to recover from the terror of being chased by a huge monster.

I thought he was gorgeous and Anne did too -- once he was outside. I rather marvelled that in that tiny body were heart, lungs, liver, kidney, stomach, bowel, mouth, tongue, eyes, nose etc, just like us, roughly. If I were still a Christian, I would probably have said:

O Lord my God, When I in awestruck wonder
Behold -- the world that thou hast made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Thy power throughout The universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art
Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

The wonders of the internet

I put up a post nearly a year ago about a memory of a childhood poem -- a memory from when I was in second grade. I re-run that post below and add to it some excellent feedback I got in the comments box of the original post:

When I was a kid -- in grade 2, I think -- I remember the teacher reading out a story about a "Little blue boy". It was a sad story and I cried. I was the only one who did, probably because I was the only one who understood. The teacher was upset that I was upset and that story was never referred to again.

I recollect only the title of the story and none of its content so I wondered if I could find it on the net. Unfortunately that name seems to go with lots of different stories but I think I may have found the one I was looking for. It is apparently an old English Lullaby!

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and staunch he stands;
The little tin soldier is red with rust,
And the musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

“‘Now, don’t you go till I come,’ he said,
‘And don’t you make any noise.’
So toddling off to his trundle-bed
He dreamt of his pretty toys;
And as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our little Boy Blue–
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true.

“Aye, faithful to little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place–
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.”

And below is the comment I got from a lady who obviously had similar feelings to mine:

"My mother used to recite this poem to us when we were children and all of us cried every time. She had learned it as a child to recite on a children’s Saturday morning radio show out of Chicago in the 1920′s. It’s actually a poem written by Eugene Field sometime in the late 1800′s about the death of his young son.

According to the story he and his wife were having dinner with friends when he suddenly left the table, went to his study and wrote this piece then and there. I’m 70 years old now and I still remember every word and I still cry. I’m glad to know it had as much impact on other children decades later".

Uncle Bill

We always knew my mother's brother was a bit of a rogue but the report below fleshes it out a little:

From: The Cairns Post, Thursday 3 May 1928:

SUPREME COURT. TOWNSVILLE SITTINGS.

FIVE GUILTY PLEAS.

TOWNSVILLE, May 2.

The public portion of the Supreme Court this morning was crowded, probably on account of the retrial of Williams and Mclaughlan. The calendar of cases had a surprise collapse in that five of the eight accused pleaded guilty, one was found not guilty and two were remanded until Monday. Tomorrow morning, Chief Justice Blair will preside.

STEALING WITH VIOLENCE.

William Elliott C**, Rupert Emanuel Hoggett (alias Jack Williams) and Thomas Flynn were charged with having stolen in company on January 14, 1928, at Townsville, from Kwai Hing with actual violence the sum of 5 pounds. They were also charged with having on January 21 at Townsville assaulted with violence, Mary Ann Revesgard with intent to steal.

Each pleaded guilty.

Hoggett was sentenced to 12 months, In the case of Flynn, His Honor stated he would take into consideration that he was 17 years of age. He was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, the sentence to be suspended upon his entering into his own recognisance of 50 pounds to come up for sentence during that time if called upon.

In regard to C**, his Honor said be had no power to sentence him, but if he had he would have been given the same treatment as Flynn

As he was under 17 years of age, he came under the State Children's Department and would be sentenced to the custody of the department.

Thanks to Marty for sending me the above info