Airplane to Jefferson

Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's mountaintop home in Virginia, now is a tourist mecca. The huge, respectful crowds are manged with that slick American expertise one finds in Disneyworld. Arriving people are divided into groups of 25, given colour-coded cards and told exactly what time they are to present themselves to the queue line for their turn. They may pass the time gap wandering the grounds. Crowd management then shepherds the groups, which seem to leave at 15 minute intervals, to the door of the house where one of a fleet of guides greets them and commences the tour. The house is not large, so the groups occasionally meet each other as they move clockwise from room to room. Of course, the character and and depth of knowledge of the guides makes a strong influence on one's experience of the Jefferson world.
I have been to Monticello before. To go there is to fall in love with Thomas Jefferson - to boggle at the scale of the man's genius, the marvel at the legacy he has left this country and to ponder the dilemmas which confronted him. I was happy to refresh the imagery and to dig a little deeper in the company of my wonderful historian aunt-in-law and my Aussie friend, Sue - and we allowed ourselves the luxury of complete immersion - a full afternoon and all the tours plus our own meanderings. The more our feet wearied, the more our minds sparkled with the brilliance of Jefferson. He mastered six or more languages and myriad sciences. He was the original paleontologist. Inventor, designer, thinker, rapacious reader, politician, diplomat, horticulturalist - a man of boundless curiosity and accomplishment, all in an era of crude lamplight and sluggish transportation. No one holds a candle to this shimmering man - or, if anyone since has been born with such prodigious talent, they have been quietly crushed beneath the overwhelming current of jealously destructive mediocrity which rules our world today.

Weary penguin

Mail comes in re Media Watch. The mystery deepens. The Sunday Independent paper wants a bite of the cherry.
It will not be good. Shadenfreud thrives.

I wait for spring in New Hampshire.

Media watched - but not by me

So the reports flow in on Media Watch's snide little excoriation, laboriously trying to exploit the name and fame of my late father.
In my opinion, a really good expose they should tackle would be one on the way in which they try to get their information - invasive, jeering, aggressive trick tactics and downright rudeness. I find myself less offended by their on-air beat up than I am by the ugliness of those "research" phone calls, especially the second call in which I found myself being talked over and shouted down by a so-called "interviewer". Media Watch, I think you should clean up your own act before criticising others!

The ugliness of Media Watch

Media Watch is a television program based on schadenfreud.
For years I have been glad of anonymity on this platform. Suddenly, I am its target.
I might be on the other side of the world, but the ABC's budget allows for unlimited international phone bills, it seems.
Twice now the program has called me here in the US to ask about a little arts colour story I did last year. Media Watch thinks it has uncovered a hoax - the artist is not who he says he is. He has not done what he says he has done.
The first phone call I accepted with some amazement - talking to the program's female researcher as a journalistic peer rather than an interrogator or enemy. Silly me. I did not think of myself as being on the record in talking to another journalist. I thought it terms of providing information to a peer - as we do, from time to time. And I told her that I thought it was all of fairly little importance. Even if the artist had exaggerated, he was not trying to fake an identity. It was only a small colour story written mid last year as an arts rainy-day filler because it was not associated with an exhibition or anything current. But then the researcher asked me, saying she was sorry but she had been told to ask me this: "Do you feel duped like your father?" And I realised that these people had discovered my lineage - and were looking to create a second arts hoax story in the family name. This is what we, in the trade, call a beat-up.
The Ern Malley hoax, Australia's greatest literary hoax, occurred in the 1940s, before I was born. But, hey, what a joke to have a new millennium version with the daughter.

http://www.ernmalley.com

A trip to Quebec

If you're going to Quebec City - fly.
Driving up to Canada from Southern New Hampshire is a delight - through darling towns and across the wild and glorious White Mountains, then over into beautiful Vermont with more proudly-groomed villages and lush landscape - until one comes upon the French Canadian border post. It is a crude and ugly structure, manned by particularly unwelcoming officials. And suddenly, in the matter of a few hundred metres, the landscape changes dramatically. The countryside looks poor. Run-down farms are here and there, fields of stubble, abandoned properties. And the further one goes, the worse it gets until, as one strikes the main highways, it is a passage of tragedy through devasted, ravaged land where mining waste runs into creeks and lakes, where fields are dug with crude channels and grow nothing, where there are more ruins than living domiciles, where trees are dead and dying in sad, stunted woods. It is a world of weeping environmental degradation. If one looks at the map of this part of Quebec state, one finds an explanatioon. There it is, the town called Asbestos. It's great attraction is a huge open-cut asbestos mine. Tourist attraction, no less. Gaze into the abyss and breathe deeply, dear tourists. We toyed with the idea of visiting such a perverse attraction. Or maybe Thetford Mines, another town which mined asbestos. Southern Quebec is asbestos country. What a miserable claim to fame. No wonder there is no pride in the landscape.
The long main road between Montreal and Quebec City is the Jean LeSage Autoroute, a poorly-maintained epic of a straight four-lane highway crowded with huge transport vehicles, especially semi-trailers with loads of logs. We had 180km of it to traverse - and it seemed as if four every four kilometres we had driven, we had progressed only one. There was a sense that we had found purgatory. The road had no ending. What from a distance looked as if it may be a village turned out to be a huge rubbish dump. Why was one not surprised. It was just an ongoing horror through profoundly depressed landscape. And, as we finally neared Quebec, the sky opened and torrents cascaded violently down with blinding car spray rendering visibility dangerously low. So we did not get much of a view of Quebec as we entered the city. Until we came through the gates of Vieux Quebec itself, where it was glistening cobblestones and bright awnings in colourful, narrow streets. And out of hell, we were in fairyland.

The Hotel Clarendon on Rue St Anne is known as an Art Deco delight in a city of 18th and 19th century history. It's handsome wrought-iron doors led into a sleek wood-panelled foyer and efficient reception. Our reservation was in order. Seventh floor, take that lift over there. It is the only one which goes to the 7th floor. We did. A funny, slow little lift. Very French.There were only three rooms on this little top floor. Ours, with king bed and jacuzzi, had small casement windows which looked down into a courtyard of hotel windows and windowboxes with plastic vegetation and out over the roof to a view of spires and turrets, vivid green in their verdigris antiquity. Aaah. This is what it is all about. An ancient walled city with a gothic aesthetic.

Since we were tired from the long drive and it was streaming rain outside, we chose to dine in the hotel's restaurant - The Charles Baillairge. The large, wood-columned dining room was almost empty, something on which Bruce chose to comment when the waiter hesitated in choosing where to seat us. Oops. "People arrive at seven," snarled the waiter. It was five to seven. Nonetheless he gave us a nice table for two opposite a long, over-curtained window looking out onto the quaint old shopfronts and passing umbrellas. On the table was a vase of plastic wildflowers in a vase partly filled with plastic water. This fascinated me. Plastic water? Classical music playing when we arrived gave way to bland muzac - so, mentally adding it to plastic water, I removed a star or two from the restaurant's rating. The waiters didn't earn it any more with their excess of French arrogance and their expertise in evading catching the eye. It took for ever to extract the wine menu after initially turning it down. The 1995 Cote du Rhone house wine, however, was exquisite, when finally I got it. $16 for a glass. But it beat paying $40 for a Jacob's Creek. The food was altogether heavenly. New discovery of the experience was corn sprouts - long petal-like sprouts which at first tasted like flowers and finally, in aftertaste, just like young, raw sweetcorn.
My salmon's light dressing of balsamic with maple syrup also was rather special. The general presentation, however, was very much the old nouvelle cuisine style. Tiny half-cooked veggies etc. An orchid as garnish.
It seemed like a light meal, but I was left with that bloated feeling of one unaccustomed to rich fare. A long walk in the night rain was a splendid solution. We donned coats and took brollies and set out over those glistening cobblestones and explore the old walled city with its fortifications and history of conflicts with the English.
The shops were all shut although restaurants looked busy and cosy. We strolled towards the port where we discovered a massive boardwalk from which one could look down to the noisy activities of the Vieux Port - cars and buses in the bright, rain-glinted streets, tourist leisure craft and tugs in the water. Lights of the buildings across the river. It was all rather lovely. We meandered on up along the pavements of the old town where girls, hugging themselves against the cold rain, stood in restaurant doorways to welcome potential diners. It was good window shopping with few people in the streets. The shops were not outstanding - fairly ordinary boutiques, Inuit craft shops and souvenir stores, lots of fur shops and a zillion art galleries all packed with the most luridly colourful and talent-free art I think I have ever seen. Take the worst of the Victor Harbor Art Show and pack it into twee galleries and you have the Quebec art scene. I was appalled, bewildered, incredulous - caught somewhere between hilarity and outrage at the awfulness of it all. Much to Bruce's amusement, I became obsessed, zeroing in on each gallery, looking, looking, looking for just one good artwork. I never did find it.
Beauty, however, was all around us in the old architecture, the narrow sloping streets, the quaint courtyards and grand formal buildings.
Back in our 7th floor hotel room, the view from our window was now illuminated - and yet more splendiferous. The old Frontenac Hotel's gothic grandeur, the underlit church spire, flags waving...
We slept like babes, weary and contented in our vast bed.


Room service breakfast was a magical surprise. Not just the ordered scrambled eggs, but also sliced fruit and generous toast complete with jams and the most decadently wicked caramel spread. I don't know when I've had a better room service breakfast, let alone for the grand price of $7.
Thus fortified, we took our brollies and headed off to explore the city in daylight. Joy of joys. The threatened rain backed off.
We descended the many stairs to the old port rather than using the funicular - since we had no Canadian money and already we had found two Bureau de Change not yet open, even though it was after 9 am. When we made it down to the charming narrow alley known as Petit Champlain, it was clear that Quebec wakes late on Saturday mornings. A few shopkeepers were standing outside their stores with coffee in hand. Some were arriving to open up. Most shops were closed. It mattered not, since there were no shops calling to me. It was pretty predictable tourism and fashion tat - nothing I had not seen a zillion other places. But the architecture, the nature of the little street, this was exquisite. We walked around many of the character-laden Old Port streets, past yet more and more galleries of terrible art, eventually wending our way up a steep curving road to the Haut Ville. Finally the town was awake and we were able to change $US20 and go for coffee. We sat outside at a popular little patisserie and had fairly average coffees, watching the world go by and listening to the elegant lilts of French being spoken all around us. There was a man prattling in French to a woman at the next table. A sharp American accent raked right through the French and I wondered how he sounded to the Quebecois. It became apparent that he was in practice mode - and he was saying much the same thing over and over again with small variations and I noticed that his female companion was politely trying to mask her ennui. I listened carerfully: "Je parrrll avec beaucoup perrrrsonnes et lui parrrlay avec moi. Je parrrll Fronnncais a l'hotel et puis je parrrll Fronnncais quand j'achette les cadeaux. Je suis heurrreusse quand je parrrrlll Fronnncais....." He droned on and on. It was painful. Yet he seemed so effusively smug to be talking French to a French-speaker, role-playing the urbane travelling linguist. Suddenly the woman waved to someone, leapt up rather too fast and bade the bore a swift and grateful goodbye. It would seem that she did not know him at all. He had simply found her waiting for her friends and decided to practice his dire French on her. Oh, that poor, polite woman. I resolved to keep my atrophied old French to myself.
And on we walked, exploring every nook and cranny of that lovely old town, popping in to an occasional interesting shop, reading restaurant menus and thinking about lunch. We decided that we craved crepes on this cool day. After three hours walking - up and down more narrow steep roads, across the ramparts, along touristy pavements - we had earned them. And thus we sat in a light and warm crepe house, waited upon by efficient and friendly matrons, and had escargots followed by rich crepes filled with chicken and asparagus and baked in bechamel sauce.
Bruce was not in the mood for museums or galleries or even the local waxworks - so we refreshed back at the Hotel Clarendon and then retrieved the car from the adjacent underground carpark and set out for Montmorency Falls which are taller even than Niagara, altho much, much smaller. Bruce did some inspired backstreet navigation which took us directly to the falls admissions gate. At first it was not clear how we should find the falls themselves and we wondered if we were supposed to take the cable car which seemed to be the only prominent landmark. Oh shudder. But then we heard that unmistakable sound, that roar that belongs only to waterfalls. We followed the noise and found ourselves walking a boardwalk around the steep cliff. We joined a handful of people standing on a viewing pavilion watching the mighty volume of water cascading and spraying to the river below. Then we climbed up and walked the suspension bridge over the falls, watching the sleek roll over the rocks, the clarity of the water which showed every detail of the rock, the way one ripple could turn into a major tumbling disturbance as it curved over the rocks - and then, from the other side, looking directly down into the roaring, raging froth of fall. In winter the falls create a mountain of ice - and still there were residual shelves of ice at the base.
We returned to Quebec city and this time parked on the other side of town - away from the tourist area and strolled the shops - wonderful, interesting gourmet and kitchen shops. We browsed a few wherein, to his immeasurable delight in waves of joyful incredulity, Bruce learned the French word for grapefruit - "pamplemousse".
Local people were out with their dogs, sitting in the streets outside shops on benches provided all over the place. Lots of civilized benches for people just to sit and watch the world go by. Buskers here and there. All very pleasant. We decided on afternoon coffee and chanced upon L'Oeuferie which not only had stunning bottomless coffee, but a cake display of particular note - extraordinary apple cakes and blitz tortes. We settled on a framboise and vanilla mousse cake. Neither of us ever had sampled a more exquisite delicacy. We swooned over every mouthful - and then sat back and had a ciggie, for such are the amenities in Quebec.
Thus restored, we returned to our Hotel Clarendon and spreadeagled on our large bed. Bruce fell asleep. I downloaded email, thanks to the hotel's flawless wireless Internet service.
By six the predicted rain began to dot the windows. We donned our coats, grabbed our brollies and set out in search of dinner. I craved the cleanth of Asian food but the only nearby Chineser was still closed for the season, so we accepted the proffered menu of a cold-looking door girl at a neighbouring Italian restaurant and went into the warmth to sit at red and white check tablecloths and order hearty food. More escargots for me. I must gorge when opportunity presents. I love them so. Bruce had salad and pizza. I had spaghetti and viande sauce - spag bol a la Francaise, light and rich with herbs. The provision of a chili sprinkler made it just perfection. And so, warm bellied, we repaired to our room to watch telly, read, write and have a vodka nightcap before sleep. Since our room did not have a fridge, I had been keeping my red grapefruit juice vodka mixer cool on the windowsill, an old trick I learned living in Edinburgh.

We woke to find we could barely see the spires out the window. A pea soup fog had descended on the city. We had another brilliant breakfast, packed our bags and headed south through the fog - not SW on the ghastly Jean Lesage Autoroute but directly south into Maine. We were soon out of the fog finding ourselves on a very different drive - the John Kennedy Highway meandering through a broad river valley with a much healither look and economy than the Vermont route with all the mining. The towns were not pretty as they are in rural America, but they were at least interesting, albeit industrial. One was just a lumber town - nothing but mountains of logs and more mountains of planks.
The border crossing back in the USA was also different. The American Immigration officer was as pleasant as he was efficient and businesslike. And we felt welcomed as we hummed through the mountains of northern Maine where snow still lay in clumps through the woodlands. This was moose territory, Bruce insisted. But we had said this throughout NH and Vermont and all one ever saw were endless moose crossing signs. I had decided that they were "moothical" creatures and only existed as a population of ubiquitous signage. On this road, however, I did finally see a real live moose. She was just standing in a little clearing near the road. She was about the size of a pony, but with leaner longer legs and a more highly-contoured, high-waisted shape. We decided she was a she because she had no antlers and was not as big as a horse - just as big as a pony. We did not stop to photograph her - because someone else had stopped and I did not want to scare the creature. It was enough to have spotted one - finally.

Looking for lunch was harder than one may have imagined. The little rural towns were a bit thin-on for cafes and restaurants. We eliminated one after another, waiting for better possibilities in the larger towns, settling on a busy tea, coffee and gourmet shop in Waterville where we had chili soup - definitely a clever brew of leftovers, very sustaining and spicy. It seemed odd to be served in paper and plastic containers for a sit-down meal, though.
Continuing on the backroads of Maine we reached our favourite coastal towns, having paused to have a look at Augusta, the capital, but only stopping when we reached Portland which is the biggest Maine town, I think, and a strikingly beautiful one. We visited our favourite kite shop for a new windsock for WrightlySo and then had coffee in Breaking New Grounds, a fabulous little coffee shop which has become a ritual watering hole for us.
We then popped into Kennebunkport on a mission for toothpick holders. Successful mission, thank heavens. We had been talking about the culture of the clam in New England - the many clam house my disappointment at my first and only fried clam encounter six years ago. I found them tough and could not understand why people loved them to such a high degree. Bruce pulled over outside a Kennebunk clam restaurant and sent me in to get a takeaway. Culture shock!!!! Now we all know that George Bush's family has its summer holiday home in Kennebunkport - but I was not prepared to find myself in the heart of Bush campaign country. Bruce pride central! The restaurant's walls were covered, and I mean covered, with signed Bush photos, family, campaign, formal, you name it. Bush pearly whites gleaming relentlessly from every direction, high and low. Pictures also of Rumsfelt and Cheney wreathed in their glows of self-satisfaction. Chummy thankyou letters all over the place from the Bushes and the Republican party for the restaurant family's support. Pictures of family members visiting the Whitehouse. Even a thankyou letter from Fox's Brit Hume who, apparently, had been sent a t-shirt from the restaurant. On sale were mugs inscribed "Two Presidents - one town". So I had plenty to assault the sensibilities while waiting for my fried clams. I clammed up good and proper while doing so. An old leftie like me could get into trouble opening her mouth in such a place.
The clams, as it happened, were terrific. We munched down as we drove on.
It was still a fairly long way home so we hopped onto the big highway and "schussed" back to New Hampshire where our little apartment was waiting all warm, neat and fragrant.

Return from hiatus

Had my own personal episode of Cops yesterday - right outside the study window where I was sitting writing up the net column. Two police cars rolled slowly past the window. How odd, I thought, and went to look out the front to see if they were stopping at our apartment building. But no. I returned to the study puzzled, then, when I craned a little, I saw that they were parked in the far corner of the parking lot, which is the very, very back fence of this large, village-like apartment complex. It is not a spot in which the residents tend to park. In fact, until a day ago, it was still a grimy great snow mound left from the winter road snow clearances. The two police cars were blocking in a grey car and the policemen were talking to a man inside the car. I moved my chair and my computer so that I was in a more comfortable spot to observe the goings-on. After some time, the police ordered the man to get out and empty all his pockets onto the bonnet of one of the police cars. How many times I have seen this operation on Cops!! I waited for them to make him bend over the car as they do on TV - but they didn't. Instead, while one policeman kept talking to the man, the other one donned gloves and began to search the man's car - even getting out a laptop, opening it and turning it on. He put it away - and then thought again, brought it back and examined it some more. Then through contents in the glove box, under the seats, in the back seat, the boot... Oh, boy, when they go through stuff, they go through everything. Since it seemed unhurried, I got a drink and some nibbles, revelling in this opportune dose of reality not-TV. Infuriatingly, I have no idea what it was all about. The man did not look like a criminal really and the police were gentle with him. He was a sandy-haired, clean-faced man of late 20s, dressed in a good t-shirt and chinos. He seemed a bit upset, naturally enough, and spent a deal of time rubbing or wringing his hands while the police talked to him. There was much communication via the police radio - during which the man waited squatting on the ground behind the police car, as if he simply could not bear to keep standing. It was all too much for him. It was frustrating not being able to hear what was being said. We are so spoiled by television reality cop shows that we think it is automatic that we get soundtracks. Believe me, I craned to get an idea and, while I could hear voices, I could not distinguish words. Grrr. Anyway, after about 45 minutes of fastidious searching, the police bagged the man's pocket possessions from the car bonnet, handcuffed him and drove him away, locking his grey car and leaving it there. When Bruce got home, I went down and had a squizz in the car. Fascinating. He had lots of clothes in the car and newspapers and notepads - all in a high degree of disarray, probably because of the cops. The car was left there overnight but sometime early this morning it was removed. I searched the local paper for clues as to what sort of criminal was hiding out in front of my window. Nothing. So I rang the apartment management and asked. "Oh, yes, it was nothing too serious," reassured the clerk, Heidi. "I think it was traffic tickets - a lot of them." Oh yeah?

Meanwhile, life is altogether shocking over here. And I mean this in the most literal sense. One gets electric shocks off everything! Zap. Crack. Zap. Zap.
I approach all switches with immense trepidation. However careful I am, the sparks still fly. And I jump and swear. As if it's not bad enough that the switches are upside down!
Americans don't tell you about this phenomenon. That is because they find nothing noteworthy about it. They think it is perfectly normal that sparks fly every time one turns on a light switch or touches a door handle. Can you believe this? It has something to do with dry air and central heating, they try to explain. It's not so bad in summer when the air is moist. You can buy anti-static sprays and put them on your clothes. Some people use humidifiers in their homes. But, generally, everyone is just used to shocks and takes no notice of them. Even in the supermarket. I was at the checkout the other day and every time I touched the counter, as in to present my credit card and to sign for the purchase, an arc of spark flew between my hand and the surface and I squealed in alarm. The checkout chick and the boy packer seemed mildly surprised by my reaction - so much so that they actually replaced their customary expressions of blob-like ennui with a quizzical look. "Am I the only one getting these electric shocks," I asked defensively. "Awww," drawled the world-weary teenage checkout chick. "We dun notice 'em." Pondering, as she scanned a few more items, she added: "This ain't nutting. You need to see the shocks when I wanna get inner my car!" I'd rather not.
Now this is something they never show in the movies or television. But they should. It's a cover-up. There should be sparks flying! But you note that they always already have the lights on or off on the American screen. They never show people actually turning them on.
Bruce has been giving me advice on how to cope with the daily doses of electricity. "Don't let your hand touch the screws. Use your knuckles to turn on lights," he instructs. "And try to touch something metal before you touch your computer because the static electricity can damage it." Whaaaat? How do these people cope?

Adelaide Film Festival

There it was, the mysterious manifestation of the "festival atmosphere". The bar-cum-coffee lounge materialised in the courtyard of the cinema complex. The tables and chairs and stools, ashtrays and program guides and the assorted members of the cinema cognoscenti, resting and reflecting between screenings or sipping wine or coffee and waiting for friends. Then there were the long queues of ticketholders snaking into the cinemas, the staff with their dangling IDs, the conference delegates also with dangling IDs. They were at the documentary film conference and I was in to see and review a documentary - world premiere of Dennis O'Rourke's "Landmines - A Love Story". A very intimate portrait of the human aftermath in Kabul. A landmine-disabled woman beggar. Her life. Why a person is begging in the streets. Where she goes when she goes home. Her domestic life with a doting husband also crippled by landmines, but in his case, landmines he, as a Mujahideen, also had planted. Their quest for government help - overwhelmed officials and piles of crumpled paperwork, signed with thumbprints. George Bush trumpeting American compassion. Children in the schoolroom parroting not tables but the names of landmines and the distances of their impacts. Everywhere people with prostheses, limping, learning, trying to get on with life. A wise, sensitive and revelatory documentary.

Afterwards, with two colleagues, I sat in the street and ate good Lebanese food as a stranger regaled us with his madness. He asked to sit with us and, all three of us being curious journalists, we assented and listened fascinated as he played the clever word games of the bi-polar and listed the dreams he harboured of living in his headspace. He was a clean and fit young man, a former bodybuilding champ who fell into a hole, he said. I did not finish the vast plate of food I was served. He said he would not see it go to waste as he gladhanded us farewell. It was another little slice-of-life documentary in its way, that encounter. O'Rourke would have done wonders with our gentle madman.

Fleeing the city

It has become rare to spend a Friday night in town. But a Chinese New Year dinner with the family was the loveliest reason to do so. A particularly happy and memorable night. Tapering off at home with two young men and their mother having a geeky session on their iBooks - three faces illuminated by screens, showing off and swapping applications. The family that Macs together...
Ah, but it is lovely to hit the road early on a Saturday morning, humming along with uncomplicated traffic, out into the vales of vineyards, each with their borders of red roses. Willunga Farmers' Market was incredibly crowded - bubbling with bourgeoisie and fresh produce. I stocked up on fresh orange blossom honey, goat curd, kipfler potatoes, fresh beets and goodies, had a couple of chats, and hummed off on the road again to my friends Merry and Grant's Blueberry Patch to buy blueberries and raspberries. Those utterly divine rabbiteye blueberries are in season now. My favourite. Merry sent me away heavily loaded.
Back by the sea, it is all tranquility. Easy, mild weather. The magpies were glad to see me, coming to the balcony for their mincemeat treats. Amazingly, there seem to be two new young ones. I am wondering how many clutches of young these birds can manage in a season. I make this three. A flock of galahs came to graze on the back lawn today, too. They seem to have discovered the birdbath and they took it in turns to drink while the others strutted about looking for seedy things in the grass. The magpies left them alone.

The Royals

Good onto The Independent for its headline of "two boring old gits get engaged". The media effusion over this event is downright tragic. I don't wish them ill. In fact I quite approve of Camilla's well-worn, middle-aged body frocked up in those ghastly gowns. No one has succeeded in grooming her into a half-starved body beautiful. She is unimpressed by narcissistic values and clearly depends on a vibrant personality to which the public never has been exposed. However, the Royal double-standards on divorce and morality in general are all a bit repugnant. And, I am sick of hearing the Royalists bleat that "they are only human". They are, but the are also the most privileged humans on earth. If the Queen is the Head of the Church of England etc, they really need to set better standards. Altogether, they've been a pretty sordid mob.

Cherie Blair

The controversy surrounding the Cherie Blair speaking tour is not unreasonable, one concludes after attending one of her sessions. Basically the British Prime Minister's QC wife is on a book tour - usually a promotional activity sponsored by publishers for the purpose of generating book sales. Mrs Blair's book, The Goldfish Bowl, was prominently on sale for $50. And her 50-minute speech, late in an extended evening of padding, was an illustrated synopsis of that book, with some added commentary on why she wrote it and a few comments on Tony Blair's early years living here in Adelaide. She also answered four pre-submitted and carefully-chosen questions - on how she copes with work and children and living in the public eye, what she thinks of the glass ceiling in the law... It was an entirely uncontroversial evening and there was no mention of human rights or any of the issues in which we had been led to believe she had some interest. Instead, we learned about the families who had occupied No 10 Downing St during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. I found myself dropping off to sleep.
The tour's big issue in the media has been the allocation of the money raised. The tour is heavily branded as a charity fund-raiser and the media has been irate to discover that Ms Blair is being paid some $250,000 for her role, the promoter/organiser some $20,000 and I daresay the entertainer and MC also are paid. The MC was swimmer Kieran Perkins, a piece of beefcake in a suit. He was inept as an MC. The entertainer was a competent comedian, Vince Sorrenti, who delivered some well-honed schtick. The SA Police Band performed. Very surprising but so bizarre and unexpected at a dinner that it was perhaps the highlight. The charity, a Sydney-based Childhood Cancer Institute, was extremely prominent with extended speeches from both the professor and the associate professor, along with a promotional film and a heavy-handed pitch for on-the-spot contributions. It was the hardest sell I have ever encouontered for charity donations. Adelaideans sat on their hands and failed to give. They had paid $195 to be there and had already spent big bucks at an auction. Even the raffle tickets were $20 each. The silent auction was a complete disaster. Many of the objects failed to receive so much as a single bid. So the charity will not have fared too well, since these corollary dollars are the only funds going in its direction. Well, "profits" is what we have been reading - and one can't imagine, with the cost of the event, that there will be much profit. Especially since only 400 people turned up - and one hears that some of them were paper. Media was banned. Seems silly, but one doesn't want it to get out that the Prime Minister's wife's speaking tour is really just plugging a book.
Ironic that there was so much security. We had to queue outside and go into the Entertainment Centre singly - going through full security checks as at an airport.
Ms Blair does have a very pleasant speaking voice and, although she has a strangely giraffe-like build, she is a much more handsome woman than her many published photos would indicate.
She is not, however, a particularly interesting or amusing woman. Basically, she gave us nothing. Except perhaps the contempt of making us pay for a book promotion appearance.
She gave the charity nothing, either. Only a hook on which to hang an appeal. And, oddly, she had trouble saying the word "cancer", pronouncing it "cantster".
When I think about, I realise that the biggest fund-raiser of the evening was the State Premier. His offer of hosting two dinners for six raised a healthy $10,000 dollars. Isn't that interesting. Adelaideans will spend big to dine with one of their own but will walk straight past an unsigned Chagall print without a single bid.

Remembering Laconia

Bikers dream of the wind in their hair and the sun on their skin.
So they don't wear helmets or riding gear in the American state of New
Hampshire because they don't have to. Instead, their numberplates defiantly
proclaim the State motto: "Live Free Or Die".
And, once a year, bikers from all around the USA come to join them on the
roads of freedom and gather for a 10-day bikers' festival - a mind-boggling
convergence of up some 300,000 bikes on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.
It is one of the biggest biker events in America - and in the world.
And it has been going for more than 80 years.

Visiting the lakeside township of Laconia at the height of rally and race
week, it was hard to imagine how an added 100,000 people let alone bikes
could have squeezed in. It was wall-to-wall bikes.
Bikes were parked tightly to line the roads - not just parked, but
perfectly parked in complete symmetry like a communal work of art. One
could stand at one end of the street and look down an endless row of
saddles and handlebars.
Chrome dazzled in all directions. Every bike was very seriously polished to
a degree of shimmering overkill which could shame Mr Sheen. And while
there were many of the same models of bikes, no two bikes were the
identical. Each was an expressions of personality and lifestyle. Some were
art in its purest form. Delicate hand-paintings adorned tanks - some
heroic, some demonic, some patriotic and some even Biblical. Some bikes had
designer seats. Some were as sumptuous as leather lounges. One had a
genuine horse saddle, complete with fringes on the handlebars and stirrups.
Some bikes had tooled leather offices attached to the handlebars. Some had
spirit-of-the-road slogans in metallic calligraphy on the rears - and some
had numberplates declaring "speed" or "free".
If anything betrayed the cliched image of the biker, it was the image of
these massed bikers and their bikes. Yes, of course there were burly
tattooed Hell's Angels. Lots of them. And lots of Viet Vet bikers with
their grey beards and pot bellies. But amid a massed cross-section of the
biker world, they were but a part of the throng. There were glamorous
girlie bikers and sedate Mama bikers. Even sinewy granny bikers. There were
obese bikers whose lardy forms splayed across the seats. There were smart
bikers - well-groomed upmarket professionals for whom biking is a weekender
passion. There were bikers who rode with their dogs as passengers. Others
who had teddy bears or soft toys on board. Hardly what one expected of the
studded leather brigade. And even the tattoos were often surprising. One
woman biker proudly flourished a Betty Boop tattoo on her shoulder which
mirrored the Betty Boop cartoon on her bike.
Between the dense fringes of parked bikes yet more bikes drove slowly up
and down the roadways all day long - a constant stream of throaty roars, a
showcase of styles and colors. Sometimes it was simply traffic jams of
bikes. But it mattered not. No one was in a hurry. It was all about seeing
and being seen.
Footpaths thronged with bikers promenading and shopping at the rows of
sidewalks stalls selling everything from mufflers to keyrings, not to
mention chrome polish, insurance policies, Harley bikinis, chainmail
jewellery, leather and denim gear, t-shirts and of course, wholesome
nourishment such as fries, coke, BBQ ribs and fried dough.
State Troopers in their Yogi bear hats, along with SWAT heavies from
Boston, crossed their arms and watched the crowds - just in case of rough
moments, which have not been unknown at other biker events.
After some fierce controversy, local authorities had relented at the 11th
hour on their threats to withhold liquor licences for the Hell's Angels and
the Hell's Angels were happily sucking on their Budweisers in the drenching
heat of New England summer. Against all the biker hype and reputations for
violence, the Bikers Week had a good-natured spirit to it - not quite a
church picnic, but a celebratory diversity of peers.
Rally activities had drawn teams with pantechnicons and big support fields
of mechie-techie activities. These, also, became promenade grounds with yet
more stalls and cheerful consumerism.
Even into the evenings when parties converged in the campgrounds and at
pubs with names like Roadhog Saloon, troubles were few and only three
arrests had been reported at the height of the gathering.
Instead, restaurants and diners for miles around revelled in bumper
business as the thousands of bikers, lights, hair flying on and goatee's
riven in the wind, hummed around the highways and byways seeking all-day
all-you-can-eat breakfasts. And 10 days of monumental bikie extravaganza
came and went - leaving little behind but dollars.

tempis fugit

Months have flown without the passive time for a spot of blogging. Now the old routine returns and I resume. A morning quiet except for the bursts of birdsong - assorted parrots out there visiting the old pine trees to gnaw upon their cones. Now a strident clamour of corellas. Sometimes a shriek of black cockatoos. The lorikeets are more melodic in sound. They are visiting another tree for blossom. And the dear magpies, of course, are carolling and occasionally squawking a spot of territorial indignation as some outsider ventures too close.
It is a soft, grey morning. The sea has settled from the storms. The breeze is light. Such a beautiful world.
I lie abed and read with coffee at my side. It's a bliss of sorts. Almost.

Vale Johnny

Said my Bruce on this day:

With the passing of Johnny Carson, a whole era of television and entertainment has gone. More than just a comedian and talk show host, he facilitated the careers of countless others who would follow in his footsteps. Among them: Jay Leno, David Letterman, Ray Romano, Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, Jerry Seinfeld, Don Rickles and so many others. Unlike his successor, Leno, he turned his show over to guest hosts, among them Leno and Letterman, so that he encouraged and supported his succession in the business of late night talk/comedy. His understated comedy, often just a subtle facial expression, was deeply funny to millions. He was naturally funny; never caustic. He could get more laughs from bad material that he got from good. He made everyone feel comfortable, both guests and viewers. He was made for television and he made television. There hasn't been anyone like him before or since. When he retired he vanished from public view, consistent with his lifelong devotion to his privacy. While the most public of figures he held his private life in strict isolation. No one even knew he was ill. His death has landed like a bombshell.

I am sad he is gone. Like millions of others, I really loved him.

Not looking

To say the US election was disappointing is an understatement. It was not, however, a surprise. Interesting to see the American electoral map - civilization was blue and redneck was, well, red. As The Australian pointed out, most visitors to the US will not set foot in Bush territory. I hope I will, insofar as there are many of those central states I would like to explore. And politics will not be my companion. I prefer to travel with curiosity - and even wonderment.

And so life will go on, with conservatism entrenched in both countries. While I try to grin and bear it, the weather has turned sour since the election. Cold, wet, windy - fierce and bitter, throwing petals into the streets and slamming infant fruit onto the ground . Could it be God protesting? Hmm. And they said he was on the other side.