Monday 23 March 2009

Ink marks on a blank page Monday March 23rd

Could be lots of things to write about this week, much ado about everything happening in OZ. There are some goings on that I think are best left to the judiciary to decide and here I refer to of course the horrendous fracas at Sydney airport, plus the sad demise of Justice Marcus Enfield, a former Justice of the High Court of Australia. Oh no he didn't die, but he did tell a few huge lies to get out of a speeding fine and that has landed him in gaol.

I don't really understand about the Hells Angel situation, we call them 'bikies' here in OZ , sort of lump them all together in an amorphous conglomeration of fat geezers who ride Harleys and deal stuff. So they are not all Hell's Angels, although the one that died I believe was. Of course none of you might know ,or even care, what the heck I am on about but it is my understanding by looking at the online news grabs, the story about this brawl has been picked up all over the world.Poor little Sam the koala has been forgotten for the moment.

The Einfield trial has been done and dusted so unless he appeals and gets let out whilst his appeal is being held then what I will tell you isn't subjudice but fact that has gone on record, so therefore is not in dispute.

Marcus Enfield was a senior Judge, he was speeding in his car, the speed camera snapped his vehicle going 70kph in a 60kph zone , ping , caught, pay the man $77. He swore on oath that he wasn't driving, subsequently was found to be lying went to trial after some nearly 3yrs ,found guilty sentenced to 2yrs in prison. What is disturbing some folk on the bench here and in parliament is that he actually did the same thing three times before, but was never caught. The position the courts must now find themselves in is a rather tricky one. As there is irrefutable evidence that as far back as 1999 this revered Justice had been lying about speeding fines by saying that he was not the driver of his car when snapped by the speed camera, what then is the truth about judgements he made from 1999 to the time he retired from the bench.

If he has lied about such a simple matter as a speeding fine then how can anyone believe the veracity of his judgements? The can of worms that this case will have opened will well ripen in the sun.



What I did set out to write on was a marvellous little film I saw on Sunday...'Dean Spanley'


Jeremy Northam as Fisk, Junior (Henslowe) (also narrator)
Peter O'Toole as Fisk Senior (Horatio)
Sam Neill as the Dean
Bryan Brown as Wrather
Judy Parfitt as Mrs Brimley
Jenna Pollard as the housemaid
Dudley Sutton as Mariott
Charlotte Graham as the woman in the park
Eva Sayer as a girl
Elizabeth Goram-Smith as a young lady of stature
James Lever as the cricketer
Ramon Tikaram as the Nawab of Ranjiput .



Simply a delight to see such a wonderful actor as Peter O'Toole in this role. All in the cast are just right for this film and the set is wonderful as is costuming and music.The screenplay is an adaptation of fantasy author Lord Dunsany's "My Talks with Dean Spanley", a 14-chapter novella published in 1936. After seeing the film I will grab a copy of the book from Borders or
some such and have a read. No car chases or four letter words and not even a bare boob, but a film that had me watching intently every minute. O'Toole's facial expressions and body language conveyed as much meaning as the lines he spoke and at times the acting was so good you didn't need lines to telegraph what was coming next. This isn't a film for a big audience, possibly never set the box office alight but hopefully have a following and the acting will be noticed. We all of us have familial situations that we would rather not had transpire, life is like that and most just move on to eventually get over whatever caused the angst in the first place. Families are a dynamic that is inevitable as the tide, we live within family and that makes a clash impossible to distance ourselves from, live on we must, so we do. All the people learn and live on gracefully in 'Dean Spanley', which seems au naturel for the period in which it is set, a period that on the surface seemed gracious and uncompromising but that of course was very far from the truth. This was the period that saw great changes in Britain, Darwinism had been the focus for years and all sorts of ism's had arisen over time. Phrenology, magentism et al and of course spiritualism which is the backbone of this storyline. Swamis and Gurus were as thick as Autumn leaves and the papers of the day carried advertisements for all the quack cures and latest fads imaginable. For all its so calledVictorian purity the late Edwardian age was full of salacious gossip and flashy newspaper articles about the goings on of the titled and rich.

I must admit to a clinging to the past mentality, yes much wrong with trying to clasp what has gone before to ones chest like a prize from the fairground. But what went has to me anyway great import and a reverence. Of course like most humans I tend to glorify some bits, forget others , but in the main I think that I am true to what actually transpired . Others might see their past that melded with mine in a different light, perhaps that salmon I caught from Brighton pier wasn't as big as it has grown to be, but for a ten year old it was magnificent. Will the children who are ten today have the same treasures to remember when they reach their 3score and? My feeling is that they will, a different set of wonders, but theirs will be a similar grab bag of love,laughs, tears and triumphs that so delighted my generation.

Truly Hortense that little moving picture did enthrall me so, yes Horty I know we only went 'cos you urged me so. It is because of you that I get to these little performances. I well remember the first play that you dragged me off to see,'Camelot', Richard Harris in the lead. We haven't stopped going to the theatre and film since. Yes indeed Hortense I do love to brag about seeing the original 'Phantom of the Opera ' in London too, but that was such a memorable night wasn't it. When that super scene of the Ghost poling that little punt thing along and singing as the mist rose up started, the hairs on the back of my neck rose up , and to think I don't really like much Andrew Lloyd Webber music either. A little like my conversion to Van Gogh after you dragged me off to the museum in Amsterdam, couldn't get me to leave.
Puts me in mind of Cocolat and the Gelato we had Sunday, now that was awesome was it not?

Sunday 15 March 2009

ink marks on a blank page Monday 16th March

Driving back to chez robbi after a swift sojourn to the shops I was pulled up at a traffic light when I idly looked across and spied a gentleman sitting at a bus shelter. Nothing outstanding about that you might say, true, and normally you would be right,but. This gentleman looked exactly like Kenny Rogers. large in body , thick white flowing hair and a beard exactly as Kenny wore. Actually this fellow looked more like Kenny Rogers than Kenny himself does. As the gentlemen on the late night TV ads keep telling us "but wait there's more", there is more. He was also dressed, down to the smallest detail ,exactly like the MAN in Black....folks it's Mr Johnny Cash (We're doing mighty fine I do suppose/In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes/But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back/Up front there ought to be a man in black.") Right there bus stop 27 ( a go zone) Johhny Cash incarnate, and Kenny Rogers, though I didn't look to see if he was wearing a SuperMan T shirt or had his undies on back to front as the light changed and I had to move off.
I know what you are all thinking, robbi has such a sad life, really I don't mind that at all, happy in my quest to unravel the bizarre in our so-called normality and in fact I write this as the Kenny/Man in Black thing has a bearing on what I was going to write about (also is a picture)

Yesterday at breakfast I looked out the window and there perched on the verandah fascia was a large Praying Mantis( Hierodula majuscula ). We all know these insects, they use camouflage as a means of blending in to the scene so that predators cannot see them , thus not becoming a meal for an owl,bat etc.Mantids have hollow bodies so that they can 'hear' a bat sonar squeak as it flies through the night., and then duck for cover. The particular Mantid I observed looked just like a twig from the garden in front of the window,even down to the stripe in the middle of its back. Why was it on the fascia? well the rain pelted down some hours later so I guess it was sheltering from the coming rain as it was gone this breakfast time. Who (or what) was the man sheltering from at the bus stop? we will never know as I moved on, his bus would eventually arrive ( go zones run every ten minutes) leaving us none the wiser. Whatever he is seeking in life I hope that it crosses his path, he does have a 50/50 chance as he was being two things at once, whereas a Mantis only has one go at a time, your'e either a twig or a green leaf,Mantids cannot be both at the same time..

If the above sounds as though I am having a cheap shot at the way some folk like to wear their particular skins then not so, who am I to judge, a fashonista is something that I most definitely am not. That how we appear to folk in general is to define in a small way who we are is a social issue, one that I am not qualified to rule on . Needless to say if a chap wishes to dress like Kenny, then he should be able to providing he isn't up to nefarious acts .

I know Hortense 'fings aint wot they is 'sposed. Got a little ahead and also behind myself with this blog. As always though I was full of good intent, oh please don't say that Horty. I also know that many times I am 'full of it', you do not have to rub salt into the wound. Events of the week dear Hortense, made one a little busy don't y'know. That meeting I went to Monday night started the rot, I then had to write a very long email to that lovely Dr who is chair of the committee and tell him that as long as his bum points downwards then he has no hope of forcing this State government to do anything. His committee have to get the sweaty mass of the public onside, they can do that easily enough and mobilise public opinion. Talk about mobilising Hortense, you got that way this AM did you not ! Wow, I haven't seen you move that fast for ages.
When you opened that little diary you keep next to the phone and saw the huge Tarantula inside I thought the worst. But then the robbi saved the day and put the little fellow outside, swiftly ,calmly and without any fuss or girly like screams. Then you really freaked when you went down the passage to the bedroom and saw that huge Daddy long legs spider devouring his breakfast of an earwig. I thought that justice for the earwig so I just left the spider to it.
Note that I continually refer to these spiders as 'He/Him' when we both know Hortense that the really big agressive ones are the female of the specie, are they not. Just being a gentleman there Hortense and like all of my kind simply shouldering the blame and responsibility. Just like the Chairman of AIG insurance et al.

There is a small confession that I make Horty old girl. It is thus: On walking to the Hospital to attend that meeting I found myself trotting past Cocolat, not being one to pass a golden moment up I did slip in for a quick one, only a small one mind with two flavours only (vanilla/berry yoghurt). There, I have that slight aberration of character behind me and can face the world almost without a blemish.
We will go to the moving pictures Saturday and WE will have a Gelato, happy, sweet Hotrtense ?

Tuesday 10 March 2009

ink marks on a blank page 11th march

Simple is as simple does, that be life really . Days go, replaced by others, each one different but similar and it is the simple ones that I love best. None of us enjoys angst or drama, happens in the best of regulated lives but 'tis never the high point of the day. Excitement is fine, but I for one would not want to go through my life in a high state of frisson each and every minute. James Bond I'm not, think of all those endorphins rushing around colliding with each other. Makes me want to lay down with the energy of it all, not that I am a sloth, indeed not so, but having said that I do enjoy moments of torpor. Mostly in the afternoon around 1430 or thereabouts, just a nice laze in my favourite chair and now seeing as it is Autumn sat in front of the large windows that look out onto the park in front of the house. Said park is looking a litle raggy though, the drought took its toll months ago and what grass there was has just up and left not to be seen until the winter rains. That there will be rains I have no doubt as the rainbow lorikeets have started to fly into the next doors claret ash on our boundary. These lovely birds just adore that tree and come into it in numbers at the beginning of Autumn through to mid-winter and then again in Spring. How do I know that there will be rain aplenty? simple. When I had the 'simple' life on the farm it was in a district that always had 'good' rains, that is they came , they held, they watered well and long. Some seasons were better than others and we noted that the year before those 'better' seasons the parrots ,lorikeets et al all had very bright plumage that carried into the next year, the good year. As the season progressed sometimes Rainbow bee -eaters would appear and then the next rains for that season would be heavy indeed. The years when the Bee -eaters didn't come then that next season although it always rained enough, the hay cutting would be earlier and not quite as heavy. We do not get the Bee-eaters here but the rainbow lorikeets and the parrots have excellent bright plumage this year and as well the Sulphur crested cockatoos are a glossy white too.

Climate change is big news here in OZ and the terrible wild-fires in Victoria have been blamed on climate change by our conservationists groups and some political folk. They carefully forget that the massive dry understory and build-up of bark etc that they will not allow the volunteer fire service to burn off in the winter helped fuel and in some instances increased the fire risk. These groups lobbied councils in the areas that were severely affected by the fires to stop locals from collecting the dead timber that falls from trees along the roadside, the result? In those council where this practise was disallowed the roadside verges became firestorms in themselves as the years of deadwood that had piled up fuelled the fires.
I am not a climate change denyer as we humans have despoiled the planet with many years of pollution but we seem to be rushing in headlong without seriously cosidering the evidence from the past. Antartica did not exist as it is now 4ok years ago, sharks swam where Alice Springs exists in a semi desert today and the Himalaya were in a different place . I will post an excerpt from a geology of the Himalaya to show what is happening as I type this and will continue to happen always regardless of what some rabid conservationists say. This is not to refute climate change, it is merely to point out that the Earth is in a continual state of evolution and will continue to do so as IT(Gaia) is want to do : I quote;
"Over periods of 5-10 million years, the (tectonic)plates will probably continue to move at the same rate. In 10 million years India will plow into Tibet a further 180 km. This is about the width of Nepal. Because Nepal's boundaries are marks on the Himalayan peaks and on the plains of India whose convergence we are measuring, Nepal will technically cease to exist. But the mountain range we know as the Himalaya will not go away.
This is because the Himalaya will probably look much the same in profile then as it does now. There will be tall mountains in the north, smaller ones in the south, and the north/south width of the Himalaya will be about the same. What will happen is that the Himalaya will have advanced across the Indian plate and the Tibetan plateau will have grown by accretion. One of the few clues about the rate of collision between India and Tibet before the GPS measurements were made was the rate of advance of Himalayan sediments across the Ganges plain. There is an orderly progression of sediments in front of the foothills. Larger boulders appear first, followed by pebbles, and further south, sand-grains, silts, and finally very fine muds. This is what you see when you drive from the last hills of the Himalaya southward 100 km. The present is obvious, but the historical record cannot be seen on the surface because the sediments bury all former traces of earlier sediments. However, in drill holes in the Ganges plain, the coarser rocks are always on the top and the finer pebbles and muds are on the bottom, showing that the Himalaya is relentlessly advancing on India" end quote.

We have to change the way in which we as makers and growers of products do things in order to live on our blue ball, however, I do believe that we also must look into the past in greater depth to see what has gone on before so that we can understand how to effect our future. All very well for folk like Al Gore to make $140million on a massive scare campaign using exaggerated filmic techniques to sell 'his' message but let us have rational and scientific informed debate from both sides of the issue and then create a consensus to address this on a global scale.

Here in OZ the federal government is pressing ahead with its version of a Emission trading scheme whether or not our fragile ecomomy will be able to withstand the impost or not. As an observer in this I cannot understand just what emissions a trading scheme will stop. The way the scheme works is that a heavy polluter(steel mill) will always emit on a daily basis more than their permit limit so they buy credits from a small emitter(fairy dust maker) who emits far less on a daily basis than their permit allows. What I do not understand is that the steel maker will still put their daily pollution into the atmosphere and all that will happen is the the fairy dust maker will get money which will in part be passed onto the Government in the form of taxes. The steel maker will in due course have to bring in new technology that will limit its emissions, this is just a natural progression that industry will always do anyway to remain competitive. All that the Emissions trading scheme is going to do is increase the tax revenue and in the short term reduce the steel makers workforce . Hortense my little wonder woman this is making my poor little brain ache with the complexity of it all. You blame Al Gore, yes indeed, but you are a clever wonder woman at that and you do not even have a glass plane. Al is a cheeky little sod are he not? we all wonder just what he has done with that $140mill net he pulled from the movie,dogs home! I think maybe that will not be his first choice. Oh Horty old girl 'tis a good thing we are off to cocolat and a show tonight, we shall have a good laugh and put the Emissions trading scheme just where it belongs.

Thursday 5 March 2009

ink marks on a blank page 6th March

As a bloke there are many of lifes mysteries that are denied me, one major one is the ability to understand women speak. I refer to the oblique way women have of conveying multiple messages in a short sentence like " I am going into the city for a few things" At chez robbi that can mean,'when I'm gone you will have time to vacuum the house' or "I wont be long so you could wash the windows", "And seeing I shall be exhausted from traipsing around the shops looking at stuff we don't need , I shall want you to cook dinner"
There are other little quirks of life that elude me as well. I travel a little and when flying normally cannot open those little butter /jam/condiment doohickies, why? Could this be a bloke thing or am I just one of the poor unfortunates who bumble through life spearing themselves with the tin-opener or splashing sauce all over self.
We had some budget type airlines come here and they don't serve a meal so I thought to save myself embarrassment I would fly with them. Flew back from my destination on a regular ,we serve you a meal you can't eat airline ,as the budget one had seats so close together I couldn't move. This am I read the encoded message well , so prepared to clean the charcoal grill but one little device tricked me.As she left to swan off to the city the last remark was " I left a new packet of barbque wipes on the sink to clean off the residue, a brand new pack so use as many as you want" Folks, do you think I could find just how to open the darn thing, took me all of ten minutes to figure just how it was done. Oh sorry me for when I did finally open the blessed little pack, I almost wept with the frustration of it all.
Then there is me saying" Just where is that set of things?" "In the cupboard" floats back. Yes I know that the'things' will be in the cupboard, but which one for goodnes sake. Yes I admit it, I lose my car keys and my glasses ALL the time , but surely that isn't just a man thing.
Got you there though, I CAN read maps, and when in foreign climes once you take me to a spot then I can always find my way back. Of course that is a fantastic party trick if one wants to walk around in ever decreasing circles, but nobody is perfect.

Never ever been good with working out dates either, some folk can say just from the top of their pointy head. "Oh the 25th, that's a Friday isn't it, not a problem just switch the meeting date to Tuesday which is the 29th" I would have to have a calendar in front of me and a pencil to mark in the date. Also I have a problem or three when typing, for some reason that just rattles past my cage in a flurry I tend not to space between words a's that I write, that is I hang ana on the back of words, then continually have to stop and respace the a in a sentence, already done it 9 times this para. At least if I write to you but forget to sign my name, as at times do, you will then know for certain that the letter comes from me. Should have said a missive contain begging requests for large sums of money then it most definitely would have eminated from this keyboard, money orders are better than cash so run on down to the nearest Western Union and fire some off, you have the address.
Another 'thing' falls to mind about one, can be a trifle absent minded at times. Once someone said that my brain reacts faster than I can think, perhaps that isn't quite correct as I do forget exactly what he said but that sounds almost right. He was testing me for a resume that I was to write in application for a job. Can't quite remember what his job description was but he wrote some very nice things about me that was in part one of the prime reasons I got the position. No, I do not think that his rather large fee that I paid in cash was any reason he wrote glowingly about my prospects, and I could show you my test results to back that up if I could only find them.

Sorry Hortense, feeling a little left out are we? Yes I have sort of rattled on about self, it was all me me me. Perhaps my introspection comes from that birthday I have looming, although my age is not something that figures largely in my daily ruminations.
Age must figure in the machinations in our esteemed Federal Education Minister's mind though. The largess that she is handing out a la those cash grants to schools has to be accompanied by a suitable plaque on the wall of the building that it has funded, extolling the virtues in part of the Education Minister come par excellence Julia Gillard. There is no nepotism in this Federal Government as well, although the hairdresser fellow who lives with , and is the boyfriend of, our Education Minister got a paid gong on a Government board. Yes Hortense I take your point, he would be good at sharpening scissors, they would come in very handy for stabbing ones opponents in the back wouldn't they, wonder if Julia knows that?

Well what I do know Hortense old love is that it be YOUR birthday Saturday and we shall sup well on cocolat...yea har!!

Sunday 1 March 2009

ink marks on a blank page Sun 1st March

This was supposed to be all about Holly Hill Nature walk in Southampton England,weeeell, I can sort of alter the pitch a little can I not? Will explain, then you can make up your collective mind(s) whether or no I should proceed with this, or stick to the original game plan and tell you all about Holly Hill. Okay, thanks for that so that's fixed then I shall tell you all about my afternoon here at chez robbi.
Y'all know that we had Lance Armstrong here riding in a Pro Cycle race we run yearly called the 'Tour Down Under'.You did, and just love bike racing but can't figure it out, but adore those really fit young fellows in lycra jumping up and down on the pedals, you do don't you.
So we here at chez robbi ride bikes around our park most days, I do every day but she has to go to work in order to keep me in the style to which I am accustomed, ie. eating each day, so only rides when there is no work. As befitting a bicycle rider she got all keen to read Lance Armstrong's book 'It's not just about the bike' and duly passed same on to me to read. I got into about 40 pages and to be quite frank thought if I could watch grass grow that might get me going more. Until today.
Off she went at 1430 to earn the daily crust when I spied 'the' book on the kitchen table, what to lose I thought, not much going on here and the drought is so bad even the weeds have stopped growing. I might as well read a few pages and then check that little weed out there to see if it has put on an inch or three.1828 came just as I read the last page,wow, this Lance man is different!

What a great weed he would make, I mean those little buggers even spring up through concrete, Lance is the Texas weed to end all weeds. This fellow is THE survivor and growth specialist is he not? In my job I saw many many Lance's and in their own quiet way lots of recovered cancer patients ,who by the very nature of their recovery beat all odds , going on to lead lives of hope and fulfilment.

Back to Holly Hill.
The very first time that I went to the UK as an adult gave me a tremendous culture shock. One forgets childhood memories and more the pity, relatives and places, they become faint cobwebs of what was and like cobwebs are easily brushed aside. So there we were at Heathrow(1990-1) being met by a charming couple in their early sixties who had been great friends of the family and on hearing we were to be in the UK would not hear of us staying anywhere but in their home. Driving from Heathrow to Putney was then not so bad, traffic wasn't as dense as it is now so there was plenty of time to 'see' bits of London.Also, there were only a few of the ghastly high rise apartment blocks that now dot the landscape as frequently as rabbit poop on a field.The next ten days were a revelation as each day we saw more parks/gardens per square foot than in OZ. The suburb of Putney seemed to have green space everywhere and the house gardens were just bursting with colour. Sure they knock down one large house and build two or even three where there was once one, some public buildings are just plain damn awful monstrosities, but lots of councils seem to really care about how their constituents live and where they live. Here in OZ we went through an awful phase were it became almost a public duty to knock over anything that was more than twenty years old, in the UK there is more pride in retaining as much heritage as they can. Green space is at a premium given the physical size and population density of England but it is still surprising to see just how much green is available to wander in.
Holly Hill Nature walk in Southampton is one such place, 35hectares of planted exotic species and retained native woodland with 11 lakes and many rock pools all connected by meandering paths that are all maintained and nurtured lovingly. At one point one of the walks takes you down to a viewing platform that overlooks the tidal reaches of the river Hamble, we counted 15 species of bird feeding in the marshy area. Holly Hill, another part of the green and sceptered Isle.


Indeed Hortense, perhaps I should make supper, extra housework more often. Yes I do make the bed each day and do a portion of the housework, could do more though .Nope aint a tear Horty,but you know I does love the place so . Best I get to the nub of it too, start actually talking about real day to day things of more import than self. Meant to say earlier Horty, did you read in the daily Murdoch about our wonderful federal Labor Government going to spend $45 million on trying to fix the problem of Australian livestock ejecting METHANE into the atmosphere. Does appear Hortense old bean that 12% of the OZ greenhouse gases are the farts of our livestock, so our Gov is going to fix the problem by spending $45mill . Corks anyone? Woohoo, does that make the mind wobble a bit old girl, just how are they going to stop the 12mill head of beef and 24mill sheep from farting? Plus all the koalas/kangaroos/emus/lizards /spiders/snakes/fish/etc etc etc, oh and us too Hortense, I forgot, ladies don't, do they.

Cocolat a night on the town and a show Saturday Hortense, you betcha old girl.