Thursday, March 24, 2011

Thug Culture







I understand that Itha Butthrose has written a new book on etiquette. I am not going to read it. Life is too short to read books by Itha Butthrose. I am sure that it is full of useful information enabling you to attack the serious social problems one might face. For example, when confronted with the 3rd in line to the Duchess of Westminster, and a gold logie winner, to whom would you first pass the cucumber sandwiches ? In promoting her new opus Itha has done the usual chatshows, and I was unfortunate to catch one of these the other morning whilst waiting for the cricket score. As my hand moved towards the off button (no remotes in rural Tassie) I did hear the suggestion that perhaps we should all consider being a little more polite to one another. Not a bad idea.



This morning, I was cleaning the 'top' amenities block at the holiday park. A permanent sign outside says 'These amenities are closed for cleaning between ten o'clock and eleven o'clock ' When I commence my work, I put a small yellow board at the entrance which says 'Amenities closed for cleaning' As I went to a trolley for some rags, a young girl walked passed me, stepped over my sign and walked into one of the cubicles. I said "Excuse me, but I am cleaning that" She grasped the knob on her side of the door, and started to pull it closed behind her while saying " I only want a shower" I grabbed the knob on the outside of the door, and we commenced to have a rather undignified tug of war. I won. I explained that there were other showers in the park, and giving up the struggle, she composed her face into a look which would have curdled milk, and marched purposefully in the direction of the office. I should'nt have been surprised. Her behaviour did however put me in mind of a couple of other examples of thug culture which we have observed during our trip.



We went to Campbelltown the other day, a nice little heritage truck stop on route number one, and were sitting in an outside dining area having a bowl of soup. On the nature strip on the far side of the road, a group of youngsters were servicing an ancient commodore. One of them had his head down under the bonnet, and was removing the spark plugs. His mate standing next to him received the old plugs and handed the mechanic the new ones. Holding the old spark plugs in his hand the mate then turned and torpedo punted the used plugs into the middle of the highway. Being a commodore, he did this six times. He looked mighty pleased with himself too.



When we were in the Northern Territory, we spent an afternoon at Manton Dam, which used to provide drinking water for Darwin, but which has now been superceded by the much bigger Darwin river dam. Manton has now been turned into a very attractive recreational area, with fishing and boating facilities. We arrived at a lawned area at the side of the lake and noticed a group of four young people sitting on a groundsheet. As we stood there, the two couples stood up, and one of the young fellows turned on a ghetto blaster, which had up to that moment been silent. The volume was very loud, and music amorphous, ga ga ish techno crap. The four of them proceeded to walk to their jetskis, and blast off in the direction of the opposite side of the lake, leaving us deafened by duff duff.



I have been surprised recently by the criticism which has been heaped upon poor Brendan Fevola. Here is a man who urinates on other people, and himself, assaults innocent bystanders, drunkenly pukes in public, and loses a kings ransom on the pokies, weekly. I think that he is genuinely representative of the best that our culture has to offer, and am confident that he would make the sort of Governor General of whom we might all be proud.



The pictures are of the floods at Bicheno. 28-1456 appears courtesy of a computer virus, which I have explained to Cecile, Norton is unable to eradicate.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Cabin fever





































Bicheno is cut off from the rest of the world. Or rather, the world is cut off from Bicheno. After a morning of getting soaked to the bones working around the tourist park in driving rain, we discover all roads out of here are flooded.
Cecile's yoga class is cancelled.
David is suffering from acute cabin fever.
How many times can one play Bach's Bouree on the guitar before risking :
a - a divorce
b - wearing the guitar around one's neck
c - being assaulted by fellow caravaners in the tourist park.
Our on-site van definitely feels smaller today, it must be shrinking in the rain. And the distance to the toilet/shower block is stretching in the downpour.
It's okay! We will survive, and we have ample supplies of the traditional remedy for cabin fever : rum (to be had, in our case, as a hot toddy, with lemon juice and lovely Tasmanian leather wood honey).

Thursday, March 10, 2011

I'm in love !













How would you react if you found out that someone not a million miles away from here has on free public display his collection of 250 model aeroplanes ? What if you discovered amongst this treasure, a Halifax, Lancaster and even a Stirling ? Then you found that the next shelf contained a Victor, a Vulcan and a space for a Valiant, currently winging its way to Saint Mary's in kit form. Just as you reasonably thought that life could'nt get any better, suppose you found a display of the George the Fifth, the Bismark, and the Missouri, how would you respond ? As sensory and spiritual overload threatens, imagine coming upon a TSR-2 and a Canberra! In my case I discovered that after some deep breathing exercises, that some semblance of mental equilibrium could be attained, but my hopes to obtain some emotional control of the situation were cruelly dashed when it was revealed that the collection also contained all the travel books of HV Morton, and a complete collection of Classic Air magazines dating from 1973. In his spare time the owner of the collection acquired 12 Harmoniums, which he restores and plays, when not practising on his guitar or banjo. I think you can learn a little about a person from finding that from the time that he commenced taping TV programs 32 years ago, that he has kept every video, which is clearly labelled on the spine with a precis of contents, including the running time of each program. Naturally this information is cross referenced to an exercise book which is updated on a daily basis. I happened to mention to the collector that I have a friend in Melbourne who had made a record of every commercial flight that he has taken over the last 30 years, and was unsurprised to be handed a log book containing details of each of the collectors flights since the age of 13, including information about the make of aeroplane,sector length, flight duration, captains name, etc...Then I discovered that the collector is a cricket fan (he gave me a book "the Cricketing Edrichs") and owns every release made by Peter Paul and Mary in vinyl form. It goes without saying that background browsing music in the display is exclusively ABC FM. The conversation turned to the subject of cars, though in my mental condition it was difficult for me to make much of a contribution, and the collector showed me his 8 horsepower Ford Anglia, the first car he ever bought, which he naturally still owns and maintains in a roadworthy condition. His real automotive love however is Rover cars, and he showed me his 1948 Rover, and his 1953 Rover, and his 1957 Rover, and his 1967 Rover, which is restored to showroom condition. Unfortunately he has been too busy to acquire more than a small group of Triumph motorbikes. As we sat in front of a shelf with every book ever written by WE Johns on it, and with the gentle click clack of the Hornby locomotive circumnavigating an alpine diorama, just audible above the prelude from Bach's 1st cello suite (bwv 1007a) I suddenly realised that I was in love. If I had any doubts at this point, then they were banished by a discussion of the hydraulic operating pressures necessary on the Wellington bombers undercarriage, and the revelation that his favourite TV show is "Chance in a Million", and his favourite actor Simon Callow. Now it just so happens that the object of my affection is immensely fat, in his late 60's, and sports a huge bushy beard - but lets face it, nobodies perfect. How am I going to tell Cecile ?

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Stanley













A couple of weeks ago, we decided to visit the charming little town of Stanley on the North west Coast. Stanley is the birthplace of the only Australian Prime Minister from Tasmania, Joe lyons (we visited the tiny cottage where he was born). It is a cray fishing port nestled at the base of a remarkable volcanic plug called The knob. The village consist mostly of picturesque weatherboard cottages overlooking the bay, with a most impressive Victorian mansion, Highfield, standing in splendid isolation on the hill above.
A walk through beautiful Rocky Cape National Park offered a startling contrast to the moonscape of bare hills around Queens town. The sulphur used to clean the copper ore killed the rainforest over a century ago, and the area has a really eery feel.
We are hoping to revisit the area son and walk along the Franklin River, and maybe this time the legendary West coast rain will let off. Okay, you can't have rain forest without rain, we are just pleased to be based on the sunny East Coast.