29 September 2005 at 09:12
I had a comment from
Da NRA, who would be a great recruit to our bunker here on the UnHeard Of Islands when the jihad or the flu pandemic takes off in the northern hemisphere.
Da NRA has a firearms licence (not that we'd be worrying about such niceties in a global crisis). More importantly, he has a firearm. And he understands about practical military matters. Hotboy's background in academic history makes him a master of strategy but not very practical. But working together, what a combination they'd make!
And if Lee Ann comes on board, her diplomatic and ethical talents would keep us on the right side of international law. I could rely on her to rein in my own tendency to authoritarian sentimentality. I have to remember the basics - penguins are cannon fodder, not playthings. For deployment on the beach as feathered blast absorbers.
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27 September 2005 at 08:20
Lee Ann was asking whether
Hotboy and I have met before. Yes, at university we met through our shared interest in recreational brain damage.
We have remained friends for decades, despite being born on opposite sides of the tracks. I am from the privileged side of town, and I still feel guilty about being sent at age 2 to spend a year away from my family, in post-war Germany, where I had the mind-broadening opportunity to sample reconstruction cuisine. Amazing dishes created from sour milk, soap and seaweed.
On returning to Scotland, everything was handed to me on a plate - the social stigma involved in growing up half-German in post-war Britain, and the luxury of regular character-building beatings by parents, teachers, and school prefects. I was mauled by only the best breeds of upper-class dog.
In the playground I was a popular child, during war games when they needed someone to be ritually machine-gunned and called a "dirty Gerry."
Yes, I had it easy compared with poor Hotboy, who endured a childhood in a large, loving and well-adjusted family. It is to his credit that he doesn't let envy spoil our friendship.
Now we live on different sides of the world, but we still share interests. Like working only minimum hours in a regular job, and devoting the rest of the time to cheap and useful forms of brain damage. Mostly brewing and blissology.
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26 September 2005 at 11:59
Just back from seeing the head specialist, a cheery chap not long out of short trousers. He spent 5 minutes palpating me (not as much fun as it sounds) and pronounced me fit to pay him $150.
Afterwards at the bus-stop, I celebrated by standing downwind of a smoker and inhaling deeply. What a fortunate creature I am!
The dog was less fortunate. I took her to the vet again, and on the way we walked down the steps beside the butcher's shop, just as they were cleaning up for the day. The butcher hopped out and threw a bucket of chlorine down the steps after us, splashing her bum and freaking her out. She panicked and ran head first into a bin. That should cure her fascination with butcher shops.
I forgot to explain about the boxing photo on the previous post. The other guy is my brother. We had 2 pairs of gloves and an adjustable punchball. I used to set the ball high, to practice defending myself against bullies. My brother used to set the ball extra low, to practice beating up little guys. He became school boxing champion, and I joined the school shooting team, because you could smoke under cover of all the gunpowder smells.
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25 September 2005 at 12:04
A rabid discussion has descended on
Lee Ann's place. Probably the same people who didn't stay to clear up the mess after her birthday party.
They are comparing a certain class of offender to animals. I have invited some of the more extreme critics of penguin-love to visit this blog. Anything to boost my profile.
Like
Barry Graham, I would challenge them to a boxing match, but I've seen the trailers for
Cinderella Man, and I don't think I could handle myself in the ring. Or out of it.
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24 September 2005 at 18:23
I was asked to post some more holiday snaps. This picture is from my trip in a hire car from San Francisco to L.A.
As you can see, I wasn't driving. I had injured my toe on some coral while swimming. I didn't want to pay for a U.S. doctor, so I just let it fester. I still have the coral in my toe as a souvenir.
The driver was a young guy I met at the hostel in S.F.
The mountain road started to wind charmingly downhill. The guidebook says "
The twisting two-lane highway ... clings tenaciously to steep rock cliffs."
The guy behind the wheel got a bit nervous. I asked what was wrong, and he explained he had never driven on mountain roads before. I wondered what the big deal was. Sure, there was a sheer drop at the edge of the road, but with careful driving there was nothing to fear.
As the bends got tighter and the road steeper, the car went faster and faster. In those days I was very polite, so I began saying, in a measured tone to disguise my own rising panic, "perhaps it would be an idea to
brake on this curve" ... "you might like to
brake here". He explained to me, quite seriously, that he only recently passed his test and had never really mastered how to use brakes.
As we gathered even more speed and started to slide into the curves, he was wrestling with the wheel and I was screaming at him: "just step on the effing brake" ... "stop the effing car" etc.
It was as if he was deaf. It was like some kind of psycho movie. He should never have been allowed to drive. I could have driven better with a septic toe. If he's still alive today, he must have mastered the footbrake in the meantime.
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23 September 2005 at 18:43
"King"
Hotboy has declared himself ruler of his end of the island, while I was overseas on a state visit to Australia. I was opening a new wing of poker machines at the North Ryde RSL. Displaying the common touch.
If the islanders were looking for a King Penguin, they'd choose someone with a few molecules of Prussian royalty in the blood. Someone of regal bearing, with
experience in world leading.
In Tennessee,
Barry Graham has challenged the redneck sheriff to a boxing match. Hasn't Barry heard of running away? It seems he's missing the gene for cowardice.
I normally get my dose of terror in the doctor's surgery, but that may be ruled out next week, if my health continues to improve thanks to these herbal health drinks.
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22 September 2005 at 15:29
There's a birthday party at
Castle of Nanbugg, if you hurry you might just squeeze in the door before the Blues Healer runs out. Kelly Clarkson's there already, signing photographs of her dad.
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21 September 2005 at 16:11
I thought I had an essentially happy life, until the whining black dog came to my door last week, chewing an irradiated bone.
For some years, I had been congratulating myself on my achievement. After a lifetime of experimentation, I had hit upon the ideal levels of exercise/homebrew/Somaloft, combined with a careful reduction in the quantity and quality of my working life. I had found the formula for the optimal steady state of contentment. Like the guy in American Beauty. UnHeard Of Beauty.
I had even started looking to the future, wondering whether I should perhaps start building a pension for my retirement. Thank goodness I've had a wake-up call just in time to save me from financial responsibility.
It's 3 in the afternoon. I started on the Blues Healer a bit early today. Normally I insist on waiting till 4pm before opening a bottle, you have to set some sort of standards.
I knew an alcoholic who kept drink in her house but never drank alone, because then she would have felt like an alcoholic. Instead, she went to the pub all night every night. Social drinking, you see, doesn't count. Neither does drinking while you blog. I learned that much from
RaBeerBlog.
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18 September 2005 at 20:39
Hotboy has suggested I blog some of this stuff, he was probably kidding but here goes anyway. Don't read this on a full stomach.
I should really have read my tea-leaves a week ago. It's been a tough week, what with the dog's fur falling out, and my visits to the dentist and doctor, and it's not over yet.
When things are going well, I have a wonderful life with the various beings I live with and love. When things are going badly for me, experience shows that it's best to rely on myself. Fortunately, I have had 20 years' practice in self-support.
Twenty years ago I had cancer, then surgery and radiation to my head and neck. A big success, though I'll never be a film star now. Last week I got a minor infection in my jaw, a typical delayed complication of radio-so-called-therapy. So far, my only symptoms are like mild flu, plus difficulty in talking (a bit of a challenge when you're a teacher, the Scottish accent is already bad enough).
The last time I had it was about 6 years ago: fixing the problem took 9 months on antibiotics, 6 weeks of daily oxygen therapy in a diving chamber, and I'd to get some teeth pulled. And I was one of the lucky ones! In some people the condition can turn nasty and eat half your face away, leaving a permanently-exposed and infected jawbone, with lifelong pain (if you survive). Naturally I'm planning not to be one of those cases if I can help it.
Whenever I'm in the middle of a health scare, I find it helps if you read a book about someone triumphing over adversity. The book that usually does it for me is
The Great Siege: Malta 1565. It's a historical account of the Christian Knights' defence, of the island of Malta, against the forces of the Turkish Empire. The odds didn't look good on paper: 600 Knights against 40,000 Turkish troops.
The book is a great adventure story, but because it's about Crusaders and Muslims, it's not something you'd want to give George Bush for Christmas, it would only encourage him. Guy Ritchie was planning a film of the story, with a starring role for Madonna, but that project seems to have been shelved before filming even began. Probably a wise decision given certain world events.
Last night, instead of the Malta book, I read Barry Graham's "Of Darkness And Light", which I downloaded from
his website.
I didn't want to read it at the PC, so I fired up my old stone-age PDA and downloaded it to there. Then I read it in bed till I fell asleep. What a great wee book. It is set in my spiritual home, the West End of Glasgow. And the hero overcomes some fairly chilling odds.
When I woke in the night, I was thinking clearly about my current health problem. I was able to side-step my fears, and work out an action plan for next week - who to see, what to ask for, etc. Feeling powerless and ignorant is one of the worst parts of a health scare, so making a plan and doing the research helps work off the fear.
This morning I decided to take a break from the heebie-jeebies. After a double dose of japanese green tea, I strode out with the dog for a brisk walk through the forest chill, shedding clothes into my backpack along the way as I warmed up. On the discman I played The Land Of Grey And Pink, which I listen to once in a while, it's been in my blood for about 30 years. Marching music for superannuated hippies - I could have walked for ever. If you've never heard it, it's lovingly-made English 70s art-rock jazz, with a cheesy keyboard sound - a bit like the Doors' organ sound but with double cheese. I love it!
We got back an hour later just as the CD finished - the dog knackered and me singing and warm. At last something had gone well. As someone once said: what a fortunate creature I am!
Update: Yesterday at work, all the cheery people were on holiday, and I felt near tears most of the morning. Then in the afternoon I taught my "differently abled" class, and had a lot of fun. Well, part of the fun for me was that they were doing the exam and I wasn't. In between helping them I was able to get on with some blogging.
The appointment with the specialist is on Monday, but in the meantime things are looking up. I think I might get away with cheating the Grim Reaper one morte time. Just as well! I've got a whole barrel of chocolate mahogany porter ready for bottling today.
After I do the bottling, I'll start off the next brew right away, Spicy Ghost Draught. The label says it's "wheat inspired".
It's a busy life, looking after your own needs.
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at 20:34
I was asked to post some holiday snaps. This is a picture of my visit to Perth, W.A.
As you can see, there was a heatwave at the time, but luckily my hosts had a backyard pool where we could keep cool.
On hot evenings, we would put the table and chairs in the pool, and eat dinner there. Who said Australians aren't civilised?
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15 September 2005 at 09:12
Usually, my father wasn't keen on passing on his skills and wisdom to me. Okay, he did take the time to teach me how to salute, but that was just so that I could salute
him.
The only other thing he taught me was this:
HIM: That thing you were doing in the bath last night, you've got to stop doing that.
ME: What thing?
HIM: Don't act smart, you know what I'm talking about.
ME: But I was just playing with the water ...
HIM: Look, I'm ordering you, stop it. It'll turn you blind and give you mental children.
This is me saluting. I'm sorry I don't have a photo of me wanking.
I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning.
- Stevie Smith's 1957 poem.~
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13 September 2005 at 13:21
Every Saturday morning for the last few years, there are 4 of us who take our 2 dogs for a brisk walk around the bay. It takes about an hour and everyone enjoys it.
I'm not one to bitch or complain. But. A few weeks ago, it was suggested that we mess with the formula, and change the route, to go past the Dog Cafe.
Now, the dog cafe is a nice idea until you think it through.
Sure, you sip Cappuccino in the sun, and you can buy your dogs a Pupaccino, a drink made with liquified liver or something. But some days there are about 50 dogs at the cafe, and the only way the humans can relax and chat, is by trying to ignore the yelps, growls and dogfights around their ankles.
I don't enjoy drinking my coffee in the middle of a dog circus. In fact I'd rather drink green tea somewhere sane. But I'm always flexible and accommodating, so I go along with the majority, and we start this new Saturday routine, ending with a coffee at the dog cafe.
Well I should have remembered - every time I ignore my gut instinct and go along with others, it all goes wrong.
My dog is now infected with canine scabies, a.k.a. mange, from one of the other dogs there. She used to be the most beautiful dog, now suddenly she's a threadbare fleabag. The treatment takes ages and costs hundreds.
Let that be a lesson to me - I should stop being so accommodating; I need to remember that what's best for me is also best for my dog. What do you think?
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11 September 2005 at 15:09
When I said that I only have 2 friends in the southern hemisphere, it wasn't true. I have
2 and a half.
But in the northern hemisphere, I have many dear friends I have known since I was very young. None of them are conventional people. Thank goodness.
Seb, seen below wearing a mask, once spent a whole vacation at a government centre where they do research on the common cold virus. The deal was: they infect you with the virus, then all you do is spend a week in a room watching TV and reading books, while they measure your temperature, etc.. I don't think he even got paid for it, except for free Kleenex.
Another friend once checked himself into a pharmaceutical testing centre where they paid him good money to let them test new drugs on him. After 2 weeks swallowing pills and being injected with various cocktails, he had earned enough money to buy heaps more drugs.
He had found his calling. He became a freelance drug tester, publishing the long-term findings in the form of
cryptic buddhist writings.
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08 September 2005 at 09:57
It has been suggested that all my problems stem from my parents' abusive toilet training techniques when I was a baby.
As the photo shows, my toilet time was actually blissful, the happiest part of my day. Still is. Nothing wrong with that.
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07 September 2005 at 18:07
I've finished reading Kenneth Williams' diaries. I don't want to spoil the ending for you, but he takes an overdose on page 802. Fancy ending a diary like that!
Now I'm reading Barry Humphries' (a.k.a. Dame Edna) autobiography. In his younger days he used to arrange stunts to challenge people's notions of normality. One of his favourite pranks involved emptying a can of Heinz vegetable salad on the pavement to resemble a pile of vomit, then eating it up with a spoon. He says that some passers-by actually threw up themselves.
He might have approved of the military drill stunt I put on at my school. Every Monday we had to go to school in military uniform, and spend the afternoon cleaning rifles or marching. Each member of our platoon had to take a turn drilling the platoon to march around the playground, shouting like a sergeant-major to keep everyone in step:
"left ... left .... left right left".
When my turn came I trained them using a variation:
"left ... left .... left left left",
My soldiers obeyed with a repeating rhythm of 4 steps and 3 hops. This was before the days of Monty Python. The effect as we passed Colonel Carruthers was fantastic!
They sent for my father, and I knew I was in for trouble. My father, a stickler for military discipline, had been a Commander in the navy, but in our house his rank was Rear Admiral, in charge of whacking my rear. He carried out this reponsibility with enthusiasm, above and beyond the call of duty.
Me at age 14, perhaps unable to sit down
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06 September 2005 at 16:54
I was tagged a while ago by
Heather, with an approximation of this Musical Meme :
List ten songs or albums that you are currently enjoying. It doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good but they must be songs/albums you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Explaining your choices is optional. Then tag five other random people to see what they're listening to. 1. Positively 4th street
Artist: Dylan.
I'm not a huge fan of Dylan, but even so, songs like this take me back to the summer when I bought a transistor radio with my pocket money. and what a magical sound Dylan made.
2. Familiar to Millions
Artist: Oasis.
Most people went off Oasis when they went over the top, using a heavy guitar wall of sound, but that's precisely when I started to like their sneering tunes. And their postmodern recycling of their influences (e.g Lennon, the Kinks).
3.
All Along the WatchtowerArtist: Hendrix
Need I say more?
4. The Rotters Club
Artist: Hatfield and the North.
Like Mahler symphonies, this English 70s jazz fusion with silly humour is the sort of music you have to listen to for years before you even start to like it. But by that time it's in your blood.
5. Voices
Artist: Roger Eno (Brian's brother).
This CD of piano pieces, some quite Satie-esque, makes new age music respectable.
6. The Land of Grey and Pink
Artist: Caravan
Decades ago, the only blind date I have ever had was set up by
hotboy. He knew a lass from the Caribbean who had just broken up with someone. Through hotboy she invited me for dinner at her place. She wined me and dined me, and afterwards she played this album. She was surprised to hear I couldn't stand the music: I found it weak and wimpish. The magic didn't happen between her and me, and I never saw her again, but I heard this music again and grew to love it. I sometimes wish I could meet her, just to say "you were right."
7. Haydn piano sonatas 1 to 60
Artist: Jeno Jando
Most people have probably heard some of the well-known sonatas by Beethoven. But to me they are often brash and repetitive. Haydn's sonatas would be just as famous, if only he had had the commercial sense to put in some catchy tunes. Instead, his piano music is full of surprises, playful twists and turns, the sound of happiness. Five minutes after listening, you cannot remember a single note, but so what?
8. Take 5 (the long version)
Artist: Dave Brubeck Quartet.
I listen to loads of American and British jazz, but I'm mentioning this because it's well-known. Like Haydn, it's full of the sort of energy that takes your heart by surprise and lifts it up high. At the time this recording was made, the unusual time signature was revolutionary. The cut-down version of Take Five (like the cut-down version of The Doors' Light My Fire) is a swindle. It leaves out the best bit - Joe Morello's inspired drum solo over repeated piano chords. I almost forgot to mention Paul Desmond's beautiful sound on alto.
9. The Very Best Of
Artist: Supertramp
Mention this band and most people pull a face. "All those girly high voices!" The same people think Queen were good, despite their campy falsettos. I predict that Supertramp will be the next band to be rehabilitated. As happened with ABBA, rock stars from Elvis Costello to Bono will be falling over themselves to say how much they always admired this music.
10: The Black President
Artist: Fela Kuti
Of course there's a huge amount of wonderful music that comes out of Africa. I saw Fela Kuti play in Toronto many years ago, and it's perhaps the only time I've had to walk out of a concert because it was too good. After about 90 minutes of his eerie full-on music, I was wishing he would play something boring to give us a break. I couldn't take any more.
I'll be tagging as many people as possible. If you don't want to wait till then, tag yourself!
Tagged so far:
hotboy,
lee ann,
blake~
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05 September 2005 at 18:23
One of my two real-life friends on
these islands has asked for another post about secrets.
Alright, over at
Sloth's place, people have revealed over 200 secrets. Someone over there used my name to talk rude. Was it you?
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04 September 2005 at 18:07
Today I registered my 1500th hit, a piddling amount in the blogoscheme of things, but not bad considering I have nothing to say that could interest anyone except myself, kilt fetishists and spammers.
The most referrals came from
samsaramom.blogspot.com, so thank you again for the link, Heather.
Meanwhile, an ancient drug memory has been posted at
Ra Fuhrer and Further, confirming two things - that I did not inhale, and that hotboy still has more memory cells than me, despite devoting his life to toxins research. Why did I bother living a sober life?
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at 11:05
There was some recent correspondence (I can't remember if it was here or at someone else's blog, maybe Lee Ann's) about shyness etc..
I thought my own variety of shyness was unique until I found a fellow-sufferer at
post secret :
PS if you're using Internet Explorer, apologies if this template look a bit dodgy.
It dsiplays fine in Firefox. I could fix it by removing the sky picture, but it gives buddhist readers something to stare at till the bliss kicks in.
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02 September 2005 at 18:52
An accusation has been made, and cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.
Hotboy has suggested that I am not Scottish! It's a transparent attempt to annoy me into revoking my share of his royalties in the southern hemisphere. Or perhaps it's a smokescreen to divert attention from his own murderous Irish Viking blood.
Here's proof that I'm Scots, at least from the waist down. And the shadow on the grass proves that there was nothing worn under the kilt.
Match that, Hotboy. Show us your
Viking helmet!
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