Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

Music lessons

The most active musicians in the family at the moment are our two youngest children. Our eleven year old daughter is an alto sax player who can quickly extract a recognisable tune from any wind or brass instrument she can lay her hands on. This year she has had the good fortune to receive weekly lessons from a man of colour who is keen on American jazz, and particularly the music of the famous sax player John Coltrane. So for her age she is enthusiastically playing far more complex pieces than would normally be expected for a child of her age.

In addition, our fourteen year old number six son has been going from strength to strength with his trumpet playing at high school. He now does his practice without being told and it has made a great difference. As well as working on his set pieces for the concert and swing bands, he’s started to improvise in the last couple of months in ways I’ve never heard any of out other children attempt. Quite frankly I’ve been thrilled when I’ve heard him practicing behind the closed door of his bedroom.

The improvisor at a concert last month

We were warned many years ago by the man at Zenith Music in Claremont when we bought our first Yamaha student trumpet for son number five that there might come a time when the need for a better quality instrument was apparent. It didn’t happen for son number five, but our number six son, the improvisor, has been dropping subtle hints to my wife for the past month. Apparently he’s on the short list to do some solo performances next year and this has stimulated his enthusiasm.

Good student trumpets like the Yamahas cost about $700 new. The next jump into the advanced student, semi-pro range is a completely different ball game. Our son has expressed interest in an American Conn trumpet. They have a famous design known as the Constellation which has been a classic favourite for jazz players since the 1950s.

I sneaked over to Zenith Music yesterday to do some reconnoitering. We buy all our instruments from them because they give excellent advice, offer very competitive prices and free after sales service on what they sell. We periodically get instruments serviced which are many years old and have never had any hassles.

The list price for a Constellation 38b is currently about $2,500. Gulp! With a discount with could get one for about $2,000. But before we commit, and we are still unsure if we will this year, we’ll need to take our son and his favourite mouthpiece for a test run on it and some others in the semi-pro category. Might also have to keep an eye on eBay for a while.

© MMIX Paul R. Weaver.

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About the writer

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Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!

Current Music: I'm Old Fashioned - John Coltrane

Getting on the road safely in Western Australia

There was a bit of disappointment here yesterday. Daughter number two had her test for a driving licence and failed. According to the kindly examiner she’d done everything pretty well as required except that when she changed down gears to enter a roundabout she kept her foot on the clutch and freewheeled until she came out at the other side. It’s a good thing he noticed. So she’s had to book another test for next week. Then, if she does everything okay, she’ll graduate to the next stage - another learner permit and at least another 25 hours of supervised driving with ‘L’ plates and a log book to record them in. It would make more sense if the log book was issued with the first learner permit.

A minimum of six months must elapse between issuing of the first permit and the practical driving test. Then there must be a minimum of six months supervision on the second stage before the first of two types of probationary ‘P’ plates are issued. A red and white one for six months, then a green and white one for the next 18 months. After this the novice driver is automatically awarded a full unrestricted licence which includes the right to drive under the influence of alcohol so long as it doesn’t register .05% on a breathalyzer. Confused? Here’s the full guts of it in the latest official table.

One suspects the driving licence situation in this state has long been designed by retired circus clowns. The requirements get changed every couple of years. They’ve now become so convoluted that irresponsible people simply don’t bother. The purported aim of all this complexity is to lower the road toll, but it’s not working.

There are a couple of simple solutions for lowering the road toll. Firstly there should be compulsory accident insurance requirement for all vehicles, and secondly a zero tolerance for any person driving under the influence of alcohol. The latter probably won’t happen because Western Australian political parties have long supported the interests of the liquor industry.

At any given time there are probably thousands of inebriated drivers on Western Australian roads. Almost every day there are serious road accidents involving alcohol. Many of these drivers are unlicenced. The social and economic cost to our state is incalculable.

Beware - drink driving to .05 still tolerated in Western Australia

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Current Music: Highway to Hell - ACDC

It’s a recessionary jungle out there

The militant Tamil economic opportunists are still holding out on the Australian chartered customs and research vessel Oceanic Viking at Bintan Island, Indonesia. By hook or by crook they are adamant that they won’t leave the ship until it delivers them to Australia for a bite at what’s left during this worrying recession.

There’s another wooden boat in Indonesia with 250 Tamils aboard. Apparently they’re making the same sort of demands on Australia. The leader has admitted he has a serious criminal record in Canada and now believes he and his followers should be accepted into this country as refugees. Read the news report for yourself. One of the other things he admitted to since he was deported from Canada was that he worked in an Indian call centre. There’s considerable public ill-feeling towards Indian call centers in Australia because Australian banks and phone companies have been allowing them to incompetently handle confidential customer business.

Call me xenophobic if you wish, but I think such individuals will bring a whole heap of trouble to Australia if given the chance. I’d like to see the actual cost to the nation for the interdiction, processing and ongoing social security, education, accommodation and medical support for a single individual. I bet the figure would be humungous. My restated view is the Prime Minister Mr Rudd has to stand tough on this one.

When I was reading up on the modernist Arab Government of Dubai for last Tuesday’s essay I noticed that the emirate depends heavily on temporary Sri Lankan ‘guest workers’ for it’s labour force. Maybe they’d like some more? There must be someone in Emirate Airlines who could pull a few strings.

And what of the recession in Australia? Last week there were some announcements that the worst is over. I’m not sure it is. I was in the local Coles supermarket yesterday and the shelf stock-level situation didn’t look encouraging. It seemed obvious that there was significant mercantile restraint taking place. Indeed, more than I have ever seen before.

Coincidentally yesterday there was substantial coverage by the Australian news media alleging that an OECD report confirmed Australians enjoy the fastest-rising food prices in the developed world. It may or may not be true. I visited the OECD website this morning and was unable to confirm the press reports.

Last week there was a story that Hungry Jacks, the Burger King spinoff which is the main rival to McDonalds in Australia, has dumped its network of Australian potato growers and is now importing it’s frozen French fries from the USA and Canada. McDonalds have since stated they only use spuds from Australia and New Zealand. Even that’s a drama because Tasmanian potato growers are suffering because of the NZ imports. Interestingly, our youngest children have declared without any coaching from me that they’ll not go to the local Hungry Jacks any more when they get any spare pocket money.

No Aussie potatoes at our local HJ’s

There are plenty of once trusted Australian businesses who have dumped reliable Australian agricultural growers in favour of cheaper foreign imports. We’ve tried to scrutinise the labels when shopping, but labelling laws are a joke in this country. Recently were learned that one of the leading small-goods producers in this state has been importing foreign pork for its ham and bacon products. Because the curing process is done here they can be labelled as “Made in Australia.” So we've crossed that brand off our shopping list. We'll avoid ham entirely this Christmas if we discover other leading brands are doing the same.

“Product of Australia” is another confusing description, not quite as shonky as the “Made in Australia” one. Click here for the definitions. A lot of “Made in Australia” fruit juice contains cheap concentrate from Mexico and has Australian water added.

I could go on and on - its a dodgy jungle out there.

© MMIX Paul R. Weaver.

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Current Music: Potato Walk - Danny Elfman

Another reject-stone project for our 'secret garden'

My wife and I fancy ourselves as pretty good amateur stone masons. I’ve described some of landscaping our projects in Fremantlebiz during the past few years. To name a few there was the Chinese herb garden with an echelon of reproduction antique warriors, the Greek garden replete with reproduction Doric columns salvaged from a nearby demolition and the Roman enclave garden with stone walls and arched windolettes. These creations are all standing as good as ever and starting to take on the patina of age, which is the effect we want to achieve.

One thing we don’t do is throw out any scrap limestone. We keep every little bit in a ‘tidy’ pile because we know from our experience that we’ll possibly be able to use in in some future project, no matter how irregularly shaped it might be.

We’ve just completed a stone flower box in our Roman enclave. It’s a sad fact living in suburbia that border fences tend to pollute the vision, so the best solution is to grow stuff against them, and what better way than from a stone flower box. We did have a nice moon creeper doing quite well in the same position for a couple of years, but it went manky.

We started the flower box a couple of weeks ago. We used old bricks for the foundation. (We have a small stack of them in reserve as well.) Here’s a sequence of pics.

Construction of a stone flower box

We are always very careful to keep things plumb. A string line and spirit level are our best friends in this regard. We always find the entire process in these sort of jobs very satisfying. We hand mix the mortar in a wheelbarrow. A stone capping was laid along the top of the wall to finish the job. On Friday we filled the flower box with sand and mixed in a few bags of sheep and cow manure.

We were going to make our first planting to be three types of basil to compliment the summer salad season. We bought the basil seedlings yesterday and actually planted them. However I decided to check on the safety of food plants in the proximity of chemically treated greenish-coloured wood posts. There were a couple on the new bed supporting the old red lattice. I found a blog site called Fits and Starts with some useful information links. What I read persuaded me to replant the basil elsewhere and we’ll go for some petunias instead. We’ll buy some today. We also transplanted a stephanotis creeper yesterday from the Chinese herb garden where it had been struggling against summer heat. We’re expecting it to recover quickly in the new position.

Millie inspects the finished project

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Current Music: Secret Garden Theme - Zbigniew Preisner

Cubilee 2009 at Wanneroo Showgrounds

Yesterday was set aside for Cubilee 2009 at the Wanneroo showgrounds north of Perth. Cub Scouts from around the state rocked up for a day of concentrated Scouty fun and games. Last year Cubilee 2008 was held at Bunbury to the south. I wrote about it on 3 November 2008.

I was the chauffeur for my wife Jill and our youngest daughter and Cub Scout. Our daughter’s tonsils were very much improved yesterday thanks to the antibiotic she received via the excellent Australian health system.

Jill is the leader or ‘Akela’ of the 1st Fremantle Sea Scouts Cub Scout Pack. About 18 of her group of boys and girls paid up in advance to attend Cubilee yesterday. The $12 charge provided them with a bag of goodies and a ticket for food and drinks, plus free unlimited-access to the many adventure activities. Each Cub also received a special cloth badge to commemorate the day. Some kid from another pack won a bicycle for designing it.

The Cubilee badge - 2009

Jill staked out a tarpaulin beneath some shady trees for her group to stash their stuff. Parents who wished to stay for the day after delivering their youngsters were free to do so. After the opening ceremony the Cubs were allowed wander about in pairs enjoying the supervised activities as they wished. Camel rides went non-stop throughout the day. They seemed to be very contended animals. Probably because they were slipped a free food treat for every load of passengers they didn’t traumatise. Here’s a picture of our daughter doing her 'Lawrence of Arabia' act with her companion. It was their first camel ride. Our daughter reported that there was a lot of swaying in all directions.

Camel riders pitch and yaw

I had a half hour power-nap in the shade after lunch. For the kids it was non-stop free action all day. There was always a queue at the climbing wall and the popcorn and fairy floss stalls. Luckily girl Cub-Scouts didn’t seem as attracted as boys to the dunking machine or the water slide. The end of the fine-weather day came about 3.30pm. All the Cub Scouts and leaders gathered together in a great circle for a traditional Grand Howl and then it was a case of “Home James!” - except with this chauffeur it was “Home Paul!”

Our Akela Jill surveys the Cub Scouts at the end of Cubilee 2009

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Current Music: Camel Race - Jerry Goldsmith

Marine turtle writings

I was recently sent a draft of an excellent research paper on the history of marine turtle exploitation in Western Australia. Exploitation meaning hunting, killing and butchering for commercial purposes. These graceful creatures were not always accorded the protection they are now. The paper was by Brooke Halkyard who has affiliations with the Wildlife Research Centre, Dept of Environment & Conservation.

I was pleased to see that my former effort, (Weaver P. 1998. An Oral History of Ningaloo Reef. Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia) was of some use to Brooke. Apart from collecting anecdotal data on marine exploitation I devised a focussed methodology specifically intended to assist future oral historians maintain a focussed approach. I’ve uploaded my original 1998 final report to my popular Scribd site with the title An Oral History of Ningaloo Reef - Weaver 1998.

Her working paper is titled Exploiting Green and Hawksbill Turtles in Western Australia. A Case Study of the Commercial Marine Turtle Fishery, 1869 – 1973 It’s now publicly available as WP 160 on Murdoch University’s Asia Research Centre website.

I was interested to read in her study that the Point Peron turtle soup factory slightly south of Fremantle was established as early as 1903. I recall my father pointing out the quite large wooden building when I was a boy in the early 1950s. It was very close to the shoreline, which is logical considering that the live turtles brought down from the north used to be kept in adjacent pens to await their awful fate.

The area has a diverse heritage of maritime exploitation. In the 1950s there used to be whale hunting vessels tied up at the nearby Palm Beach jetty. The Point Peron area was also used by Sicilian fishermen from the 1880s. Exactly how and when they arrived is uncertain because they are not mentioned in official immigration records. An Austrian registered ship Honor which called at nearby Rockingham to load timber in 1883 and 1885 is suspected of being their carrier. This ship also visited Spencer’s Gulf in South Australia on at least two occasions and is believed to have unlawfully landed Italian fishermen there. The push factor for these ‘boat people’ from the Mediterranean is thought to have been the collapse of the Sicilian tuna industry.

There was a comment on p16 of Brooke's paper that there was little public sentiment for the fate of turtles in the past, but obviously this attitude as changed. Like whales and dolphins, turtles have become anthropomorphised for many ppeople. I wonder if popular childrens’ literature such as by the Australian author leslie Rees played a role in reshaping post-WW2 public attitudes in Australia? For example his enormously popular 1947 work, The Story of Sarli; The Barrier Reef Turtle which was beautifully illustrated by Walter Cunningham. Many of the Rees books encouraged in their whimsical way a greater awareness amongst ‘baby boomer’ children of Australian fauna, and of course those children grew to be much more environmentally aware adults. Just a thought.

Currently for sale on eBay

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Current Music: Song Of The Seas - Vangelis

Tonsillitis outbreak; and boating on the Mekong

We’ve now got two daughters suffering with tonsillitis. Both girls have twice been seen this week by our GP and are now on antibiotics. We’ve never had anyone in our family suffering from this illness before. Indeed Jill and I were unsure what tonsils were, or what they actually did. We’ve learned it’s not that dangly thing at the back of the throat which is called an uvula. Tonsils are ‘fleshy glands’ on either side of the throat just beyond the dangly thing. They are part of the lymphatic system which is supposed to respond to infections. Tonsillitis is when the tonsils themselves become infected and swell. This creates much unhappiness. Swallowing is difficult and painful. One of the main visible symptoms is that the tonsils show white blemishes or ‘spots’ on their surface. A penlight torch is useful for viewing them. We’ve noticed that the visibility of the spots can vary over a period of a few hours. They can fade then reappear. I've come to the conclusion that there's a lot of vague theories about this affliction.

In spite of her miserable condition this week our seventeen year old sat through two TEE exams - Environmental Science and English. Now she can relax until the next one in about two weeks. We are hoping she’ll be in top form by then.

We’ve had a brief communication from son number two who is touring in Vietnam. He was boating on the Mekong River yesterday. He’s enjoying the experience. “Better than Bali.” Here’s a photo I took while boating on the Mekong many years ago. I think it was late 1966. Blame my memory lapse on ‘the fog of war.‘ I was a passenger on an Australian Army amphibious cargo vessel traveling from Saigon to Vung Tau.

Australians boating on the Mekong - c1966

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Current Music: The Fog of War: 'Return from Vietnam' - Philip Glass

A vexed crisis of leadership for Mr Rudd?

I think Australia is seen by many outsiders as a land of milk and honey which offers quick and bountiful wealth by a variety of easy-street options. All one has to do is step ashore and the authorities will ensure that all newcomers are placed on the gravy train where in almost no time at all they will receive subsidised housing, free medical and dental care, free education and all the other advantages which those of us who live here tend to take for granted. Then in a few years when they are rich, they can choose to stay and sponsor the immigration of other family members, or alternatively return to their still impoverished countries of origin and become the new economic landlords over those less insightful wretches who stayed behind.

Currently there is a small armada of economic opportunists trying to reach Australia from Sri Lanka. The popularised term is ‘asylum seeker.’ Acquiring political asylum and refugee status in a developed nation with a generous track record is understandably highly desirable for them.

Reportedly they are paying people-traffickers large sums of money to make their clandestine passages. According to various media reports the fare may be between $5,000 and $14,000. The intrepid voyagers are mostly men and youths and although there are some women and children reported as well. They are apparently Hindu Tamils, which is the ethnic identity of the dissident peoples in Sri Lanka whom earlier this year finally lost a long and murderous civil war to the majority Buddhist Sinhalese. Both sides have had an unfortunate track record of intolerance, but one of the more despicable recent strategies of the Tamil Tigers was the use of suicide bombers.

Going by the BBC profile of the country there are estimated to be between 70,000 and 200,000 dissatisfied Tamil civilians in the recently pacified conflict zone. Possibly many of them would like to come to developed countries like Australia and reestablish? The Sri Lankan government might like it too. It seems reasonable to also suspect there may be more than a few Tamil war criminals on the run in many directions.

A few days ago there was a boatload of Tamils which foundered in the Indian Ocean west of Cocos Island. A few were rescued, however most perished. The difficult search for survivors ended yesterday.

A couple of weeks before that incident there was another boatload of 78 rescued near Indonesia by the Australian chartered customs and research vessel Oceanic Viking. Here’s a picture I took of the ship at Fremantle in March last year:

Oceanic Viking - Fremantle, March 2008

The rescued Tamils from a few weeks ago are still aboard the ship demanding they want to come to Australia rather than be landed in Indonesia. Reportedly suicide has been one of their repeated rhetorical threats if they don’t get their way. Apparently some of have also been to Indonesia previously as ‘refugees’ and the experience wasn’t as good as they hoped. Reporters from The West Australian newspaper can’t have endeared themselves to the authorities by throwing the Tamils a mobile phone from a small boat last week in order to get a scoop.

The Tamils have provided a vexed situation for the Australian Prime Minister Mr Rudd. Politically, he doesn’t want to be seen as being too tough. He was a strong critic of the former Howard government’s asylum seeker policies. However many citizens might argue that pragmatic caution is required when dealing with economic opportunists and fleeing dissidents, especially when violent threats become part of their gameplay to try to gain entry to Australia and access it’s increasingly overburdened social resources.

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Current Music: 'Refugee Status' - John Williams

TEE exams off to a rough start

This week marked the start of TEE exams for final year high school students. TEE stands for tertiary entrance exams, which are independently organised by the state government's Curriculum Council. They’ve long been the cause of dissatisfaction and this is is the last year they’ll be run. They are to be replaced by a system that takes greater consideration of a student’s long term schooling performance.

Our number two daughter has her first TEE exam scheduled for today - Environmental Science. It’s going to be touch and go whether she makes it because yesterday morning our GP determined she had tonsillitis. She’s been on penicillin and another antibiotic for the past 24 hours and been very miserable. The exam is this afternoon, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for her. She had her H1N1 swine flu injection last week, but the doctor didn’t think there was an association.

Fortunately it won’t be the end of the world if our daughter misses today’s exam. There is a system in place to accommodate ill students if they can produce a medical certificate. Previous school grades are taken into account to establish a mark and hers have been pretty good for that subject. In any case she already has an offer of a place in the TAFE draftsmanship course she wants to do next year. She was an A student at school in both Technical Graphics (drafting) and Graphics and Media Design. She’s a tenacious kid and and will front up to today’s science exam if it’s physically possible. She’s already awake and been perusing a stack of junk mail from the letterbox, so that’s a good sign. Here’s one of my favourite photos of her from 1993. She got a A-grade in mud-pie making.

Top mud-pie chef - 1993

Our youngest daughter has a throat infection too. We whizzed her in to see the GP yesterday afternoon. She hasn’t got tonsillitis so there’s no antibiotics her her. Just medicated cough lollies from the supermarket and throat gargles. Nevertheless, she’s still a bit unhappy this morning.

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Current Music: Nixon in China: 'Let us examine what you did' - John Adams

First Tuesday in November - a day to remember blogger Kareem Amer

It’s Melbourne Cup Day today. The horse race which has become synonymous with Emirates Airline Hostesses hovering in the camera background with perpetual Mona Lisa smiles welded into their faces. Emirates is owned by the modernist Government of Dubai which according to Wikipedia currently has a foreign debt of about US$100 billion. The airline has an annual turnover of about US$12 billion and has been the major sponsor of the Melbourne Cup for the past few years. It has always seemed ironic to me that an Islamic government sponsors an event where gambling and alcohol consumption is so much part of the action.

As usual there is a family sweepstakes being run in this house today. No-one actually contributes any money to the kitty, so the winner can only look forward to sharing something like a Mars Bar with the losers.

I was allowed to pull the names of three horses from the hat when it was passed around yesterday, Kibbutz, Leica Ding and Ista Kareem. I thought Leica Ding sounded like a veiled insult to Italians, but no one else seems to have noticed.

The last name is more interesting because ISTA is an acronym for the Internet Sacred Text Archive. It’s a collection of intercultural public domain texts dedicated to religious tolerance and scholarship. Kareem is the name of an Arab blogger Abdul Kareem Nabil Suleiman (aka Kareem Amer) who has been rotting in a squalid Egyptian jail for the past three years. His blogging crimes included criticism of the intolerance of Islam, and insulting the president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak.

Blogger Abdul Kareem Nabil Suleiman (aka Kareem Amer)

In 2006 he was also expelled from the fundamentalist Al-Azhar University for calling it a university of terrorism which suppressed free thought. He chillingly describes how he escaped being murdered by religious zealots shortly after his expulsion in a 7 May 2006 blog-post titled ’The University of Terrorism… And An Exposed Security Connivance.’

There has been a lot of international support for Kareem since his conviction. Today is the 1,093rd day for the blogger behind bars. A couple of weeks ago his appeal was postponed yet again by an Egyptian court. This coming Friday there is to be ‘Free Kareem’ rallies in Bern, Switzerland and Washington DC.

There is a ’Free Kareem!’ website which has English translations of the offending words which earned him four years in an Egyptian slammer. If the collection of translations are a bit hard to find then click here.

There’s also a prison address for sending him letters of encouragement. The envelope has to have an Arabic translation to stand any chance of reaching him, but apparently he can read and write English.

It will be interesting to see if Ista Kareem wins the big race today today. I’m betting the Australian media will be concentrating on the usual trivia and completely miss the point about freedom of speech.

----------------------------------

Prison address for blogger Abdul Kareem Nabil Suleiman (aka Kareem Amer)

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Current Music: Welcome to Ancient Egypt - Rafael Perez Arroyo

The odd couple - Max and Millie

We had two other golden cocker spaniels call by yesterday morning for a haircut. They belonged to son number four and his de facto wife’s mother. The mother and I agree that we don’t like the ‘D’ word. It’s time we had a wedding.

The dogs were very well behaved while my wife gave then a summer clipping. We got the feeling we could cope with them all for an extended stay if we had to. Our tabby cat Mad Max casually sauntered amongst the visitors to let them sniff his nose and bottom; and vice versa. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. This was pretty amazing because both dogs were supposed to be not used to cats and even known to chase them. But as I said, they were very well behaved yesterday. Perhaps they were overcome by Max’s confidence when he rubbed up against them and purred? Maybe they are both a bit kinky and have long secretly wished for a cat to smell their rear end?

Max and our own cocker spaniel Millie have been noticeably chumming up to each other more than usual over the past few weeks. I think they regard themselves as being in a de facto marital relationship. Max has even been seen letting Millie lick inside his ears. His tail gives an orgasmic shiver when she does that.

Jill and I were building a new stone wall in the back garden yesterday afternoon and the two animals lay down on a path together to watch. I had a camera because I’d been progressively recording the landscaping project for a future edition of Fremantlebiz.

Guardians of the garden

Then last night when we were watching TV they took up station on my wife’s lap. I think it’s a maternal thing. Max is a heavy lump, but Milly keeps her back feet on the ground. In effect she goes to sleep standing up. As you can see with the next photo they are totally relaxed in each other’s company. Max didn’t mind Millie contentedly sleeping on his head. I’ve never seen that before. Maybe we should have some sort of wedding for Max and Millie?

Not lap dancing - lap sleeping

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Current Music: Cat Meets chick - Quincy Jones

November already - some flea market treasures

Hell’s bells, it’s November already and the goose isn’t getting fat. Christmas is heading towards us like a runaway train. I’m in a panic, I don’t know what to buy. This is partly because whenever my wife runs out of cash she heads for my wallet to retrieve the paltry sum she might have doled out to me the day before. Alas the pigskin is usually running on empty when it comes to hard cash for places like the flea market.

I’m one of those people who still gets a thrill from seeing a five dollar note in my wallet. I also get a thrill from finding a five cent coin on the ground. I can often be seen stooping to scoop up someone else’s lost coin. None of my kids bother, not even for twenty cents. I keep this stash of coin cash in my underpants drawer, but my wife knows about it, so it too gets raided.

Of course I have plastic cards in my wallet. I can buy stuff from shops if I really want to. However for anything over five dollars I usually try to let my wife do the honours. I think this was an inspiration from the Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen of Australia (and England’s) husband. I read years ago that he never carries cash. Maybe his wife used to raid his wallet as well? Well, it’s 5.15am and daylight I’m going to the local flea market in a few minutes to do some Christmas shopping, provided there is some money still in my wallet…

...It 8.30am and I’ve returned from the flea market with some treasure - too much to show all of it today. I was very pleased to find a professionally framed triptych by Australian nature artist Cheryl Garrett. I can’t tell if it’s an original or a high quality print because it’s behind glass. Whatever, it’s very nice. The lady who sold it to me only wanted one dollar

A Cheryl Garrett triptych

I was also happy to spend a little more money on some hand-made reproductions of ancient Chinese musicians. The person had eight of them, all different and in an old carton which looked like it had been dredged from the bottom of a river. Nevertheless, they were in good condition, so I gave the seller twenty dollars for the lot - $2.50 each.

A faux-antique Chinese flute player

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Current Music: 'Treasure Island' - Muppet Treasure Island - Hans Zimmer

Dollar dazzling time

Bananas are up, cauliflowers are down - in price that is. I don’t understand why bananas have become expensive again - four to five dollars a kilogram, so the sellers can sit on them as far as I’m concerned.

Large caulis were three for two dollars at the Stock Road Markets yesterday - so were zucchini. Bunches of broccoli were three for a dollar and leeks were 20 cents each. Large cabbages were 60 cents. At the moment we are spoiled for good vegetables. Maybe it’s because of the value of the Australian dollar? It’s heading towards parity with the US dollar and apparently this effects the export trade. It also can make a lot of electronic imports cheaper, but not always.

Cheaper than apples

Apple Computers brought out some new models last week. The machines were available here very quickly. Jill and I have drooled at them on display in DJs and JBs. There’s was a very sexy little Macbook laptop for A$1,299 and an iMac with a huge 27 inch ‘cinemascope‘ screen for about A$2,199. The Apple marketing people still insist on using the old ‘99er’ pricing trick to make merchandise appear cheaper than it is.

But the new stuff could be even ‘really’ cheaper for Aussies. Apple in the US are offering the same machines for US$999 and US$1,699 which is way lower than here and doesn’t reflect the near-parity of the two currencies or that fact that delivery from the Chinese factories to Australia is probably easier and cheaper than to a US address.

They’ve also produced a new wireless mouse. The previous one was named “Mighty Mouse.” It was a terrible design which had a scroll wheel which was impossible to clean properly. Ours lasted only a few months. It was replaced under warranty, but that one succumbed as well. We got another replacement under warranty, but it sits in a cupboard unpacked. We went over to a third party design by Logitec which has been very reliable.

The new one from Apple is called “Magic Mouse.” It has no moving parts and nothing that needs cleaning. It looks and feels good, but in Australia it is priced at $99. In the US it’s thirty bucks cheaper at $69.

So then, perhaps it’s not surprising that the following announcement recently appeared on their website:

Apple Reports Most Profitable Quarter Ever
October 19, 2009
Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 fourth quarter ended September 26, 2009. The Company posted revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter...

Early Saturday morning is cool and overcast here in the Fremantle area. There's a dead whale offshore which was run over by an Australian warship two days ago.

© MMIX Paul R. Weaver.

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A mediaeval experience at Garden City

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I managed to get to Garden City alone. There’s only about 55 days ‘till Christmas and we’re getting a bit twitchy. Myer have had their display of Chinese plastic Christmas bric-a-brac on display for weeks. It was heavily discounted yesterday, but there didn’t seem to be hoards of buyers scrambling for bargains.

We wandered about the department store looking for else something to grab our attention - something we could spend real money on - something new and exciting which would jiggle our impulse urges without leaving us in dire poverty. But there was nothing for us yesterday.

I did notice the new ghost-written Jamie Oliver book about his gormless travels in America was two bucks cheaper than in Kmart. I desperately hope that no one gives me a copy for Christmas because I don’t want it. There were piles of various books with Jamie Oliver squinting from their covers at all the booksellers in Garden City yesterday. I’m suffering from Jamie Oliver overload. Our daily newspaper had a coupon the other day which could be exchanged for a free 16 page ghost-written Jamie Oliver mini-cookbook. The kids went to the local news agent and retrieved the freebie.

Does Jamie need glasses?

The main lesson we get from watching most TV cooks is how unhygienic most of them seem to be with their general approach to food preparation and handling - almost mediaeval. Few demonstrate any awareness of cross-contamination dangers when preparing raw meat or tasting. They just can’t keep their grubby paws out of the food, even after it’s cooked and being served. In our kitchen hand washing takes place several times during the preparation of any meal, and a rule is that anything associated with preparing raw meat is always washed separately and immediately after use, then the sink is immediately scrubbed with Ajax. Furthermore, the person who has been handling the raw meat has to use a means of turning on the water without contaminating the tap handle for the next user.

Anyway, back at Garden City yesterday we were bemused to see a ye olde Crusader type knight in chain mail helmet asking for directions to a ‘tournament’. He was lost. I could kick myself for not having a camera in my pocket. There was a gathering of middle-aged reenactment types, both men and women assembled in the main concourse demonstrating noisy sword play and vigorous swashbuckling. (There were a couple of pirates too.) They all looked terrific and Jill and I felt somewhat attracted to investigate these fanciful make-belief activities further. I’m guessing they also indulge in occasional spit roasting, ale drinking and general mediaeval merriment with their respective buxom serving-wenches. A few years ago my wife had a hankering to join a group of belly dancers, but regretfully she never took the plunge.

We stopped by at the Rivers shop on the way back to the car. They’d advertised quality mens socks for $1 a pair. There had been a rush in the morning and they only had six pairs of bright yellow left. I don’t mind bright yellow socks, so I bought five pairs and left the sixth for someone else.

Rivers yellow socks - good enough for the bush

© MMIX Paul R. Weaver.

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Current Music: Knights Of The Round Table - Trevor Jones

Forty years after Saigon

Son number two is currently flying out with his girlfriend and her parents this morning for KL. That’s Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia for the uninitiated. From there they’ll connect of a short flight to another part of Malaysia where they’ll spend a few touristic days before heading for Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam. The plan from there is to head northward to Hanoi from where they’ll fly back to Perth via KL in three weeks time.

Meanwhile back at the ranch our 20 year old twins are moving out for three weeks to house sit for the parents. Jill and I are going to profit from the arrangement because our kids won’t be taking long hot showers and leaving all the lights on in our home. Eh eh.

Forty years have passed since I was in Saigon with the Australian Army. From the images I’ve seen recently on TV the place doesn’t seem to have changed a lot. I’m looking forward to hearing my son’s experiences when he returns. It’s the one country in South East Asia I’d like to revisit and explore with my wife. I don’t know if it will ever happen. We might have to be content with Rottnest Island.

There was a tragedy for a holidaying family on our favorite island a few days ago. Someone had taken a hammock with them. They connected it between a rendered brick pier supporting the verandah roof of their accommodation and a nearby tree. Apparently as many as four children were giving the hammock a workout when the pier toppled and fatally crushed a three year old toddler. We feel very sympathetic for the parents and others on the island who became involved one way or another.

Saddness at Rottnest

My wife and I have long been aware of the dangers of hammocks because there have been similar tragedies reported on the mainland from time to time. Connecting one to a brick pier can be akin to tying a rope to the back of a car and driving off.

I remember that hammocks were very popular when I was in Vietnam 40 years ago. They were made of string netting and people particularly used them as cradles for their youngest babies. When I was en-route to that country aboard HMAS Sydney I was allocated a canvas hammock which had an ocean view. Sleeping in it wasn’t exactly relaxing.

© MMIX Paul R. Weaver.

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Current Music: Saigon - Zbigniew Preisner

More flea market finds

Some readers might recall that we live close to a Sunday morning flea market. It operates across the highway at the end of our street, no more than a two minute walk away. If the weather is good it can be a bit of fun looking for bargains. One person’s junk is always another person’s treasure, but the standard rule is caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. There are two types of sellers, the greedy dealers and the generous amateurs. The former are notorious for raiding the stalls of the naive latter as they unpack their stuff. It then magically reappears elsewhere at an inflated price.

I usually go after this frantic period. One of the things I keep my eyes open for are certain types of ceramics. Replica antiquities transported as souvenirs from the other side of the planet are good, so long as they are cheap - no more than a couple of dollars. I have several repro items depicting ancient Greek mythology. I get as much pleasure from them as if they were the real thing.

A few weeks ago I acquired a large hand decorated platter in a modern, bright, Italian style. It was actually made in China and bore the ‘Target’ store imprint on the base. Shhhh! No one will ever know. It cost me one dollar. It was almost flat and perfect for setting in a limestone wall of what we call our ‘Roman area.’ Jill and I built the walls from scrap stone a few years ago. So on Sunday morning I got back to work with a hammer and chisel. I had to cut a recess in the wall to sink the base a little, and then devise a means of holding it safely in place while the adhesive set properly over a 24 hour period. Here’s how it looks now:

A new decoration for our ‘Roman’ wall

Earlier on last Sunday morning I went to the flea market for a scrounge. I’d been anticipating another large platter, but it was not to be. However, I did find several genuine original soundtrack CDs from various amateur sellers for a dollar each: Pulp Fiction, Top Gun, Mission Impossible, American Pie II and Oceans Eleven.

I also bought a unusual plant from a Vietnamese woman and repotted it in a terracotta bowl - it’s a succulent which with some imagination resembles Hydra of Lerna, the multi snake-headed beast slain by Hercules. See, I learned something from those faked-up souvenirs of ancient Greece after all.

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Current Music: Pulp Fiction: 'Flowers on the Wall' - The Statler Brothers

Why my kids hate me

There was another drama from our youngest ingrates last night over the food that was set before them. The crumbed pork schnitzel was okay, but what got them going was the vegetables. The new potatoes came from our back garden. Some time ago my wife had planted a few bought ones that had started shooting. They paid her off this week with a small crop. After the spuds were plated up, the ingrates declared that they would only try a half a small one each. That pressed my first button.

Then came the discovery that I had served up some fresh fennel gently braised in a vegetable stock with some sherry and dressed with a fresh field-mushroom sauce combined with fresh cream and topped with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. I had insulted them completely by putting a small portion on their plates to try. My wife Jill insisted I do this even though my instinct told me there would be trouble. Even the ones who normally like mushrooms complained that a tablespoon of field mushrooms was too much for them to stomach - they only wanted half what was on the plate, which would have equated to about a tea spoon of fennel and sauce combined. That pressed my second button.

Why my kids hate me

What I really loathe are the individuals who see what has been prepared for them and then go straight to the fridge or pantry to see what substitute they can use to modify it before tasting. I always insist they don’t do this in front of me, but Jill often gives in because she’s concerned they’ll starve.

In spite of my best attempts to expose my kids to some culinary diversity, I get a lot of unappreciative insults about my home cooking. For the most part they’ve become bogan junkies. Even if I make things like mince meat pies, before they’ll actually have a taste they’ll swamp them with enough tomato sauce for three people - and chicken pies are an absolute no no. Home-made hamburgers are arguably worse. Some won’t eat sliced tomato, or they’ll complain about the mayo being in the wrong place, then there will be too much lettuce or not enough. Of course they never fail to let me know if I’ve failed to provide fried onion. Believe it or not, it’s possible to eat a hamburger with fresh onion.

It was almost all or nothing last night. I purposely scraped the offending fennel and sauce off their plates and naturally this created more outrage. They wanted it back. One teenage ingrate left the kitchen angrily declaring that because of my petulance he wasn’t going to eat anything, not even the remaining half a new potato and the pork schnitzel. He was bluffing of course, but I was beyond caring. I took my own plate of food and went to sulk in front of the TV.

Jamie Oliver was on the screen with a new series shot in America. I think he might understand my frustration because he seems to eat most things, and he’s come up against plenty of fussy bogans over the years. Last night’s show was about a New York I never knew existed. The rough side. A bit like here in some respects, except that those being fed seemed much more appreciative than my lot. I’m looking forward to Jamie’s next episode.

© MMIX Paul R. Weaver.

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Fremantle Studies Day - 2009

I was busy doing some stone masonry yesterday morning when I suddenly remembered it was ‘Fremantle Studies Day,’ an annual event run by the Fremantle Historical Society for researchers to present some of their discoveries of little known matters involving the port city. I arrived with plenty of time to pay my $15 registration.

To pass the time before the first speaker took the lectern I grabbed a seat near the window so I could view and listen to a sauced up group of Aborigines loudly socialising and throwing sticks at seagulls in St Johns Church Square below. This must have been how the first boomerang was invented. I would have liked to have taken a photo, except the sun was in the wrong position, plus they might have chucked a rock through the window. However I did take a photo of attendees inside at the history seminar. The only sauce they had was the tomato kind to dip the sausage rolls in when an excellent afternoon tea was served.

Unsauced attendees taking tea at the 2009 Fremantle Studies Day

Before matters got underway there was an acknowledgment along the lines that we were on land that used to be occupied by Aborigines before the wicked white man came along. These sort of unctuous statements seem to precede many Australian history conferences these days. I’d like to hear them include tributes to bobtail lizards and Myrmecobius fasciatus, otherwise known as the Numbat.

There were four ‘papers’ presented. The first was by Andrew Pittaway. His subject was about Fremantle men who signed up for WW1 to fight the Hun. Apparently there were thousands of volunteers, and many never returned. Andrew has been working on identifying all of them and trying to track down their families. A daunting task by any reckoning. Presumably there will eventually be some sort of publication.

The second speaker was Professor Bob Reece who is one of Australia’s most eminent history scholars. Many years ago I wrote a chapter for an anthology he edited - the book was titled Irish Convict Lives. Bob, a Fremantle resident, is deservedly renowned as meticulous researcher. Yesterday he described some of his work on a writer named JK Hitchcock whom he described as ‘Fremantle’s first historian.’ Mr Hitchcock wrote a droll series of essays for the now defunct Fremantle Times in 1919, and then in 1929 he wrote a Fremantle council commissioned-history of the port titled Reminiscences of Fremantle. He wasn’t invited to the launch. Apparently the port’s beadles insisted that the juiciest anecdotes in the original manuscript be omitted from the final publication. Bob Reece has his own manuscript on Hitchcock’s life and work ready for publishing, but bizarrely it was recently knocked back by the Fremantle Arts Centre Press.

Bob Reece & Andrew Smith - Fremantle Studies Day, October 25, 2009

Number three off the rank yesterday was Andrew Smith, the owner of the independent free weekly newspaper The Fremantle Herald. It’s been a valuable reporter of Fremantle doings for twenty years. I’ve written for it myself a few times - always unpaid. Andrew mentioned how before he’d become a publisher he’d originally been an outspoken prison psych worker who was shifted sideways into the state health department to shut him up. Boredom set in. He acquired a taste for independent newspaper publishing after some work experience with the western suburbs paper, The Post.

Fremantle was apparently a place where others feared to go, but with considerable personal sacrifice he boldly started up The Fremantle Herald. The initial years were times of severe economic struggle. These were not helped by the Melville and Cockburn City Councils which slapped black bans on advertising with the paper because it occasionally reported on their dubious behaviour. Shamefully for both of these local government authorities, the black bans are still maintained. Fortunately for us discerning urbanites the Herald is thriving these days. I felt privileged to listen to his tale of struggle and triumph yesterday. An apparent man of considerable ethical substance and strong heritage values, he still owns the paper, but is now practicing being a wealthy mogul.

The final presentation by Kris Bizzaca and Gena Binet was about the architectural history of the Fremantle Markets from the inception in the 1890s through to the present. The illustrated talk was interesting, but it ran over time. I left at 5.15 pm to catch a bus home.

© MMIX Paul R. Weaver.

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Current Music: Alien Vs. Predator - 'History Of The World' - Harald Kloser

Unpleasant happenings and non-happenings

There have been unpleasant happenings for me over the past few days, two of them while barefooted in the back garden. On Friday I trod in some fresh dog poo. That was pretty bad because I was about fifty feet away from a tap. Yesterday afternoon I trod on a fresh, but quite dead mouse. That was pretty bad too because the guts had been exposed either by my weight or come cat’s previous unfinished business. I picked up the squished body in a leaf and left it on the feeding slab for our latest animal guest Bob the bobtail. Apparently these reptiles enjoy the occasional dead mouse after a feed of strawberries.

A third unpleasant happening was that one of our hens died last Thursday night. Our youngest daughter discovered it on the hen house floor in the morning. It seemed to be in excellent condition otherwise and had a good body weight, but it was quite old for a chook, maybe about eight or nine years. I had to bury it in the part of the garden where Bob the bobtail lives. So now we only have one hen left. She still looks pretty good. We haven’t decided if we’ll get any more, but they are very useful for disposing of kitchen scraps.

Our one remaining hen

Yesterday and today my Akela wife along with number two daughter and another assistant Cub Scout leader from 1st Fremantle Sea Scouts were supposed to be doing a professionally organised adventure training course at Scout headquarters. They’d paid their $35 per head fee well in advance. They took public transport yesterday, but when they turned up at the Perth HQ at the appointed time there was no one there. There must have been a change of plans and they weren’t notified. It’s very annoying to be mucked about in this way. The first lesson the course instructor needs to learn is to keep everyone informed. More 'Dib dib dib, dob dob dob.'

After they got home the rest of the day was spent dewinterising the back garden and replanting some flower pots, so there was a positive outcome in the end.

© MMIX Paul R. Weaver.

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Current Music: Chicken Little - Herbie Mann

Recovering a Bunnings pergola

A couple of years ago we bought a fabric covered temple-like pergola from Bunnings. It came from China and cost about $600. Bunnings used to carry a good range of different designs and displayed them fully erected in their stores, plus they had replacement covers, but no more. No more pergolas, no more replacement covers, and a blank stare from staff when you asked about them. It must have been the recession.

So when the non-solar stabilised Chinese cover of our structure weakened and ripped during this winter we were pretty well up the creek without a paddle. However, our flimsy $600 pergola frame was still in good condition so we decided to have a go at covering it with wire-tied reed matting, which is another Bunnings line imported from Chinese sweat shops.

Jill and I used the strategies of the pyramid builders to remove the four corner posts and lower the entire structure to the ground. Then using secateurs we cut the reed matting to fit and tied it to the frame with plastic covered wire. After we got three sides secured it was starting to look pretty good. I kept nagging everyone to be very careful with their movements around our inspired work because the frame was lightweight and could be easily damaged by any undue pressure.

With about half an hour of work to do, then came an embarrassing moment. I tripped and fell across the roof, half-collapsing it and spraining my thumb. Splat! Everyone else agreed they were glad they hadn’t done it. The project came to a halt for a week while I sulked and figured a way to recover the situation. I jacked up the bent roof frame and installed some metal braces. They did the trick. The recovering of the last side could resume.

Another triumph against the odds

We had considered moving the entire structure to sit over our swimming pool, but common sense prevailed and we re-raised it on the original site. I think it looks okay. Sort of tropical-paradise like. Good for at least another season.

© MMIX Paul R. Weaver.

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