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| By John Ray |
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For a week this site has been inaccessible for updates. That is egregious in the world of blogging so yesterday I moved this blog to a new site here. Very annoying that the very next day after I move, service here is restored. I sent messages asking what was going on here but got no reply. Anyway, unless the new site goes bad on me, I do not expect to be making any further entries here. There are however already new entries at the new site for this blog. | ||
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Today is the most solemn day of the year in Australia. It is the day we remember our war dead. Australians have died in many wars and there can be few families not affected to some degree by the deaths resulting. I had a much loved uncle die in WWII. Wherever British or American forces were fighting, there have generally been Australians fighting alongside them -- in two world wars and many smaller wars both before and after that. And Simon of course is deployed in Afghanistan at the moment. I had news of him today from Tracey. He is OK but finds it no picnic to be wearing body armour in high Afghan daytime temperatures at the moment. Our flag above I am afraid that I am very remiss at Anzac day observances. I think I have been to the dawn services only twice in my life. Getting out of bed at 4 in the morning was easy once but is so no longer. Most Australians just watch the marches on TV but I now don't often do that either. I have however myself worn my country's uniform so I don't think it can be dismissed as cheap talk when I say that I am with them in spirit. But it was a great day anyway because the twins had a party to celebrate their birthday this afternoon. And the news that Von is pregnant was the best thing of all. I talked mainly to Paul, Joe and Ken as usual. And I really got into some excellent sandwiches that Maureen made. We had three babies present -- from Olivia, Susan and Lena -- Lena being an old friend of the twins | ||
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Friday 23rd is of course St. George's day -- England's national day. So as I am mainly of English descent, I thought it appropriate to mark the day -- which I did. I had the St George cross flying from my flagpole all day yesterday and at very short notice I arranged a small commemorative dinner last night. Only Paul, Susan and Jenny could come because of the short notice. We started the evening by standing and singing "God save the Queen" (the English national anthem) followed by a toast to the Queen and a toast to "St. George and merrie England". Then we sat down to a meal of England's favourite food: curry. We washed the curry down with some good Australian "champagne" and a very pleasant evening was had by all. The chat over dinner was very wide-ranging and at one stage I even read a couple of choice excerpts from the 39 "Articles of Religion" from the 1662 "Book of Common Prayer" of the Church of England. None of us are religious but we still enjoyed the power of those historic words. | ||
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| I arranged a sendoff for Simon at the "Bollywood" last night in connection with his imminent deployment to Afghanistan but was unable to be there myself due to illness. I was in the grip of the first day of the flu, which meant that I could hardly talk but was doing a lot of coughing and had a very runny nose. It would have been most unkind of me to risk giving that to others even if I felt up to it. But it was family do where everyone knew one-another well so I hear that a good time was had by all. Photos forthcoming maybe The main thing is that Simon had a good sendoff and that everyone had a chance to wish him a safe return UPDATE: Von sent me some great photos of the event. Below is a group shot with Simon (in blue shirt) with his lovely wife Tracey in the middle. Anne is not there as she left early to bring me some medicine.
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| Paul celebrates his 34th birthday soon so he and Susan put on a celebratory afternoon tea at their place. There was a goodly turnout and the ladies all brought plates of their specialty so the table was a sight to behold. Pictures coming, I believe. I ate mainly sausage rolls -- which was a bit mad in the presence of so many other good things. There was a very good Pavlova too -- with chocolate layers. I ended up eating enough to feel very tired so went home early to sleep it off. Joe was very abstemious -- trying only a few things. He knows that he has to keep an eye on his weight if he is not to balloon out in the way that his genetics threaten. Paul is a good influence in that way, though. He has really slimmed down. It was good to see two babies present. Babies have been missing from family gathering for far too long. I had a bit of a chat with Simon about his forthcoming deployment to Afghanistan. He vows to stay on base for his whole deployment -- which is wise in someone who has that opportunity and a family to come back to. He will be in an air-traffic control tower most of the time so that should be pretty well protected. Update: The festive table -- with Joe and Samantha in the background | ||
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| I bet you can't spell that hard word in my heading. Look aside and write it down now and see how you go. Did you get two letters 'h' in it? It's tricky. Anyway, last Monday (15th) I had the cataracted lens in my right eye replaced by a plastic one: An "intraocular lens implant". So if you now call me "Old Mr. Plastic Eye", I can't object. Vision in that eye had got so blurry that I was squinting a lot to block it out. The procedure went "very, very well" according to the ophthalmic surgeon, so rapid healing will hopefully ensue. The private clinic I went to could not imaginably be better, I think. Private medicine in Australia is very, very good -- as good as public medicine is bad. Yet my private health insurer is covering 100% of the charges from the clinic and from the anesthetist but I have to pay something towards the fees of the surgeon. I was in and out quite rapidly and experienced only minimal pain and discomfort. I got the dressings off the morning after and my eye was pretty red and watery that day. It is now Wednesday evening as I write this and most of the redness and watering is now gone. My eyes are normally a bit bloodshot these days so the eye in fact looks normal. And the vision in my transformed eye was remarkably good from the moment the dressings came off. I no longer squint! The ophthalmologist -- Kleinschmidt of Porter Eye Care -- went to a lot of trouble to make sure he had a lens that would be just right for me and he seems to have done a first class job of that. The only odd thing was that he started operating at a Godforsaken hour in the morning. I had to be at the clinic before 7am. As I usually get up around 9am that was a bit of a wrench. Joe drove me in so that was a bit heroic from him too as he tends to be a late riser as well. The clinic is at Mt Gravatt where Joe lives so he at least had a short trip back to bed. Paul picked me up after the procedure at about 9am and stayed with me for the rest of the day until Anne got home from work at about 5pm. It is apparently strongly recommended that you have someone with you for the whole of the day after a procedure. I was not very strongly affected by the sedatives they pumped into me so had only a short nap while Paul worked away on his laptop. Paul spent quite a lot of time looking at some computer problems I have so that was very useful. Paul and I also had a lot of chats about family matters so I caught up on some news. Paul is very family-oriented so keeps tabs on what is going on. All that is now outstanding is for the incision to heal through which the new lens was implanted but all signs are that that is proceeding apace. I always heal well so I expected no problems there, barring accidents. | ||
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On Saturday Anne, Susan, Paul and I had a specially convened sandwich dinner at Paul's place. The concept was to practice the sandwich-making skills that both ladies have learnt recently. We had Reuben sandwiches, Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwiches, Cuban sandwiches and Hungarian open sandwiches with Liptauer. Anne makes her own Liptauer as you cannot buy it in any Brisbane shop. The ladies did us proud with products which were just about as good as could be and Paul got so carried away that he overate and got a stomach-ache out of it. Definitely a compliment to the food! I had never had a Cuban sandwich before. Susan worked out how to do one through eating them in NYC while she and Paul were there recently. They were undoubtedly a great sandwich concept but very complex to make. Susan did a great job on them, though. And below is baby Sahara now 3 months old and looking great | ||
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Last Sunday was supposed to be a static display put on by a group of car clubs at Wynnum. But it was cancelled at the last moment due to rain. Three of us more determined souls still turned up anyway: I arrived in the Humber, another guy arrived in a Sunbeam Talbot and a third man brought his beautiful old '30s Singer along. The Singer owner had acquired it in a dilapidated state after it had been converted into a truck so the beautiful vehicle we saw on Sunday was the product of an immense amount of work. Because so much of the original bodywork had been lost, he restored it as a tourer. And that really got to me. When I was about 4, I was given a ride in the back of a tourer and I have wanted one ever since. And if you don't know what a tourer is, you haven't lived. It has no modern equivalent. Anyway, I survived the heartburn and had a good talk with the owner. It really was a beautiful car. Anne and I then moved to a nearby park and had a picnic lunch/brunch. Anne had made some Liptauer for the occasion and I brought a thermos so we had a very good brunch by the sea. | ||
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| I took Anne, Jill and Lewis to the "Kasbah" restaurant last Saturday night -- to celebrate Jill's birthday. Since the waiter seemed to understand no English, there was a certain amount of chaos. Fortunately the manager understood fairly well so we did eventually get most of what we ordered -- as well as some things we did not order. I have always been rather of the old British Raj view that "Everyone can understand English if it's shouted loud enough" but that didn't work on this occasion. But it was all brilliant food so one can forgive a lot on that account. It is actually par for the course that one gets bad service at expensive restaurants but at some of them one gets unsatisfactory food as well. At least the "Kasbah" did not disappoint in that way. When I paid the bill, I just looked at the bottom line. I wasn't game to look at what we had been charged for or not charged for. We each ended up having a dip, an entree, a main course and a dessert so the bottom line was in fact pretty reasonable. To calm our shattered nerves (mine anyway) we retired to my place for a cup of tea on the verandah afterwards. | ||
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| On rare occasions, I do put up some rather personal posts on my main blog -- DISSECTING LEFTISM -- and I did so a couple of days ago. I thought however that it might have enough relevance to be reproduced here as well. See below: I gather that all references to mixed race are these days regarded as taboo. So when Obama referred to himself as a "mutt", you could almost hear the gasps. But blacks themselves take it very seriously. Among blacks, a lighter-skinned black tends to be more prestigious and more complacent about his skin color. So a brown black cruises, if that makes any sense. Whites, on the other hand, are less sensitive to such differences. For political correctness purposes, all noticeably pigmented people are "black" and, as such, a privileged class who may not be criticized. Why the least competent segment of society is treated as a a privileged class is a question that I had better not address here. But I want to say that being of mixed race is in fact a matter of some significance. I myself am of mixed race: Mostly English but with plenty of Irish and a bit of Scots. And that stands me in good stead. The English in me means that when I am in England I am quite reserved and hence qualify as "a nice quiet chap" -- which is a term of praise in England. But when I am in Scotland the Celt comes out in me and the emotional, sentimental attitudes of the Scots are ones that I am entirely comfortable with. And even when I am back home in Australia, I do sometimes play sentimental Scottish music (is there any other kind?), which I greatly enjoy. And I also have blood kin who are even more mixed than I am. My vivacious cousin twice removed -- Michelle -- is half Han Chinese and half Anglo and I am mightily impressed by her good qualities. She is still as yet in High School but she will go far. Her blue-eyed father is a very knowledgeable academic and a former Assembly of God minister so that helps. So mixed race can be a good thing. American blacks are right. White racists will hate me for saying that but you can't win 'em all. The Celtic sentimentalist in me, however, gives me a liking for the blue eyes that characterize all my close blood kin. But the fact that my tall blue-eyed son has a firm relationship with a lady who is half Han Chinese and half English will most probably mean that I will not have blue-eyed grandchildren. My son did however meet his lady when she was studying rocket science (I kid you not) so she is pretty smart. He is a mathematician and the Chinese are pre-eminent in mathematics so I am very pleased by the intellectual potential of any grandchildren that I might have. As an academic myself, I hold intellectual achievement in high regard. Iris pigmentation is a trivial matter if other things are good. Mind you, genetics can sometimes spring surprises. Someone I see often and admire greatly is an Italian man with the usual Italian black hair and dark eyes. Yet he has recently fathered a gorgeous daughter who has blue eyes and RED hair -- two colorations that are recessive genetically. But he does have a blue-eyed, red-haired Anglo wife so that helps. To forestall cynical comments, I might mention that Vincenzo does have a blue-eyed sister and that his mother is a Northerner. And there is a lot of Germanic blood among Northern Italians. Germans have been invading Italy for over 2,000 years -- since the days of the Roman republic, in fact. No wonder that Italians find Germans very alarming to this day. | ||
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| Last Friday, I took Paul, Susan and Anne to an excellent Indian restaurant near where Anne lives at Tingalpa. Their chicken Lahori must be just about the best curry that I have tasted: Almost enough to make me want to visit Lahore! We talked about Paul's recent trip to the USA and about American politics mainly. The V-day went well. I bought Anne a rose and carnation bouquet and Anne cooked us some excellent cevapi. She even had kaimak to go with it and some excellent Tasmanian oysters to start. We had Seaview champagne with it in my recently returfed back yard, among the lush grasses produced by the recent rains. When I was a kid -- in grade 2, I think -- I remember the teacher reading out a story about a "Little blue boy". It was a sad story and I cried. I was the only one who did, probably because I was the only one who understood. The teacher was upset that I was upset and that story was never referred to again. I recollect only the title of the story and none of its content so I wondered if I could find it on the net. Unfortunately that name seems to go with lots of different stories but I think I may have found the one I was looking for. It is apparently an old English Lullaby! The little toy dog is covered with dust, But sturdy and staunch he stands; The little tin soldier is red with rust, And the musket moulds in his hands. Time was when the little toy dog was new, And the soldier was passing fair; And that was the time when our little Boy Blue Kissed them and put them there. “‘Now, don’t you go till I come,’ he said, ‘And don’t you make any noise.’ So toddling off to his trundle-bed He dreamt of his pretty toys; And as he was dreaming, an angel song Awakened our little Boy Blue– Oh! the years are many, the years are long, But the little toy friends are true. “Aye, faithful to little Boy Blue they stand, Each in the same old place– Awaiting the touch of a little hand, The smile of a little face; And they wonder as waiting the long years through In the dust of that little chair, What has become of our little Boy Blue, Since he kissed them and put them there.” | ||
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| I have a very quiet social life -- which is how I like it. My social events are almost entirely with old friends and family. So a social event about once a month is pretty right for me, and that is usually about how it works out. But there is one time of the year that throws all that into a cocked hat. On Saturday it was Anne's birthday; last night (Monday) was Burns night and today (Tuesday) was Australia Day. Nothing will ever make me a party animal but the last few days were about as close to that as I get. For Anne's birthday, I took her to a Tunisian/French restaurant. I had discovered in advance that they had Merguez available so my menu choice was foreordained. Ask almost any French person whether Merguez are good sausages or not. It's rare to find them on the menu in Brisbane but I know a butcher who makes them so I do get to have them from time to time. Anne had some sort of lamb shank which she said was very good. The restaurant is La Kasbah at Woolloongabba, which is actually walking distance from where I live. It's a bit on the expensive side so that meant that it was not crowded, which I liked. But everything was well-done so it's a good place to go for a "special" dinner. They have somehow been left out of the phone book so the number is 33917439, if anyone wants it. Then last night was Burns night, which I always celebrate. It was only for six of us this time. The best entertaining area at my place is small and Anne doesn't like cooking for multitudes. Present were Anne and myself; my son Joe with his gf. Samantha and my old friends Jill and Lewis. Lewis had a stroke over a year ago so doesn't get about very easily these days but a Burns Night is still one of his priorities. I don't think I have ever had anyone refuse an invitation to a Burns Night, in fact -- unless they were overseas or something. We followed most of the usual customs, with Scotch and water being the only beverages on offer. Anne and Samantha shamed the men present by being the only ones to drink their Scotch neat. The rest of us cowards put cold water in it. My haggis supplier was up to his usual high standard and Anne says that it was better than the haggis she recently had in Scotland. One of the Burns Night customs is of course the loyal toast and I have been rather aghast in recent years to find that lots of people no longer know how to respond to it. So I always tell people in advance these days that when I say "God save the Queen!", the appropriate reply is simply "The Queen!" And for dessert we had a small variation. I normally supply clootie dumpling but this time we had apple and rhubarb pie. It seems mainly to be a Scottish idea to add rhubarb to an apple pie but the result leaves ordinary apple pie for dead in my opinion. And after the pie there was tablet, which is not remotely pharmaceutical. We read some of the poems of course but I also had an old LP with a lot of the Burns poems put to music and very competently sung by a Scottish tenor -- so that was a bit of an improvement on our usual enjoyment of the poems. And today was Australia day. Commemorating the landing of the first white settlers in Australia, it is a national holiday that is becoming increasingly popular. Lots of cars are driving around today with Australian flags on them, which never used to happen. I suspect that it is a backlash against all the multicultural preaching that floods the schools and the media. My relatives on my mother's side have for many years marked the day with a family get-together over a BBQ lunch and we did so again today. I spent a fair bit of time talking to Peter, my cousin once-removed. He is an academic like me and very well-informed about most things, but particularly China. He married a Han Chinese lady and his Eurasian daughter, Michelle, was there today, as she usually is. She is still in High School but growing up fast and it was a pleasure to see how bright, confident, articulate and animated she is. With good looks as well, she will go far. Peter was one of the earlier examples of a tall Caucasian man grabbed by a Chinese lady -- something that is now very common in Australia. Chinese ladies tend to like tall Caucasian men and when they want something they get it. I said that to Peter and he said: "They sure do!" With a daughter like Michelle, however, he has every reason to be pleased with his decisions. My son Joe has a commendable modesty. When someone remarked that Joe is now on staff at university, Peter asked him "In what capacity?" Joe replied "duster cleaner". It was a joke of course and taken as such but a bit of self-deprecation always goes over well. He is in fact classed as being a faculty member solely because he is a Ph.D. student. He receives a well-paid scholarship while he is studying that is very competive. Many apply but few are chosen. So he has no financial pressures or worries. He is still frugal, however. He tells me that he often has porridge for breakfast "because it is cheap". I was like that when I was young too so heredity strikes again. It is a good warranty that he will always have a comfortable life. My cousin Shirley is the family genealogist and she brought along a lot of photos of relatives that I have not met, which was interesting. The number of relatives I have in my home State of Queensland is quite amazing. There were a lot of big families in the past whose children also had big families and I come from one of them. The do was held at my brother Christopher's place, as it usually is. He is always a quiet but genial host. There were probably around 20 of us there all told. I flew the saltire of St Andrew from my flagpole on 25th for Burns night and the Australian flag today. A small addendum I told Michelle that she was my cousin twice removed, which both interested and amused her. So she then asked how she was related to my son Joe. As quick as a flash he answered: "Second cousin once removed". These geneological terms are a bit of a brain-buster for most of us in modern Western society but I think he had it right. For any geneological maven who wants to figure it out, Peter is the son of my cousin Lexie. A small reflection on the complexities and perversities of modern-day life As I have mentioned above, I have a LOT of blood kin (people to whom I am genetically-related) -- a number best expressed by the statistical term "n". And that is only on my mother's side. My father's ancestors were equally prolific. And I think well of them all. But I only ever see a small minority of them -- the Australia day crowd. But I do associate quite a lot with another "family" -- in which I have only one blood kin -- my son Joe -- though he himself is blood kin with 5 others in the family concerned. It's all perfectly congenial and well-understood by all -- but not at all traditional | ||
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Baby Sahara with mother, grandmother and great-grandmother -- on Christmas day | ||
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Just 3 weeks old, the daughter of Susan and Russell. It looks like Russell is bathing her in the sink! I was at their place for Christmas lunch but Sahara slept right through it. | ||
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These memoirs could be seen as somewhat misnamed. Since they concern current events, perhaps they could better be called "contemporary archives" (with apologies to the worthy Keesing project) rather than memoirs. Anyway, I have lately started to put up a few small recollections from years past so perhaps this blog will acquire some real memoirs from time to time. The latest recollection was sparked by the scholarly edition of Beowulf that Joe gave me for Christmas. Beowulf is of course the most famous text in Old English but I take an interest in Middle English too. And that emerged in a rather fun way some years ago when I was doing a bit of work for a market researcher named Mark Troy. At one stage I asked him where he wanted me to put some papers. He said: "Right here, on the table". BUT: He did not pronounce "table" in the usual way. He pronounced it as "Tarbla". Now most people would have thought that he was either a bit mad or having a joke but I immediately recognized what was going on. He was using the correct pronounciation -- the correct pronounciation of 600 years ago. I said: "That's a Middle English pronunciation" -- and he confirmed that it was. So I immediately launched into: 'Whan that April with hir showres soote The droughte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veine in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour;' etc. Mark joined in and we must have recited together roughly the first 100 lines of the "Prologue" -- all in the correct Middle English pronunciation, of course. It gave us both great pleasure and satisfaction to do so but there was another guy in the room: Mark's business partner. And he looked at us with evident alarm. He apparently thought we had been seized by some sort of folie a deux (shared madness). He seemed relieved when Mark explained the matter. Anyway, it was a great pleasure to come across a fellow Chaucerian. There can't be many of them in Brisbane. | ||
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| I think I have had a rather good Christmas day. Anne and I had just croissants and coffee for breakfast. Alarmingly French. Anne gave me a blue-striped shirt as a present, which I quite like. I wore it to the 9:30 service at the Metropolitical Cathedral of St John the Divine. We got there rather early but there was already little seating left in the nave. I however have a particular spot just off the nave which I like -- on some plastic chairs (which are much more comfortable than the pews) so Anne and I had a good view of the proceedings. And they definitely kept the show on the road with lots of things happening one after another. The censer was energetically deployed but no bells! Very slack. They had a rather good-looking beadle, though: A young blonde woman. Rather a change from the usual elderly gents. The sermon was given by a woman, which was of course repugnant to my fundamentalist background. But I am rather deaf these days so I didn't understand a word she said, which I found satisfactory. I just sat admiring the stained glass. And the hymns were good of course. Anne was less impressed by the service than I was. Her Presbyterian rejection of "Popery" is probably stronger than mine. I then went off to a small family lunch. The big family do was last night, which was very lively. The lunch was excellent with ham, large prawn kebabs, calamari etc. cooked on the BBQ by our host Russell, husband of my stepdaughter Susan. Russell is a genial soul but I don't know him all that well as yet so I did at one stage ask him a question that I thought would get at least an untroublesome answer. I asked him: "Do you like steam trains?". He replied "I LOVE steam trains". So we had a good chat about that for a while. I am something of a steam fanatic too. I wonder if it's only conservatives who like steam trains? Could be something in that. I also had a bit of a chat with Joe about 5-dimensional matrices and such things. I am very pleased to have a son who is also a born academic. His Christmas present to me was a very academic one: An excellent edition of Beowulf, with the original Old English text and a poetic translation by Seamus Heaney. He knows I take an interest in Beowulf and have even been known to recite bits of it in the original Anglo-Saxon. But only an academic would do that. Speaking of the Anglo-Saxons, as I sit amid the great Gothic stone cavern of St John's cathedral, it does give me some feeling of unity with my Anglo-Saxon ancestors. I realize that Gothic architecture is Norman rather than Anglo-Saxon but Gothic churches were originally built to recreate the awe of being amid the great forests of primeval Europe so my impression is an accurate one in its way. The Gothic architects have successfully transmitted their message to me. I still have the order of service for Christmas in front of me and I wonder how many people noticed how discordant it was in a way. We went straight from the aggressive Hebrew triumphalism of Psalm 97 to the humble "justified by grace" of Titus chapter 3. But people are so used to the accepting the message of both the Old Testament and the New that few would notice any discordance, I think. Anne is now back from her family Christmas lunch so we will shortly have a late -- and light -- evening meal of ham and mustard sandwiches, with a cup of tea. | ||
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Anne put on a High Tea at 5pm yesterday for her two sisters -- June and Merle -- plus respective partners: myself, Colin and Ralph. Colin and Ralph are both real gents but I did my best to set them a bad example. I recently shouted Anne and June an afternoon tea at the Ritz in London and that seems to have been the inspiration for the occasion. Anne did up a big dish of sandwiches to start: Some dinky cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches -- which were delicious -- plus some slightly less dinky ham sandiches which were also delicious. Anne wasn't very sandwichy when I met her but she is now. I provided the champagne, both alcoholic and non. We were all Presbyterians in one way or another so the non-alcoholic option was strongly indicated. As I was driving I was a "non" man myself on the occasion. After the sandwiches we moved on to the scones -- with whipped cream and jam. Actually, it wasn't all jam. In a very Australian touch, June had bought along some "cocky's joy" (golden syrup), which several people chose to have on their scones. You usually have cocky's joy on damper, of course. And then there was the iced sponge cake with passionfruit filling. And then there was the fruit plate plus fruit cake plus coconut ice. So a filling time was had by all. It turned out that I was the only one who had received a Christmas card from Kevin Rudd, which was rather ironical. See below:
Barnaby Joyce was well spoken of, however. But mostly we reminisced about old times, as befits our vintage -- sponge cakes cooked in wood stoves, headless chooks and all that sort of thing. Colin seemed to think we we lucky to be done with such times, however. | ||
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I hear that Suze is managing to breastfeed, and Sahara is sleeping well still -- and that she is a delightful baby! She's got dark hair at the moment but that could well change. | ||
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Paul enjoyed my little story below about having the last word with an obtuse Toyota dealership so I thought I might mention another little story from many years ago that he might enjoy. The recollection just popped into my head proably because of the Toyota matter. It would have been in the '70s. I wrote a letter to some Jewish guy of central European origin. I think he was a real estate agent but I completely forget what the letter was about -- but it was a critical letter. Anyway, he simply tore up my letter into small pieces and sent the pieces back to me in an envelope. Rather a good reply, really. What I said must have really made him simmer, though, because next day he sent me a letter criticizing me. So what did I do? I tore up HIS letter into small pieces and sent it back to him! He should have quit while he was ahead. I heard no more from him. | ||
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