Julia Gillard

I see that Julia Gillard is being labeled a 'fanatic' in the latest scare campaign. I don't have anything to say to that, except that it's not all that surprising that the Conservatives (or the Tories, as Keating used to call them) are doing so badly in the polls. They really think people are that stupid; no wonder people take offence.

I'm not really a feminist these days. I still call myself one, because I couldn't bear to be the kind of person who is ashamed of the word, or who thinks that feminists are women who are too bossy or are scared that men will never go out with anyone who calls themselves that. (Rik Mayall used to say 'all men are feminists; its the only way to pull birds'; O! for the good old days...) I'm not really a feminist because I lead a life that is so privileged that I can surround myself with people with whom it is not an issue. And I am not really a feminist because I think that most social constructions of gender are pretty unhelpful, whatever gender you are. Men have had more obvious advantages in the construction of gender, but I think it comes at a price too.

So the point is, that in my privileged little life, I forget just how hard some of the battles have been and I forget the number of battles that haven't been won. I saw on the news that Brad Pitt was paid twice as much as Angelina Jolie for Mr and Mrs Smith. BlueJ made the argument that if twice as many people see the film for Pitt then that's valid marketing (but only if there is twice as many). On the other hand, in most Third World countries, there is less of a pay gap than that.

And this morning, reading up on Gillard to see what, if anything, might inspire someone to describe her as a fanatic, I was reminded of how recent and how skin-deep some of our equality really is. In 1983, Gillard became the second woman to lead the Australian Students' Union; in 1990 she became one of the first female partners in one of Australia's most prestigious Law firms, Slater and Gordon. As Chief-of-Staff to John Brumby, she drafted the Affirmative Action guidelines which set as a goal that Labor have women in 35% of winnable seats.

In May this year, Bill Heffernen called her 'deliberately barren' and said that because she'd had no children she was not qualified for public office, which, as she pointed out, was ironic, because if she'd had children, she probably wouldn't have the possibility of serving in public office with such distinction that she is the most prominent female politician in Australia today.

Well May We Say 'God Save the Queen'...

The Australian Federal Election 2007 is my St. Crispin's day. Keating said that his victory in 1993 was 'the sweetest victory of all, a victory for the True Believers'. That victory gave a mandate to, in my view, the best government Australia has ever had, but if Howard gets voted out next weekend, I will count the end of him being able to do harm as a greater victory than Keating being able to do good.

All the same, Australia does seem to have become a much stranger place in my absence (though I'm not sure that thats the differentiating factor.)

Yesterday I voted and I have to say, I have never seen a more insane line-up of political parties. Obviously, you have the guns and God crew; not a lot of loving their enemies going on there. At the hysterical end of this group is the Citizens Electoral Council which, I gather, is more or less a cult. The conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche is their leader or their God, or possibly, in a bid to cut out the middle man, both.

There is the What Women Want Party which is going to set the cause back about fifty years. Why would you make it an organization which doesn't allow male membership? Women have been trying to get men to come to the Party for years now. There is the Non-Custodial Parents Party which is essentially the Angry Dads who oppose 'state interference in people's lives'. As BlueJ said, who would they like interfering in their lives? If they could have sorted it out themselves, it would never have got to Court anyway.

In addition to these two gendered parties, there is the Family First Party. Everyone's part of a family one way or another, so I assumed this would be the most inclusive party in Australian politics.
That wasn't born out on closer inspection.
In fact, it turned out that my assumption that any party in favour of families would be in favour of really a lot of sex also proved false. Most confusingly, however, they are opposed to people* having families. So I've renamed them the Misnomer Party.

The environmental parties are always attacked for being single-issue parties and it is in this context that its worth mentioning the Carers' Alliance Party. Carers are profoundly under-recognized and that ought to change; I just don't want them running Australia's foreign policy (not, I suppose, that our policy could be much more insane than it is at the moment.) There is also the Hear Our Voice party. A party needs 500 members to be registered; this one has 509. So this was not quite the listen-to-the-people kind of party that I had hoped. Moreover, I've never been able to work out what they are in favour of, except good listeners. The crowning jewel though, is the fact that Australia is sporting two pro-fishing parties. One is the Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party. I'm not sure if that means that they are only in favour of Australians having lifestyles and fishing. The other party is more Catholic in its outlook and is called The Fishing Party. I would love to see them debate some of the tough issues.

In fact, we seem to be doing a Noah-like line in parties coming in twos. There are two socialist Parties. There are two Climate Change parties; one for conservatives, and one for Business. Climate change is progressing very steadily, so I'm not sure what their concern is. Moreover, inexplicably, Aryan Women's Hall of Famer and ex-prison inmate, Pauline Hanson, a woman who shouldn't be allowed to start a sentence (except her prison sentence), has been allowed to start two political parties, both of which are in favour of uniting all Australians through the banning of non-racists.

But the one that really caught my eye was the On-Line Senator Party. This is a group with no policies. They are in favour of putting every issue to an online poll and abiding by the results. I see the merits of direct democracy, but this isn't their policy. They also don't specify how they would make sure that everyone had internet access, but more interestingly, the polls would only be open to people who are not members of political parties. That is, they wish to exclude those sections of the population who are committed to thinking about politics and society and who are knowledgable from voting. It is almost a distilation of the worst of direct democracy.
The real kicker here is that it wouldn't exclude memebers of parties which are so insane the AEC wouldn't register them. I have included a list of those parties, just to give you a taste of what it might be like:

Advance Australia Party
Australia First Party
Australians Against Further Immigration (AAFI)
Communist Party of Australia
Country Alliance
Ex-Service, Service and Veterans Party
Four Wheel Drive Party
Great Australians Party
Grey Power
HEMP (Help End Marijuana Prohibition)
Hope Party
Human Rights Party
Liberals for Forests
Libertarian Party
Lower Excise Fuel and Beer Party
New Country Party
No GST Party
One Nation NSW (Oldfield group)
Outdoor Recreation Party
People Power Party
Progressive Labour Party
Save Our Suburbs
Secular Party of Australia
Tasmania First Party
Unity Party (Australia)
Workers Liberty Australia
Workers Power

*Or at least, they are opposed to people who aren't People Like Them having families.

Please look after this bear

Just a quick entry for Cuthbie's Girl, who I thought would like this pic!

Judas and the Flesh-Coloured Christs That Glow in the Dark

Just noticed last night that the riff in It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) is a variation on the riff in See That My Grave is Kept Clean off his first album. Can't believe I never noticed it before. Lends further creedence to my ongoing rant about how going electric was a return to origins, rather than a defection.

The Cats

So, I was very ornery about the Brownlow, but like everyone else, I've been completely won over by Jimmy Bartell. He played a blinding game but also a solid one on the weekend. He kicked goals, but on the other hand, he was always lurking in the backline stopping the ball and driving it back out of the defending fifty.

Saturday was a great day for me. My brother is a Geelong fan and so, despite being a Demons girl myself, I spent a lot of my childhood going through those terrible defeats in 1989, 1992, 1994 and 1995 with him. My mother used to compare Geelong's style of play to that of the Germanic tribes who fought the Roman Empire; they play like beserkers, rather than with the steely inevitability of machine teams like Hawthorn and West Coast. Mum always used to point out that those tribes won in the end. Geelong still play that way and they still think that if you kick in the direction of the attacking fifty, an Ablett will take the mark.

Good Weekend To Be A Victorian

...I mean, I don't care about League or anything, but its still good.

'Do You Think Craig Starcevich Will Win The Brownlow Medal?'

The Brownlow is the most bizarre aspect of football. Everyone agrees that umpires know nothing; it is one of the few points upon which Collingwood fans and everyone else concur. And yet, the Brownlow is the highest individual honour in football. Which is insane, I mean, Gerard Healy won one.

Every year its the same. There will be a Brownlow favourite adopted by the Press, usually some kid who has played brilliantly and deserves it. And they will be endlessly interviewed about it. Yesterday, Gary Ablett jr made the front page of The Age with the story that he was favourite - not that any actual thing had happened, but that there were people out there who though, yes, on reflection, he might win. Really? Wasn't there anything else going on in the world that day? And then there are the questions: 'How do you feel about being the Brownlow favourite?', 'Do you think the extra pressure has put you off your finals campaign?', 'What do you think your chances of winning are?'. The only answer to any of these questions is 'Ah geez, I dunno, mate.' Which is usually what they say. Does that discourage the Press? No, not really. And then we come to the actual night and the camera zooms in on whoever it is as in round after round he doesn't get any votes. The zooming becomes more vicious as it goes from a statistical improbability to a mathematical impossibility for him to win, looking for signs of disappointment or bad sportsmanship.

I don't think I remember a favourite ever coming in, which possibly just demonstrates how far the distance between the umpires and everyone else really is.

State of Origin*

I always thought my dad looked like Achilles (above) and he thought his dad looked like Jack Dyer (left), which we agree is more or less the same thing. I was looking up the history of Essendon on Wikipedia to settle an argument about when the club was founded and noticed that wikipedia have disputed the neutrality of the section on Dick Reynolds - love it! - and in part it was this that made me think of my dad. But I'd been thinking about fathers, and sons, anyway.

The two most important Grand Finals of my lifetime have been, for me, 1989 and 1992. The first was the last Grand Final of the VFL before it became the AFL, in which my brother's team, Geeling, was beaten by hated Hawthorn. In the second, Geelong was beaten by the Eagles, an interstate side then less than ten years in the competition wearing a jumper which wasn't in any of the proper football patterns. That side was coached by Mick Malthouse (right), for whom (bizarrely) I have always had a soft spot, even then when he was coaching a side I despised. (I love the way Malthouse never looks less than confident when he's in the box. It means that when something goes wrong and they flash a shot of the coach on the big screen, the young players on the field who are coping lots of talk and having their ribs broken behind the play they don't have to contend with seeing him lose faith in them on top of everything else.) So Friday's match between the Malthouse-coached Collingwood and Geelong had the feeling of being a replay of that contest. It was an intense game. All the more because, at the time, I thought that if Collingwood lost it would be Buckley's (left) last game, but he has since said he'd stay on. Buckley is old-school, honourable on the field and the best all-round player and game-winner, strongest and hardest-working, that I've seen play. I'd even give him the edge over Voss.

But of course the thing which most gave the game the intensity and the feeling of Geelong getting a chance to change the score was that both Ablett's sons were playing.

If you didn't grow up with Footy then its a bit difficult to explain about Ablett (left). He always had the most ungainly and unpromising-looking build; the exact opposite of a player like Buckley who is what my dad would call 'a real good-looking footballer'. Everything about the way Buckley moves and handles the football is dynamic and elegant; he's always got perfect form and he never takes his eyes off the ball, even when he's being tackled, which is not that often. Ablett, on the other hand, was stocky with massive sloping shoulders and always slightly hunched. Yet he was the most miraculous, freaky player. He was said to be the fastest man over five metres in the league, which is the most important distance for anyone playing up front. He usually had three defenders guarding him, not that it made much difference. He was arguably the greatest full forward ever, one of the greatest ever players. His nickname is 'God'. He played for Geelong, which unlike most AFL clubs, is not an inner city suburb of Melbourne, it is a city in its own right: no one in Geelong doesn't barrack for the Cats. But despite all this, he never played in a winning Premiership side. Now both Ablett's sons, recruited under the father/son rule, play for Geelong, which must be a tough gig. Especially for the elder (left), also called Gary and he looks like him. He's built like his father, but more disconcertingly, he moves like his father. And he's a champion, which is amazing in its own right because you would expect that the son would be dwarfed by the father. It is something which so rarely happens in our culture, and yet that we so wish for. It is the thing that Hector wishes for in Book VI of the Iliad:

'"grant that this my child may be even as myself, chief among the Trojans; let him be not less excellent in strength, and let him rule Ilius with his might. Then may one say of him as he comes from battle, 'The son is far better than the father.'

Of course, it didn't happen in the Iliad, but perhaps it will here.

The Cats won on Friday in a great game, against tough opposition - Didak kicked what may be the best goal I've ever seen! - so now both sons are in the position to play in a Premiership side. Port Adelaide won the other final, so this Grand Final is going to have the feeling of a State of Origin match.

*The title is a pune, or play on words, but not a good one. For anyone who knows anything about football it will be particularly irritating in its irrelevance and general inapt-ness.

The Last Word

I don't know what to say about Beazley's resignation. He was, I think, disastrous for Labor because the public liked him but no one really wanted him in power. He's a politician who has disappointed me so often, not least because he seems to suffer from the lesson of Whitlam's defeat (don't let anyone know what you stand for because people won't vote for you) more than anyone in a party seriously afflicted by it. The result of that, of course, is that when it comes to last words, his are good. Good enough to make you curse him for not saying them earlier, all the more so because he seems not to employ spin doctors, or at least, not good ones, so he doesn't say the diplomatic thing, he uses the opportunity to say the thing he wishes he'd said all along.

He set a couple of records straight, particularly about the inconsistency of the conservatives' record on financial management, which was just a joy for a True Believer like me. Today he also said "When you wish to assault democracy, first you attack the unions; when you wish to restore democracy, first you start with the unions." He talked about the ability of solidarity to break dictatorships both Left and Right. And further that 'One of the great things about politics is it extracts you from your natural selfishness; you cannot help it.'

This time, his last words mark the distance between old and new Australia, and old and new Labor. Not surprising, given his history with the party. His father was in Chifley's parliament and went on to be Whitlam's Minister for Education, in which role he put in place one of the most remarkable tertiary education systems in the world, for all that he was very much on the Right of the party. But its Chifley's conception of the party and of politics that marks Beazley jr. even now. For Beazley, Unionism isn't a means to the end of better working conditions; it is an end in itself. A trade union is the basic and most fundamental political unit, the means by which people participate in politics and exercise agency in their own lives and in the means of production (of their income).
I don't know if that's true anymore, and either way, Labor isn't the party of the Unions anymore. I am really sad that the Australia described in Kim Beazley's valedictory speech is passing.

Painting for BlueJ

I'm going back and looking at Whiteley again. Almost all of it perplexes me, though not as much as my reactions to it when I was younger. I can't imagine what I was thinking. I also realize that I've edited some of them in my head. The chaos and destruction of American Dream, for example, resolves much more completely and organically into the beak of a honeyeater hovering in an idyllic and vaguely Asian landscape in my head than outside it. The thing that has remained constant and accurate in my memory is the shade of blue he painted Lavender Bay. His sense of colour is extraordinary and when he misses it, it is a kind of devastation.

He did one called Sensoreno of his dog looking sheepish which I thought BlueJ would like, but apparently the rest of the world (except Bob Dylan who devoted an entire episode of his radio programme to songs about dogs; it was special) don't share the dog thing. So here, instead, is one of his bird pictures. Not my favourite, especially in terms of the colour and then again I think the colour is perfect too. Perhaps that only makes sense in terms of the scope of his palette.

Luciano Pavarotti

1935-2007
Death of a great man.
Many thanks sir.

Two Court Cases

Recently I read reports of two court cases involving assault and bodily harm, there is nothing really to connect these other than the fact that, while surfing randomly, I just happened to read them in quick succession.


Case 1
I could only find a Daily Mail report for this one, which admittedly is far from ideal, but presumably even the Mail has to get the facts of the case correct, whatever they intend to do with them.

In the UK, a Cambridge graduate earning upwards of Stg90,000 a year was brought to court for assaulting his wife. He ended up there after he branded her with an iron, although on other occasions he had cut her badly with a knife and beaten her the old-fashioned way. After the iron incident she was so traumatised, she had to be subpoenaed to give evidence in court. The court fined him two thousand pounds. Apparently the judge felt that, given the provocation for the assault hinged on the circumstance of him living with his wife and this was no longer the case, that no useful purpose would be served by sending him to prison, or indeed giving him a suspended sentence. The judge also felt that community service would be unfair given the long hours the accused worked.


Case 2
And I can't find a decent newspaper report for this one at all because my stupid uni doesn't subscribe to American broadsheets. So it's mostly from this blog here.


In the States, in August a group of seven African-American (what are described as lesbian-identified) women were walking down the street heading for a night out. Some randomer propositioned one of them and received the expected response. He followed them down the street hurling insults and abuse. Eventually, they turned and faced him, where he spat on one of them and threw a lit cigarette. It devolved into a physical confrontation, and at one point where he was either throttling one of the women or repeatedly banging her head off the ground, (depending on which report you read) another woman drew a steak knife she keeps in her bag. Two other men joined in to help(?) the women and one of them ended up stabbing the original man in the abdomen. There is CCTV footage for most of this, it is not reliant on witness testimony alone. One way or another neither of these men ended up in court but the women did. Four of the women were sentenced to between three and a half and eleven years for injuring the propositioner.


That is all.

Shelfari

I've just joined Shelfari, I don't know why. All my life I've constitutionally been a non-joiner. I don't like being part of groups. I'm not even a member of the CFA, Melbourne Football Club or ALP. I support them actively, I just can't join. Just like some people get claustrophobic.

But I'm getting a little circumlocutory.

I invited other people to join Shelfari and I got an email saying 'X has accepted your invitation. He/she must think you're incredibly smart.'

(I checked this proposition with X, by the way, and no dice. )

Whatever they're paying their marketing people it just isn't enough.

Ask and it shall be given unto thee

I was moaning recently on my Facebook page about how long it's been since I read an even half decent piece of fiction. (This is the great thing about Facebook, when you're not arsed turning something into comprehensible English which I do feel more or less compelled to do for the blog you can just whack it up on Facebook.) I was wandering round my local public library in blind desperation and I fell over Jonathan Strange & Dr Norrel which I've been meaning to read for ages, but due to Viola-related circumstances never got round to.

I am only ten or so chapters in, so I can't really say how good a book it is. But what I can say is that it is the most beautifully written novel I have read in a very long time. His prose is an absolute pleasure to read, and the whole thing is written with a wonderful subtle and benevolent humour, a sort of cross between Austin and A A Milne. I have yet to confirm, but I suspect I am reading yet another book much better than Rowling's.

21st Century Spinster

No one is able to put things in quite the same way as one's parents are they?

Last week I met my father for a few drinks, and we got to talking about a friend of my brothers that we don't see that much of anymore. I still think of C as a sunny faced eight year old who had quite a bit of difficulty pronouncing my name. In C's case this is a particularly ridiculous attitude given that the boy is now six foot seven and about two feet across. There's eight years between The Brother and myself and C's a little bit younger than him. The thing is, on the infrequent occasions when I run into him this adorable giant still speaks to me likes he's eight. "Heya C, how you keepin?" "Oh hello Miss (well alright he doesn't actually say Miss but it's there quite clearly in silent brackets) Bluej, I'm very well thank you, how are you also?" He will then shuffle about the place looking at his feet, till I get through the obligatory list of relatives I have to enquire about and release him. I'm treated to a million watt angelic smile and off he goes.

While I was talking to Dad about what he's up to and such I mentioned in passing the way the boy still treats me like I'm a sort of favourite maiden aunt. Dad looked thoughtful for a moment or two and then announced "Well I suppose you are, but you needn't worry you already like cats". He then grinned like Jack Nicholson at me. I, of course, responded with the only two word pithy and cutting retort possible under the circumstances.

Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense (no one enjoys Medieval chivalric orders underwear jokes like I do...)

What mad genius invented the sports bra? Whoever it was ought to be knighted for services rendered to damsels in distress everywhere!

(Yes, that's right, thanks to Cuthbie's Girl who finally just marched me to M&S because she knows what a procrastinator I am, I now have a new sports bra. Hurrah!)

So Many Nights

Today is working out as a good day, apart from the fact I busted my knee at the gym this morning (I'm not usually that unco and I did warm up and everything) but other than that, a good day. Melbourne won on the weekend against the Dogs (who I've always been prejudiced against), I got some good feedback on something I wrote, work remains comical, I successfully defrosted the frige (it took me two days and a lot of soggy carpet, but you've got to count all the victories), I've worked out a new recipe and best of all, there is a new Cat Empire Album out on the 22 of September called 'So Many Nights'. I think their albums are released in the States and the UK now, but its still hard to get their music in Europe. Never fear, its all available from their website. Go and find it, you'll be a better, happier person.

Hey Mam! Look at me! Maaaaaaammmm, are you looking? Are you?

We've all been sucked into Facebook, for which I blame JBee, and rightly so. I've held out against this for a long time for two reasons. Firstly, I didn't really see the point and secondly, the last thing I need in my life is another time waster. But that's the thing about a lot of 2.0 stuff isn't it? It sounds rubbish and pointless and dull on paper, so to speak, and then you're bullied into registering to make someone shut up about it and suddenly you're hooked. Twitter has to be the ultimate example of this, of an exercise in pointlessness, but there again I've not tried it.

Anyway, I'm well into it now. While the novelty still gleams I'm obsessed with making it pretty, making it sing, dance and make tea and ......the other thing. The other thing has not just effected me by the way, it's not just my weirdness it's all of us. We've all gone from being reasonably well balanced young women with full and healthy (ish) lives to now being trainee stalkers. There is no ex-colleague, boyfriend, friend, classmate, ex-anything you like who remains unturned. This cannot be healthy, apart from anything else it ensures you end up viewing your life from the angle of a string of failed relationships of one kind or another.

I discovered myself this morning, composing, as in giving thought to, what my status update was going to be when I got into work. Aghast, I wondered what it is about them that makes these things interesting, why in the name of God do I care? Now Facebook offers a handy and usefully informal (and therefore low obligation) way of keeping in touch with people and of course, provides the instantaneous response that apparently this generation demands. (Though I have recently discovered that I am, if barely, Generation X rather than Y, which may explain a lot.) But I don't think that's really it, the key to all these applications, Twitter (particularly the inexplicable Twitter), blogging, Youtube, social networking, to a greater or lesser extent, is that they all sponsor and in many cases actively encourage rampant narcissism. What other possible motive could explain the urge to declare unto the world whether you're sitting at your desk in work or your desk at home? Who cares? - You do, and I'll listen to you if you listen to me. It's all part of the BB phenomenon, a society where privacy is valueless when compared with even the outside possibility of petty levels of fame. It doesn't matter what you're famous for, it's not the achievement that's the thing, it's the fame itself. It's a symbiotic social arrangement based on culturally vindicated voyeurism.

The ultimate in alienation, if you don't see me I'm not here? Or just levels of decadence that would give the final days of Rome a run for its money. Mind you I'm one to talk, I'm trying to think of witty ways of saying 'I'm not working'.

July 31st, First Sunny Day of Summer

So, apparently at work today I said 'I'm appalled to discover its July 31st'. I wasn't listening; I don't always listen to myself because I'm really not that interesting. I try to tune in just for edited highlights.

In this case, I got the slow motion replay as everyone started laughing.

Disconcerting.

If only I could make people laugh like that when I wanted them too, and also, not at me.

I was quizzed on what other dates appall me. And I made the major tactical error of being so surprised to have found myself in this conversation at all that I told the truth. In fact, I dislike many months (and thus dates) on account of not liking some letters of the alphabet, and, in particular, disliking some combinations of letters. Hilarity ensured (but once again, not with me). Its an aspect of me no work person had suspected until now. They're worried and I'm worried and its all because of the sunshine.

Dissertation Update

I decided way back in Spring of this year that I was going to defer the submission of my diss till the Autumn, I may have many faults but I've always been an eminently realistic person. Given the appalling levels of general messing round I've got from the university, I sent of the form daring them (digitally speaking, which alright consisted of my giving the email a good, hard look before I sent it) to turn me down. I told the super this at the time, February or March, ish.

Back in May, about three days before the summer submission date I got a rather paniced phone call from my super, whom I hadn't heard anything from for about six months, saying that I didn't appear to have handed my dissertation in. She suggested I might like to send her some drafts. I patiently explained about the deferral, which she thought was a fabulous idea. I got a full apology (something that involved me falling off my swivel chair), and promises to respond fully now that x, y and z was no longer a problem and to support my application for deferral (which had yet to actually be judged) explaining about the total lack of research support. I didn't bother telling her the course co-coordinator had been in touch to tell me the sitting was only a formality in my case.

In this new spirit of industrious community she requested I send various documents, summaries etc. on to her. This I duly did, and haven't heard anything since. I find myself regarding all this with a zen like calm, which may indicate achievement of a higher state of spiritual being, or just that you can only maintain certain levels of total fury for a limited amount of time.

The sitemetre patterns are quite interesting. Most of the continental Europeans get to us through blogger, not surprisingly, I suppose. The British and Americans both seem to have the flapjack searching market sewn up, though the Americans also go in for Biblical quotes. We hardly get any hits from Australia; the ones we do seem to be searching sport-related topics.

Someone today searched 'Hannah', though I doubt they were looking for me; I'd be curious to know what they were looking for. Hannah is a Biblical figure. Because its spelt the same backwards and forwards its all pretty tripy from a numeralogical point of view - or so I'm told by one of my friends who knows about, like, numbers and stuff. Its also the name given to the sun in African American prison songs (or river songs).

I refused to tell Vin what our blog was, but he managed to track me down with the serach 'hannah afl cormorant'. These are the things that make me identifiable; I find this even more worrying than the earring thing.

In respose to......

This referrals thing from site meter is just brilliant. Given the expressions of indulgent bewilderment (something of a trademark production of mine, that expression) on the ladies' faces when I was rattling on about this before, a short explanation may be wise. This bit of sitemeter lets us see, how people got to which bit of the blog, which search terms they used and so on. I'm kind of glad that I started this whole blog business, even if it's just for the knowledge of what sort of astoundingly detailed information Google etc hold, I had no idea, makes you think....or more acurately worry. Anywho responses to recent/funny/scary searches below:

Q. Can I soak oats overnight?
A. Yes, but you need to reduce the cooking time by half.

Q. What does your 'mother is a hampster' mean?
A. (With patience) It is a quotation from the Monty Python film 'The Holy Grail', it is an insult, mostly.

Q. Herbs to go with steamed fish?
A. Hah! I love it I've totally nailed that one already, the interweb (my new favourite word) works.

Q. Wisdom in Gallic?
A. I have deep, dark suspicions that this query contains a spelling mistake, and if this is indeed the case, then given that the searcher ended up here, it is a highly amusing example of the cosmos giving you what you need rather than what you want.

I am actually beginning to find the sheer numbers of people Googling 'Oh lord, why hast thou forsaken me' so disturbing that I'm thinking of changing the title of the post. To these people and the individual seaching 'Purgatory, get me out of here' I can only apologise that you ended up here. Mind you this wouldn't be the first time my sense of humour got me into trouble.

"Don't be stupid man, there's no angels in Ireland, they'd bloody rust"*

Right well that's it, totally, really it. My sweetpea are actually starting to float away, the sage is dead from mildew, half my courgettes are rotting on the vine, and, this being the final straw, my tomatoes have blight, bloody blight (as in potato). How am I supposed to work under these conditions? I demand to see the manager, where's the original contract?

*Slightly adapted from the original by Dorothy Dunnett, can't remember which book.

Vindication

I find that the massive quanities of rampant glee I'm currently feeling outway the moderate levels embarressment about blogging about this, so there you are. Anyway I was so totally right about Snape, totally, completely and utterly right. And ye, ye know who you all are, are wrong, very very wrong cos I'm right. Mwah ha ha ha.
Update: And no I did not say that just because Alan Rickman plays him. Also, before anyone gets all judgemental, this is only a spoiler if one has listened to me rant on this topic before, and everyone who cares has read it, so there.

Random, unconnected things

I'm back at work and still wallowing in a warm glow of a surfeit of sleep, good nutrition and a general lack of chronic exhaustion. It's really good, I'ld forgotten what it feels to think clearly. I am in fact so totally laid back that yesterday, I was able to listen to an extended conversation between two colleagues about whether a coffee table in the tea room would constitute a health and safety risk without showing any signs whatsoever of hysterical breakdown.

I am also coping admirably with the weather, I'm coming to terms with the shocking traumatic realisation that we are actually running out of summer and this is probably our lot. Mind you, you could be worse off, I'm sure I remember reading something somewhere once, that Noah was supposed to be a once off but this doesn't appear to apply to Gloucester, poor buggers. So how does one deal with our less apocalyptic but eminently depressing weather? Umbrella as accessory!! There a some seriously snappy ones turning up all over the city at the moment, so get out there and buy yourself some sassy wellies and a funky brolly. And the great thing is, it's guilt free - you actually need this stuff, its an essential rather puerile retail therapy. I already have a dippy little pink job and am going to hunting tonight for something in a darker colour, pinstrips would be cool - tres ironical. That might be a bit on the puerile side I suppose.

Very Worrying Indeed

Over the last 48 hours I've had about six hours of sleep and, for the second morning this week (out of a possible two) I am hungover at work. Basically I'm the best employee ever. My boss is a strange combination of Capt. Jack Sparrow and Christopher Robin, which is brilliant and alarming by turns. Anyway, perhaps its a combination of these pressures that have prompted me to write about 'earrings' today.

Also, I have a new pair of earrings.

From the ages of 15 to 24 I wore the same pair of earrings, so new earrings are a big deal. My criteria for jewelery is that I be able to sleep in it, shower in it and run in it. You would think that this would be roughly the same jewelery criteria adopted by Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Vikings and other early medieval Northern European marauders. But it's not. These groups really go in for bling. And like all groups whose taste moves in this direction, they are sufficiently armed to discourage constructive criticism of their aesthetics. Comically, their taste in jewelery is inevitably and indelibly imprinted upon Anglo-Saxonists, who wear the most enormous and golden jewelery, however reserved those scholars might be in other ways. (Anglo-Saxonists are armed with philology, which is worse.)
I am, apparently, armed with nothing at all, and so, upon running into an Anglo-Saxonist, I was told 'Your earrings are a bit... big.'

All things considered, very worrying indeed.

Happy Harry Potter Day

I was jet lagged about five years ago and I read a couple of the Harry Potter books. So in me talking about them now, you're not dealing with someone who is versed, or in fact, knows what they're talking about to any degree at all. There are several Harry Potter fans among the Ladies. Visitors to the City, who, in their search for healthy flapjacks or the meaning of life or spiritual solace, find this blog shouldn't be disheartened; the others aren't as Philistine as me. (I'm serious, by the way; check our sitemeter. The only people, apart from the Ladies and our friends, who read the blog are those asking Google why God has forsaken them (the fact that they end up here is the proof that Google is a false prophet; I can only assume the confusion arises amongst those with poor spelling*) and those trying to eat better.)

The most usual criticism is that Harry Potter is derivative. Most narratives adopt narrative motifs from somewhere else because cultures develop a cultural vocabulary of narratives. Its only really within the context of that vocabulary that any narrative we construct can make sense. In that sense you would have to say that the final episode of the first series of David Tennant Doctor who was very derivative of the Gospels. (Actually, in fairness, that wasn't just the sharing of narrative motifs. It was really intertext, what with identification of the Void with Hell, and the scene where he re-appears after the crossing from one world to another and says 'Noli me tangere'... I mean, 'Don't touch me'. In that case, the narrative motifs are being used for the same reason that they always are; that the writer is trying to express something present in narratives that share that motif.**) What strikes me as interesting about the 'narrative motifs' used in Harry Potter is that they are historically specific scenes from everyday life which mean nothing now and yet are being treated as signifiers of genre. These scenes designate, not setting, but rather that we are dealing with a magical version of our own world. I think its interesting in terms of our relationship with the past, if nothing else.

*No one got my West Australian Football League pun or, at least - more accurately - no one liked it. Could someone make the effort, if nothing else, with a bit of token laughter on this one?
** The 'Noli me tangere' scene is one of my all-time favourite narrative motifs and it turns up all over the place; its not particular to the Gospels.

Togetherness

Jaybee has introduced me to the wonders of Facebook. I've decided that Facebook is only for the angelic, the pure of heart, the clear of conscience, as Jaybee indeed is. My staunchest defenders will tell you that I'm not of this elect. Amongst my many faults is a deficiency in perseverance and a dislike of hard work. The one exception to this is my dedicated pursuit of avoiding people. Life's too short and I'm not that much fun. The people I'm avoiding should be spending time with the, no doubt, limitless supply of people who do like them. Avoidance is an Olympic event for me and I excel; I have to because if I actually do run into someone I'm trying to avoid I will be so appalled that I will have to invite them to tea.

Vin, a very dear friend of mine, finds this endlessly amusing.

This is how Facebook has undone me. Never have more people I'm avoiding been able to track me down. Worse still they send those creepy emails which ask you if you would 'would like to be friends'. I always imagine it being read out as Bill Bailey says 'are you alone?' in the sketch about travel dictionaries. What I find amazing though, is the number of people who've found me, on the one hand, and the fact, on the other, that I don't like any of them. Statistically, given that there are many people I adore, and countless numbers to whom I am indifferent, how is that possible? Can it really be that the set of these people who are at least indifferent to me and are also on Facebook is actually nil?

Slightly Soggy Nirvanna

I am on holidays for two weeks, off to the wilds of Ireland, well it's moderately rural anyway. There will be no phones, pda's or laptops. I will not talk to anyone unless I specifically decide I want to, no matter how much mymother mutters about me being anti-social, dour and indeed, 'just like your father'. If I'm really lucky it may at some point stop raining and I can go and be anti-social out on the cliffs. In many ways it's as good as it gets really.

Go You Little Horse

This blog entry is named in honour of my brother who loves piss-takers and hates shit-talkers and, who used to say 'Go, you little horse' after that Simpsons episode. It is one of his terms of approval, hence, 'Buckley, he's such a little horse'. My brother has always maintained that I know absolutely fuck all about footy, so he probably doesn't agree with the blog entry...

I've been so despondent about the Daniher news that I actually find myself reading The Herald Sun in an attempt to get more information about it, so I shouldn't be surprised if things go from bad (reading that fascist paper in the first place) to worse. According to an article in The Herald Sun, Gerard Neesham, a mate of Riley's, says that anyone who thinks 'playing record is relevant' is an idiot. He would; he only played nine AFL games. Interestingly, he has a corresponding coaching record at AFL level; he won 32 from 88 games. But my favourite bit of the article is where he makes an analogue between being an AFL coach and being a horse trainer. He points out that you don't need to have ridden a horse to be a good trainer.

Arguing by analogue is stupid because you ask the audeince to form an opinion, not based on experience, common sense or even theory, but rather by drawing a conclusion from a gratuitous generalization about something completely unrelated. However, this particular analogue doesn't even do that. The analogue would be right (if pointless) if we were talking about training jockeys; that is the example of doing the thing yourself in order to be able to teach others. (And as it turns out, I'm pretty sure most jockeys are taught by people who, at some stage in their lives, have ridden horses.) In fact, the proper version of his analogue for this situation would be that horse trainers have to spent time as horses competeting in races in order to be a good horse trainer. Actually, we would ask that of horse trainers (at the AIS anyway) if we possibly could.

Pancake Footy

I have barracked for Melbourne all my life, and my father before me, and his mother before him. We have been Melbourne supporters since the club was formed in 1858. We have been Melbourne supporters for longer than we've been Australians (Australia was only federated in 1901). My cousin (briefly) played for Melbourne. My grandmother made it a condition of marrying my grandfather that he convert from Collingwood (!) to Melbourne. Collingwood, for anyone who doesn't know, isn't the kind of club that people desert on a whim, especially not to Melbourne, who were their arch-rivals (we now play Queen's Birthday in some sort of weird commemoration) at that time.

When the club started they were known as the Melbourne Fuchsias. It was a sign of things to come - though, curiously, they aren't the only football side in Australia to have a floral mascot; I'm thinking here of the Waratahs. (I know I'm not going to get it, but I'd like a little bit of credit for knowing that; the Waratahs are NSW and league, as a Victorian its amazing I've even heard of them.)

My time as a Melbourne supporter hasn't really been like those fortunates who grew up with Ron Barassi. The first game I ever went to, Melbourne was defeated by what was at the time (actually it may be still) the largest margin in AFL/VFL history, while John Longmire kicked an MCG ground record of 14 goals. Most people remember Longmire as a solid, mild mannered full forward, eclipsed by Wayne Carey, who had a good day one day at the MCG; for me he will always be an antichristal, avenging angel.

My point is, I've taken a lot of knocks as a Melbourne supporter, not least this year. And now, Neale Daniher, a great player and coach, and a top bloke, resigns and is replaced, albeit temporarily, by Mark Riley, a player who never made it to seniors, not even in WAFL football (or pancake footy as I like to call it in honour of two Freo boys I met in a pub once).

This really can't be happening to me.

The Wonderful World of Nature

I was out on the balcony at work yesterday, on my coffee break, supporting my various dependencies. We have quite a nice selection of visiting birds, drawn by sandwich corners and the occasional bit of bird seed someone remembers to bring in. Anyway, so I'm sitting out there reading and a pigeon starts to sidle towards me, despite the clearly non-edible nature of my handbag but then pigeons aren't known for their acuity. I looked over at the pigeon and when it clocked me looking it stopped, regarding me suspiciously, so far so normal. I went back to reading and the next time I looked over the creature is very close, only six inches or so from the side of my chair. This time when it saw me, and this is God's truth, the thing turned it's back on me and pointedly looked at the ceiling. I went back to my book but continued watching it from the corner of my eye, it cast a leery glance over it's shoulder to check I wasn't watching and then continued it nonchalant progress towards to my bag. If it had had the physiological equipment to whistle it would have being doing so. I look back and it does it again, I swear to God, it turned it's back and looked at the ceiling occasionally casting casual little glances back to see if I'ld stopped. You would think this sort of behaviour would be eradicated through natural selection, but maybe cats are responding to socially cutting behaviour these days.

In other news, RTE ran this last week: Squirrel goes nuts in Germany, injures three. "An overly aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in the southern German town of Passau before it was taken down by a 72-year-old man." On it's bloody rampage, the squirrel attacked an elderly woman and a construction worker who fortunately had a measuring pole to hand with which he managed to fight the vicious animal off. Experts are unable to reach a consensus as to what may have caused the squirrel to go postal.

The Good, the Bad and the Rampant, Egregious Stupidity

The Bad first: is the appalling treatment of an individual of good character with a valid complaint by a fatcat company, again. The ridiculous, juvenile, farcical response of said company to their actions being made public - really this has to be read to be believed, more than slight elements of Pythonism.

The Good: the individual is Damien Mulley, High King (without opposition) of Irish blogging. He is not backing down, he is maintaining, what I can only assume is a maddening level of calm and reasonable response, he is going to cream them. Dear God, but I love it. The very impressive stats on the readership of this whole farce here.

The stupidity: having (presumably after some thought on their part) pursued at each juncture the course that would do them the most harm in the eyes of the public. They followed this up, winning points for consistency, with another PR balls up this morning.

It is impossible to express how much I am enjoying the obvious discomfiture of this company, a goodly portion of the world is watching, while grinning and it's clear who we're rooting for.

Look upon me, Oh Lord, and smile, for I have bled.....

Apparently (this is according to Beaut.ie in this post) Victoria Beckham was recently spotted reading a book, 'Skinny Bitch', a diet book. It would be difficult to express how much I loath the whole of premise of books like this. I have nothing against maintaining a sensible weight that makes you happier and healthier but the idea that one's goal in life should basically be to eradicate most real and meaningful pleasures in favour of being thin and wandering round so people can see you being thin is one I truly despise. I also happen to believe that food and the sharing it is much more than either pleasure or fuel which sends books like this one into the realms of the blasphemous, but that aside.

Anyway my point here is that while the extent to which I find philosophies like this truly odious is huge, Beaut.ie has picked out one quote that I found really quite charming, behold:

'Whenever you see the words “fat free” or “low fat” think: chemical shit storm.'

Kings of the Earth

Studies have shown, well alright my own meandering, entirely anecdotal and non-empirical experience has shown, that any human being left on their own in a room with a tea-cosy will, at some point, put it on their head. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if a proper double-blind study, proved this and indeed, further stated that the tea cosy would be much more popular than an actual hat. It makes you wonder.

The Ashtown Session

At Speed, my friend's band, has just put out an album called The Ashtown Session. Listen to it here, http://www.atspeedsound.com/ its good.

The bottom line - Who's ok? The Unjustifiable. Pt 4

The UK site has a rather neat little side bar where you can search by company name, location, cosmetics/household product, and vegan/vegetarian approved. You can request a free copy of the hard copy (handbag sized!).

The only names I even recognise here are:

• The Body Shop (owned however by L'Oreal)
• M&S
• Urban Decay/Hard Candy/Too Faced
• Dermatologica
• Neal's Yard

Links to everything else provided though. The list here on the US site gives information about parent companies (i.e ones marked with a little red square are the subsidiaries of evil people) that the UK one so far doesn't. See previous posts for information on Lilly's, E-cover (household products) and Lush.

Urban Decay can be a wee bit difficult to lay your hands on, but many of the larger dept stores and Boots shops will have it. Beaut.ie have being keeping an eye the location and state of the stands, a three parter here, here and here, the comments contain a lot of useful local informtion. Whacking Urban Decay into their search box will produce useful info on which online stockists to investigate, if you've any sense at all you'll pick your colours in person and buy it for half the price online. For what it's worth I love the stuff, it's quality make-up with great texture, insane, intense colours, wonderful packaging and amusing puns -- everything I look for in a range. I'm currently absolutely in love with their mineral make-up which is the best thing since sliced bread toasted.


The Unjustifiable. Pt 1
How come the box says 'Not tested on animals' then? The Unjustifiable. Pt 2
Who knows what they're talking about, and who should I listen to? The Unjustifiable. Pt 3
The bottom line - Who's OK? The Unjustifiable. Pt 4

Who knows what they're talking about, and who should I listen to? The Unjustifiable. Pt 3

Personally I go with the HCS, Humane Cosmetics Standard (Leaping Bunny Standard), it's internationally recognised and supported by a number of very reputable organisations. Organisations subscribing to this:
British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
European Coalition to End Animal Experiments
Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (USA)

Actually these guys have recently got their crap together and the UK branch have relaunched their website in what is a much more user friendly format, the level of detail provided is less though. However it's great to have decent information with a UK slant, previously the UK site was a very tenuous extension of the US version. The US site has also been cleaned up substantially and is more up to date, having a generally more lived in feel to it now. I think the administration of the CCIS was recently taken over by the Canadian version (or possibly the API?), this may have a lot to do with it.

Anyway back to bunnies, "to be approved a company must no longer conduct or commission animal testing and must apply a verifiable fixed cut-off date - an unmoveable date after which none of its products or ingredients have been animal tested.Each company must be open to an independent audit throughout its supply chain to ensure that they adhere to their animal testing policy and the Standard's strict criteria". My only problem with this is the absence of any statement related to the support of suppliers that conduct animal testing, but in an area seriously clouded by muddy information, this is the straightest I've found. Their list of approvals is also reassuringly (in one way) small.

The Unjustifiable. Pt 1
How come the box says 'Not tested on animals' then? The Unjustifiable. Pt 2
Who knows what they're talking about, and who should I listen to? The Unjustifiable. Pt 3
The bottom line - Who's OK? The Unjustifiable. Pt 4

How come the box says 'Not tested on animals' then? The Unjustifiable. Pt 2

There are a number of ways around this for the more or less unscrupulous manufacturer. The final product may not be tested on animals but the ingredients used within may be, either by the final manufacturer themselves or by the suppliers they buy from. Another favourite is 'We don't test on animals' may well mean just that,'We pay other people to do it for us', if it's out-sourced a company has a perfect legal right to make the former claim. The simpler version of this is that the supplier of raw ingredients has either tested those ingredients on animals, or may have a general policy of testing.

The really sticky one is 'rolling' verses 'fixed' cut off date. The first means a company will not use any ingredient or product that has been tested on animals within the last x number of years from the current date. This has no real impact on the practice ceasing in the long term. A fixed cut off date means that a company pledges to not "conduct or commission animal tests for any of its finished products, ingredients or formulations after a fixed date". The theory being this will, in the long term, reduce and eradicate the practice. You generally have to look really hard to find what a company's policy on this one is. The wording of this still leaves more wriggle room than I'm happy with, but they've presumably dumbed it down for the website.

And last but not least, The Body Shop clause, we have an ethical policy but the people who own us don't.


The Unjustifiable. Pt 1
How come the box says 'Not tested on animals' then? The Unjustifiable. Pt 2
Who knows what they're talking about, and who should I listen to? The Unjustifiable. Pt 3
The bottom line - Who's OK? The Unjustifiable. Pt 4

The Unjustifiable. Pt 1

I'm finally getting round to something I've been meaning to do for ages. I'm going to make a spirited attempt to provide the sort of information about animal testing and cosmetics that I would've liked to have found when I began to discover that this ethical consumer lark involved a serious amount of research. Now this is a really complex issue, there are huge and important deviations on definitions, perceptions, interpretations etc and this is just my opinion, best of my ability, blah, blah blah. You know what I'm saying here, I'm probably not in grave danger of being mistaken for Disraeli anyhow.

I decided some time ago that whatever about issues around the necessity of animal testing in medicine, development of new polymers etc, living things suffering horribly so I can have turquoise sparkly eyeliner is pretty indefensible. Having said that, there is absolutely no point in being fascist about it. Unless you are entirely self sufficient, and I mean entirely, your cloths, your pens, your loo roll have in all probability being involved in the practice somewhere along the line. That's no reason not to make reasonable levels of effort though.

It will be divided into three complementary (i.e. I haven't really thought this out properly) posts. So that people that favour Bill Bailey's approach to understanding obscure, tedious and complex things (there are people out there much better qualified to do it) can skip straight to the final one.

• The Unjustifiable. Pt 1
• How come the box says 'Not tested on animals' then? The Unjustifiable. Pt 2
• Who knows what they're talking about, and who should I listen to? The Unjustifiable. Pt 3
• The bottom line - Who's OK? The Unjustifiable. Pt 4

Rich Tea and Sympathy

For a reasonable amount of time now the diss has just stopped, jammed solid. No amount of new angles or reviewing was getting anyone anywhere, although admittedly from a sense of sheer self-preservation I've recently not really being trying all that hard.

But at least this is the trouble one is supposed to have with postgraduate work, what no one tells you is the logistics are going to be at least as bad. I never imagined that what would really begin to wear you out would be: running around administration offices trying to find someone willing to take responsibility for stamping a particular badly needed form; phoning, emailing and turning up in person repeatedly till someone gives you a straight answer to a very simple question you desperately need the answer to; having to chase your supervisor in a fashion more generally associated with six year old boys and maths homework; running/phoning round desperately trying to make alternative arrangements because some administrative officer or academic has changed their mind/declared they never meant that in the first place/said something along the lines of 'Oh you mean I actually have to turn up in person?/have left for two months in Peru having given you eight hours notice, and similar fun and character building activities.

It's not all happened to me of course, a lot of it has happened to my friends. I was having tea with the Ladies one evening this week, it was a really lovely evening, vague and rambly and warm. It's difficult to be boisterous when everyone in the room left chronic exhaustion behind about a month ago and it's only got worse since. We were all sitting or perched round the kitchen somewhere, arguing in a half-hearted fashion over the Roses that Viola had the astounding good sense to run across the road for. I was ruminating out loud on the profound and timeless truth of the idea that asking someone how their thesis is going is a rude question. Jaybee surfaced from marking which chapters of quantitative analysis for idiots I really needed to read (Bless her, God loves a trier) and said "It's not rude, it's obscene."

R & D

Who thought it was good idea to have posts publish with one smart rap of the return key? I mean really, what's good about that?

Marks and Spencer awarded HCS

As of 23rd May, Marks and Spencer cosmetics have been confirmed as complying with the Humane Cosmetics Standard. More info here.

This really is great news, as more main stream retailers come on board the pressure on those remaining increases significantly and on a less profound note, means cruelty free cosmetics are available more easily and in fashionable and varied ranges. Main stream also means spontaneity, ordering on line is all very well but it's not the same as dropping in to buy a little piece of pretty happiness on your way home after a really rubbish day in work now is it?

In summary, huzzah!

Flapjacks

Um, here's a question: Why can you always get flapjacks in health food stores when actually they are mostly full of boldness? I have made several attempts at finding an oatie alternative to the traditional flapjack and only today discovered that a whole packet of equally yum "fruit and spice oat biscuits" has less fat in it than one (though no-doubt very nice) flapjack on the shelf beside. Now i am sorry to be going on about such things but i am terribly fond of flapjacks and did manage to quite successfully delude myself that they were a healthy alternative with coffee at 10.30am not too long ago (and for quite some time) - which might explain why today's worry is how best to get myself back in pre-flapjack (okay okay, amongst other things) shape - boooooo.

Fame (I'm gonna live forever)

We have got our first honourable mention in a blogroll from Daithi over at Lex Ferenda. I found this out very recently because no one reads anyones blogroll after the first time and I've just figured out Technorati. Now I'm under no illusions as to the amount of publicity this little warble is going to bring, but I do know for certain that at least three people read this (not counting the ladies). This is because they're my friends and they care for me and they're contractually bound to listen to me in whatever media I choose to express myself. But punters are punters. So go on, who wouldn't want their copyright law fix of a Tuesday morning?

Hunter Crow Ducks

BlueJ is a major Thomas Aquinas fan, but today she is to be compared to another sainted Thomas because yesterday, when we were in the park indulging her love of baby creatures, in this case principally signets and ducklings, she didn't believe me when I told her about the Chinese practice of using ducks to fish with, or as she put it, using 'hunter ducks'. However, Bill B, who has been in China recently, has come to my aid on this one, the only problem being that, like myself, Bill doesn't seem to distinguish between a 'duck' and what is in fact, a 'Cormorant'. (Actually, Bill does, there's a just a bit of a typo.) There is no actual need for the inverted commas around 'cormorant' because these creatures are not so-called cormorants, despite my confusion, they are just cormorants. I feel only very marginally less silly about having mistaken a cormorant for a duck, thanks to the Canadian Wildlife Service Cormorant Fact Sheet, which claims that such creatures are, or perhaps should be, called 'Crow Ducks'. (Just think, it could have been so much worse, I could have been talking about hunter crow ducks.) Having said that, I'm still unsure if the term 'crow duck' applies to all cormorants or only North American continent cormorants and I'm too lazy to find out.

A Hawk from a Handbag... Handsaw

The answer to BlueJ's rhetorical question is, me. Not only do I not love handbags, I don't actually understand them. Conceptually, they confound me, they are utterly beyond me. What is it that girls actually use handbags for? How on earth do you carry them when they have such weird-lengthed handles? A couple of years ago, a friend of mine gave me a pink handbag in an attempt, a bootless attempt to make me into a proper girl. ('Bootless' is my da's favourite word at the moment; it has quite an interesting etymology, actually... I looked it up.) The bag was not a success. It falls off my shoulder, I can't fit books (or on one notable occasion, a football) into it and I can't rummage round in it distractedly when I think I've lost my keys or am displacing being upset about something, especially if I have books or footballs in my hands (which I usually do, what with having no where else to put them).

I can't tell how girls judge which ones are good and which ones aren't. BlueJ was put through the exquisite agony of I having me come handbag shopping with her when we were in Florence. Normally, anything that has an aesthetic aspect to it, you can interest me in. I became utterly fascinated, for example, with 'America's Next Top Model' because of the way that the faces photographed, or took makeup, or how colours changed their colours or whatever. For some reason, not handbags. I did try. I tried to see the value of it as an opportunity to learn, and if not that, then the opportunity to be a good friend. No. It was not to be. I think I must have that bit of my brain missing. In Florence, my heart when out to BlueJ because I was such a drag to have along, but also to all the boyfriends who get dragged shopping. (I have in fact never dragged a boy shopping, so this was mingled with me feeling slightly smug on this point.)

Unfated Home-comings

I am fond of aetiological myths because they are concerned with questions of essential nature (rerum natura) and ontology; I am writing on them because monotheistism believes in them, while polytheism tends to offer various, conflicting stories. So I should aetiologically introduce this entry, give it its proper genealogy. Incipt: my ex-boyfriend looks and sounds like Orlando Bloom, so I’ve been watching Orlando Bloom films and consequently I have done that which nothing else could make me do; watch Troy. This in turn begat my reading of the Iliad and that caused me to go looking through ancient literature for the missing pieces of the story. There is an inevitability in the way I’ve ended up here, reading Hyginus. There is no point getting your heart broken if you don’t learn anything, and the Buddha agrees with me.

Levi-Strauss nearly said that myths are good for thinking with, and I always find that they are. Orpheus and Eurydice, a story my Mother used to tell me and one that I found profoundly distressing and incomprehensible as a child, is the one that is most difficult and important for to think with, for me anyway; it’s the understanding that I have most difficulty believing. So, for now, the Iliad instead. So many aspects of this particular myth cycle have caught me: that the war begins for much the same reason that the First World War did, that Odysseus is both the most important character and a peripheral one, that while most heroes describe themselves as their father’s sons Odysseus describes himself as his son’s father, that he is to blame for everything and I wonder if its because he is the wrong sort of hero for this sort of narrative, that all the really blokey Greek heroes spend time in drag, and that when, later, the Athenian playwrights told the stories, they were so concerned to tell those of the Trojans and the women; the enemy and the Other. But, here at least, the one that holds me is the diversity of morality of the heroes. Each of the characters is quite specific and particular in how their sense of honour and justice expresses itself and there does not seem to be much in the way of proselytising one to another’s way of thinking, because there does not seem to be a sense that there ought to be consensus. They are deeply concerned with good and evil, just in a way that doesn't make sense to us. My mother thinks that this is because, for the Hellenes, there is no single, central religious text, so there can be no orthodoxy, and more importantly, no hetrodoxy. The Iliad shows an honour/shame society that is more pluralistic than us; that should be impossible.

Now that's what I call recycling

Who doesn't love handbags? And while I have one or two reliable Rolls Royce's that I wouldn't be without there's something wonderful about a new bag, any new bag. The latter requires a quick turnover and this entails firstly a succession of cheap bags and also a local Oxfam. But what if there was a better way? There have being swap shops around for a while now, but none based in Ireland and the postage and hassle was much offputting for the Irish consumer but no longer - see Style Treaty's long awaited post here. Let all partake of the good news.

Summer Trout

If one is a cook, and by that I mean someone who finding themselves with fifteen minutes to daydream will at some point inevitably start thinking about food, every now and then it occurs to one that given a number of circumstances, the weather, company, time, place, mood, any or all of these things, there would a be a perfect dish to perfectly suit the occasion. One that would indefinably fit all the aspects, that would illuminate and reaffirm all that is good about living. If one is a gourmet, one will be able to bring to mind a small handful of these fine times when all has been helplessly right and something gently magical happened.

Anyway such a dish occurs to me today as being absolutely right for the weather and the time, catching the uplifting sense of lightness and freedom and summertime that pervades the air today. I am however in work and will be till it is dark, at which point it will be too late. So I am going to write it instead.

It is steamed trout. But prepared in such a way as to be a homage to all thing light as butterflies and dandelion clocks and to the sparkling of sun on still water and fragrant and fresh new grass. This being the case everything ideally would be as fresh as humanly possible, just pulled carrots and scallions, herbs from the windowsill, fish still lolloping about in it's bucket. If like me, you happen to lack the flat of the Suir through Instiog, one skilled fisherman, months worth of work in flies, a picnic basket and bottles of beer tied to the bank by string, you're just going to have to buy the fish. This is where a fantastic little trick I pinched from MFK Fisher comes in. The merest wash of soy sauce. Barely there is the key, the sauce will not be tasted in the final dish but will remove that tell-tale 'fishy' (not of course there in properly fresh fish) tang of fish that has been hanging about a bit or has been frozen. By the by, if anyone else grieves for the loss of the kind of tinned sardines that can be bought in France, (where they have vintages of sardines tinned in the best olive oil) this trick works equally well with reasonably decent ones you can get here, bringing them back to something like the taste of those from the continent. Neither of course, being a patch on the real thing fresh from the sea, merely scored and with paper thin garlic in the slits then barbecued whole, but that was a different summer's day.

Having said that less than fresh fish may be necessary, the dish really won't stand anything less the very best of everything else, there's nothing to hide behind.

Here's the recipe, I would humbly recommend something quite dry and light, Riesling maybe, new world would be better probably. And to be honest I don't think that something with bubbles in would go entirely amiss. To follow, strawberries with nothing on them but an hour's sitting in a sunny windowsill, headily aromatic, warm and perfectly pure.

Steamed Early Summer Trout

1 fresh water trout per person (Rainbow or otherwise)
carrots
scallions
green beans
very small courgettes
herbs (chives, dill, parsley (FLAT LEAF), lovage (or celery leaves), sorrel etc anything light and fresh that's not going to overpower everything)
lemons

Have your steamer basket beside you and put the water on to boil with plenty of salt and the juice of half a lemon. Top, tail and string beans and then slice in half length ways (otherwise they'll be nearly raw and what you're after here is bite not crunch). Matchstick the carrots and courgettes and shred the scallions. Put these in the bottom of your steamer basket. Find your self a largish old lettuce leaf and lay this on top, you don't want them to get too lemony. Score the lemons (to release the oil in the peel, scrub them first if they're waxed) and slice them. Roughly chop the herbs.

Lay lemon slices on top the veg (with lettuce leaf/ves in between), then a layer of the herbs. Rub a little salt into the fish, have brushed very lightly with the soy if this was necessary. If the fish has been filleted whole put some more lemon and herbs in the cavity. Lay the fish on the herbs, and lay more herbs then a final layer of lemon on top.

Put the whole thing on to steam, keeping the water at a brisk but not mad boil. I would expect it to take between fifteen minutes and a half hour depending on thickness of fillet, size of pot etc. Essentially cook till fish is done, using the time honoured culinary techniques of poking, smelling and looking. Don't have the lid off too often though, or it will all go horribly wrong. I'm clearly crap at writing recipes for people with little or no experience of cooking, and frankly I can't be bothered trying. I don't really know how useful it is anyway, the only way to really get better is bugger it up, work out why and know better for next time.

Extract your fish and (obviously) discard lemon and herbs. Serve each fish with the veg (don't even think about touching them with oil or butter), lemon wedges, lettuce and a tomato and oregano salad.

The Muck and the Glory Pt I

Or 'Another thing about the youth of today'.............
is that they wouldn't know a decent day's work if it jumped up and bit them.

Our garden is surrounded by laylandii trees, they were plugged by all the garden centres five to ten years ago as being the ultimate hedging plant. They're evergreen, dense and extremely quick growing. What nearly everyone failed to mention is that 40ft is the minimum mature growth height and most will grow even taller. This makes you popular with your neighbours. We've being putting off dealing with them for about five years now, mostly because we haven't the faintest idea how to go about it. Our garden is an acre give or take which is actually only a biggish suburban size but that works out at about 400ft of circumference densely packed with trees of between 20 and 30ft tall. In short that's a lot of tree.

Anyway the bad winds this winter made a number of them unsafe and procrastination was no longer an option. We got a quote from a man, and then another man - to be sure. The cost quoted would have sent the brother to Yale for a year, regardless of what he got in his leaving. So DIY is the only option.


The family, two of Dad's mates (duly bribed and blackmailed), three chainsaws, many other manual saws, several sets of loppers, (one pair nicely cantilevered), three of the brother's friends in dire need of cash and two dogs assembled, ready for action. The Brother and brother's friends are all around and about eighteen. We decided that stamina rather than sense was probably they're strength (this turned out to be only partially correct), so the plan was myself, Dad and the two mates would take the trees down with the chainsaws and the lads would clear the timber, trim and stack it.

It dawned a lovely fine morning, fresh and sunny and we got stuck in. The brother and the B'sFs having being booked for nine, arrived three hours after this. Their task was explained, basic safety procedures underlined, with explanatory gestures, and then emphasised a final time for luck before we went back to work. At this point Dad was halfway up a selected tree, topping it, with me roped up to the thing trying to make sure that next door's extension stays where they put it. We'ld stopped for a feasibility study (so to speak) when the Brother and a B'sF trot by carrying a bough of roughly eight inches in diameter between the two of them. Dad suggested, with some force, that given the entire garden was already knee height in verdant, ferny foliage, there might be more efficient ways of approaching the task.


They continued to prat about, poking gingerly and with great suspicion at some of the lighter branches till someone roared at them to clear off out of the way before one of the falling trees crowned them. Sometime later, there is such a scatter and squealing from the other side of the garden as would have made any Swiss finishing school proud. Given the combination of other peoples' children, even if they are 6ft4 children, and sharp objects, all responsible adults drop everything and sprint across to find out whether it's just going be stitches or if we need a tourniquet. Turns out it's a dead rat. We're fairly rural, there are a lot of rats and some of them are perforce, dead. Personally I find a dead rat a lot less worrying than the live ones. The children are again informed, firmly, that if they fancy making noise like that again someone had bloody better have lost at least a hand.

We broke for lunch about 12.30. The brother and friends had made a neat little pile of small boughs about a foot high. The rest of us had taken down three trees, taken the boughs off, cut the main trunk down, cleared the ground under where we were working and stacked the timber that was good for logs. The brother and friends indicated that they felt it best they retire from the field due to crippling and agonising injuries ranging from blisters to a severe case of grazing. We said it was probably wise if they did so.