Grunge Boy

I had a birthday a week or so ago (no, you may not ask!), and, being underwhelmed with pressies (not a problem, you understand), I went out and bought a cheap electric guitar and a heavily discounted distortion pedal/box. Yes, the weddings coming up and everything and there's not much left in the kittie, but I've wanted to play electric for a long time now. Even though I'm really just a chronic strummer, there's something at least moderately pleasant about about making a lot of noise (there is nothing pleasant! - downwind neighbour). Maybe one day I'll even learn to do something a little fancy, though I'm somewhat of a clutz.

As for the wedding, well, as best I can see, it's set just to happen, if you get my drift. Various things like a marquee and a band are booked and will be payed for, the guests are invited and responding, I have a shirt and trousers and Nadia's dress is under (top secret) construction. The ceremony is minimalist, there will be few formalities, the guests are bringing the food and drink. What is there to worry about? Apparently a lot, because the word wedding conjures up for many people the thought of endless lists of things to do, from the bridesmaids presents to the table decorations. Ha! Not for us!

Though these could be famous last words.......

Deja Vu?

As a long-suffering football (soccer in this country) fan, the moment of truth has once again rolled around. And with a savage predictability.

As a kid, I watched our national team play every home game prior to our one and only appearance in the World Cup Finals in Munich in 1974. In those days, the Australian team comprised mostly foreign born players of second or third tier ability. The team these days is home grown (ironically most of the players play in Europe) and is a vastly superior side to the one I used to watch.

Unhappily, FIFA has always made our qualification path a difficult one. In recent preliminary series, Australia has had to first win its own confederation(admittedly a cakewalk), then play the fifth placed South American team. The latter is a big ask. As anyone knows, the South Americans are very good at soccer and their fifth-placed teams are invariably top quality sides.

Once again, the adversary is Uruguay. Reportedly better than the team which beat Australia 3-1 on aggregate four years ago, the Uruguyans are full of confidence. My own feeling is that the Australian team is defensively weaker than its counterpart of 2001, but has a better coach. The latter may be critical. Guus Hiddink is a master tactician, but will this be enough to salvage the precious victory?

I have been at this crossing so many times over the last 20 years. Maybe this time.......hmmm...

Favourites

Someone recently asked me what my favourite ten poems were. I thought that this was probably an impossible question to answer - what I might have chosen as my top ten when I was twenty is likely to be somewhat different now. I have read a lot more in the intervening years.

Yet, some poems from that period would probably still find a place amongst my favourites today. I'm thinking of, say, Tennyson's Lotus-Eaters, which I still read now and then or Wordsworth's Preludes. My taste hasn't essentially changed in that time, though the Romantics are a little too much like rich Belgian chocolate for the kind of reading I used to do.

So what would I include in the top ten. Well, the first few places would go to Thomas Hardy (The Voice, The Journey, amongst others) , the next couple by Philip Larkin (The Whitsun Weddings, Church Going) with a space or two for the above-mentioned Romantics and Victorians. From Robert Frost, maybe After Apple Picking or The Road Not Taken. Aussie poets would be represented (on merit, not sentiment) by Slessor's Country Towns and Murray's The Widower in the Country. But really, there are so many individual standouts by poets whose names I cant even remember, that a list is pretty dishonest device.

Speaking of poems, I dashed off this haiku for my troubled cousin Lisa today. I had space on the back of the page of a letter I had written her, so, I thought I'd doodle something.

jasmine morning
a green bird's insistent arpeggio,
writing to my cousin


A poor effort, yes.

That Nobel Prize For Harold Pinter

The Garret.

(At the Pinter Garret in London)

(A doorbell sounds downstairs. Long pause)

(A doorbell sounds again. Another pause)

(Sound of ascending footsteps. Pause. A knock at the garret door. Pause)

Pinter: Come in.

(Pause) (Door opens to reveal dishevelled postie/tramp)

Postie: I've got something for you mister.

Pinter: Oh, yes.

Postie: I had to wait downstairs.

Pinter: Ah

Postie: I waited a long time.

Pinter: I see.

Postie: There's blacks in this neighbourhood.

(pause)

Postie: I've got this paper.

Pinter: You have a paper?

Postie: It's got foreign writing.

(Pause)

Postie: Never did like foreigners.

(Pause)

Postie: 'Neally wore out these shoes climbing them stairs.

Postie: Gotta have a good pair of shoes.

(Pause)

Postie: For me job.

Pinter: Oh, you work, do you?

Postie: I work. Course I work. I call it work.

(Pause)

Postie: Stands to reason that I work.

(Pause)

Pinter: I might have an opening here.

Postie: Didn't say I was looking for work.

Pinter: But you dont have a job?

Postie: Course I do. Maybe I'd like a change.

(Pause)

Pinter: What do you know about sheds?

Postie: Well, sheds, now, look mister, I'm not sure that sheds are my area.

Pinter: Didn't you say that you were builder?

Postie: I, well, now look here, I'm no builder.

Pinter: But you came up my stairs.

Postie: I'm not saying I couldnt knock something up. Gotta have the tools.

Pinter: Where are your tools?

(Pause)

Pinter: You don't have any tools, do you?

Postie: I've got tools. Lots of em. But you cant carry tools in this neighbourhood. Have you seen them blacks?

Pinter: How are you going to get on in the world?

Postie: I get on. I've got a good setup. Man 'round the corner gave me some shoes. Nice fit too.

(Pause)

Postie: Need good shoes for me job. (pause) I'm well set up. (pause) I've handled tools with the best of 'em. (pause) Got this paper here.

(pause)

Pinter: You're a complete imposter arent you?

Postie: What, who, me? Now look here...

Pinter: You come here pretending to be someone you're not.

Postie: I never said.

Pinter: You dont know a thing about shed contruction at all.

Postie: Well, sheds, look..

Pinter: You had better get out...

Postie: Well, I, what about the tiling...

Pinter: I don't need any tiling. I want you out of here.

Postie: Now look here. Promises were made. I climbed them stairs...

Pinter: You'd better get out now. (Pinter begins making the sound of a vacuum cleaner)

Postie: I've got this paper. (Over rising vacuum cleaner sounds) Promises made.....stairs....need new shoes.....them blacks......

(Exit terrified Postie pursued by pause)

Curtain.

Hi Q's and Laudanum

I've loved poetry all my life, a little strange since these days its a bit of a minority interest. I remember telling an amused friend that I sometimes used to spend the odd afternoon at a nearby park with a glass of wine and tatty version of the The Penguin Book of English Verse. At that time (senior high school) I was not a little in love with Keats and Coleridge (what a modernist, I!), a phase that took me a while to pass through. By uni I was reading Tennyson, a poet much out of favour, Shelley and Wordworth. Later tutors introduced us to Emerson and Whitman and I almost reached the 20th Century by the time I decided to drop English in favour of Theatre Studies.

As a high school teacher, I had little choice but to become acquainted with the modern era, especially Australian poets like Slessor, Dawe, Murray and Harwood. Wonderful poets all! And my own meanderings took me across time and geography to the likes of TS Eliot, Robert Frost and Thomas Hardy. I didnt even know Hardy wrote poetry! A seminal influence on my own verse (few as they are) was the British poet Philip Larkin, who quite reasonably argued that even modern verse could benefit by structure.

As an English teacher, I often had students (reluctantly) write poems from a range of structures and starting points, of which the haiku was one (Finally, you get to the point- ed.). I dont want to bang on about the properties of the haiku, only that, it is one of the most beautifully succinct ways of expressing a feeling or moment that I know. I leave you with this one by the 17th century poet, Taniguchi Buson, translated by Harold G. Henderson.

The piercing chill I feel
my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom,
under my heel.....

That Missing Dr Who Episode

Private Eye produced this cover the week after the September 11 attacks. Reactions were mixed - an inevitable few cancelled their subscriptions; others thought it an apt summary of the Bush Presidency.

A month later a Dr Who episode 'The Twin Towers' was mysteriously pulled from the airwaves before its first broadcast, but a fragment of the script survived........

(Tardis s/fx and appearance of same on board US Airforce One on September 11 2002)

(The Doctor and his assistant, played in a one off by Germaine Greer, exit the Tardis)

Dr: Well, we seem to have landed somewhere in the early 21st century. (Probing with sonic screw-driver) Hmmm, perhaps a jet airliner.
Greer: Lets hope that women are not as oppressed here as they were in the last episode. And honestly, did we have to land in a such a thing. Don't you know that this kind of craft is emblematic of the phallocentric situation. You're just like the rest of them....
Dr: Em, lets have a look around.

(The Dr and Greer explore the plane, finally arriving at the Presidential bedroom)

Dr: Well, well, someone important seems to use this plane. A private bed!
Greer: There's someone under the bed Doctor.
Dr: So there is. I say, why dont you come out?

(A sheepish looking GW Bush emerges from beneath the bed)

GWB: Are you terrorists come to take me away? I have to warn yowl, I have my finger on the newcular button.
Dr: My dear fellow, what are you talking about?
GWB: I command whole armies.
Dr: Yes yes, whatever you say.
GWB: Ma daddy is a rich and powerful man.
Greer: All fathers are rapists, dont you know.
Dr: Yes, but why are you hiding under the bed?
GWB: Look ahm talkin about freedom and choice and a strong America....

(End of script)

Wonder why that didn't get to air?

Our Band.....

About seven years ago Nadia and I decided we would like to play music together in public, so we formed a duet, called Kautilya. At that stage, we played pretty much only cover versions of artists like the Cranberries, Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, Mazzy Star and the Eurythmics, to name a few. Later the band grew into, well, a real band with a lead guitarist (my guitar playing leaves much to be desired), a violinist, a drummer and a keyboard player. Then we started writing songs, recorded a CD and did a few live gigs at acoustic clubs and music evenings. Currently we are in an interesting spot - where do we go next? There is a point where amateurs have to wonder at how big a commitment they can make to a shared project or even how far their skills can extend into the realm of public performance. Where do we get out of our depth? I don't know.

First Signs of Madness...

Another sad week for freedom in this country. All of our political leaders contrived to enact new "anti-terror"legislation that hits at some of the most fundamental legal traditions, such as the presumption of innocence. Another gem is the right of the authorities to arrest any person suspected of anything(presumably) to do with terrorism and to detain such persons for up to 12 days without charge. As I've said before, I take a dim view of any additional powers placed in the hands of the police or the secret services, never mind their high-minded justifications. Their dismal track records suggest that further abuses of power will be forthcoming.

I would have expected this kind of legislation from a government as mendacious as John Howard's, but the connivance of the state Labor premiers is doubling disturbing. Even the Federal Opposition leader, Kim Beazley (normally a man for whom I have a lot of time), seems to be involved in a strange bidding war to be the toughest bastard on the block. Could he really have proposed a strategy to 'lock down' entire suburbs in order to extract the so-called terrorist few? Well apparently yes.

Are we living in post-enlightenment age? Does the battle of those great thinkers have to be fought all over again? If combatting terrorism (whatever that multi-headed thing might be) involves rolling back the very freedoms that make democracy more attractive than the competition, then how far can societies go before they cease to be democratic?