In the city fields
contemplating cherry-trees....
strangers are like friends

Issa

It's funny how Spring sneaks up on you. I notice the obvious signs of its approach, the budding on the stems and the odd errant flower that has made an unexpectedly early entrance. There is also the perceptible warming of the air, the mildly scented eddies that suggest change is afoot. Then, all of a sudden, the jasmine is out, the plums rampantly in bloom. There is a constant drone of bees and of course, the sounds of people sneezing, though not necessarily in that order. Pollen can go to work at all hours.

Lunch with my beautiful wife in the city yesterday was uneventful, except that Sydney seemed more abandoned than last week. I am used now to the half-empty trains - what a blessing - but the streets in the very centre of town were thinly-populated canyons. Ordinarily they are surging with life.

I cannot help but feel that we are turning a page in the human project - if you don't mind me calling it that - in which survival depends on some key decisions that are being made now.  By that I mean things are done and things that are left undone, since not to act is also a part of decision-making. To watch the antics in America, a country that should be offering genuine leadership by word and example, is dispiriting, to say the least. There are lots of good people, of course, trying to make a difference.

But where the power lies there is a brain-dead rot that offers neither hope nor the prospect of change, just more of the same. That is a recipe for extinction.

Back in the dark ages, when I was first sighted in short pants, I began a great love that has persisted to this day, a love of Association Football. As distinct from the majority code in my home state of NSW, it was played with a round ball, principally on the ground. I began watching highlights from the UK on the TV and in my last year of primary school, signed up for a local club. I wasn't much good at first but improved under the tutelage of some excellent mentors. But I digress.

Just about every boy coming into the first bloom of English football needed to have a team to support. My mother's side of the family comes from Staines, just west of London. So a London club would have been fine. I was a fan of The Beatles so a Merseyside team was also an option. Two things conspired, however, to settle on a far less glamorous club than I might have chosen. Not the Liverpool's, Manchester's or Arsenal's for me, no, but rather, a humble side from the Lancashire. Oldham AFC.

Those two things were these. I found out that a relative on my grandfather's side had played for OAFC in the 1950's and had also been a groundsman at Boundary Park thereafter. Secondly, my Welsh 5th grade primary teacher, Mr Oldland, once joked that he were going to play football across the (Welsh) border, it would probably be with Oldham Athletic. He never said why but I suppose it was the similarity of names. It's even odder when I recall he seemed to be a big rugby fan.

So it is that I have seen Oldham rise and fall over these five decades. They languish now in League Two but have recently acquired a new manager, one Harry Kewell. I wish the former Socceroo well and a stonking good season for The Latics in 2020 and 2021. 

We are having a late cold-snap, perhaps the last before the warming that will come before Spring. And with that snap we have had some snow falling at the higher reaches of the Blue Mountains and beyond. Being close to a major city means that the first report of snow leads (usually) to a massive influx of car-bound tourists, all hoping to catch a moment of white magic. The highway had been in-passable due to the sheer volume of traffic, though I'll wager that they will be lucky to find much settled snow this side of Oberon. Here at Hazelbrook it sleeted yesterday but was not quite cold enough to snow.

I understand the attraction of snow, the way it silently creates an entirely new landscape seemingly out of nothing. Even the unsightly can wear a short-lived loveliness. I have written in the past about living in a country in which it snows heavily (Japan) and how this can make life quite difficult, once the first gasp of adoration is lost. It is not much fun to walk or drive in and if you have pneumonia, well, the romance is quickly diminished.

Yet still, the feeling of waking up and finding everything so stealthily changed is quite powerful. Yes, like the frost, snow flakes perform a "secret ministry."

 Since first meeting Ann some five years ago, what and how I eat has changed quite a lot. I have always loved Thai food but came rather late to realise that most suburban Thai, while delicious in its own right, is different in so many subtle ways from the food Thai's actually eat. The latter can be had in Sydney but you have to know where to look. And for that, of course, one needs a Thai friend, or a Thai wife.

Ann has two favourites in the CBD, both in Thai Town, which she attests do the real thing. There is something about the flavours, but also about the ingredients, that make a dish authentic in this regard. She doesn't like to see certain vegetables put willy-nilly into Thai dishes - if they are not used in Thailand, then they are out. The combination of sauces and ingredients should combine to give the diner a saap saap experience, something deep, spicy and complex. I am afraid that I am out of my depth when explaining this phenomenon.

Ann's daughter JJ is even more of a purist when it comes to this authentic experience, so buying take-away for her to bring home is fraught with danger. A perfectly delicious meal from a Thai-run shop in town might get the thumbs up, or it might not, but I am unable to explain why this is so. If I put two boxes from different shops side by side and which, to the average eye, may seem identical, you can be sure than one does not meet the minimum standard. Even if I do a taste test the difference may be that one is slightly spicier than the other. Alas, one must be counterfeit, for so it is written, somewhere!

I find it amusing. I am not a fan of foodism or any of the TV shows that play to this strange hedonism. But I know what I like and most Thai food, no matter what the shop, hits the mark for me.

On an unseen cue, the plum at our bedroom window is coming into flower. It is early. Spring is still a fortnight away, but little good does it for me to nag at the open window. The plum knows something I don't and will never know.

But I feel the unwintering sun stronger on my shoulders each morning, building inexorably towards the new season. That is a little ominous for August, though the wind is still cold. What will it be like in October, when the first curlicues of smoke arise from dry bushland?

As usual, I turn to Mr Larkin to express what I cannot. This one is from an early volume called The North Ship.

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again?
And we grow old? No they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

 I have urged caution before at the current penchant for 'cancelling' things from the past which appear to be offensive in the present. It is a poor use of the word cancel, in the first instance, because the term that should be used is obliterate. A cancelled event can, after all, be rescheduled. That which has been destroyed is difficult, often impossible, to put back together again. That is what is intended. But I digress.

One of the most benighted attempts to 'cancel culture' in the recent past happened in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, a chaotic and disastrous attempt by Mao to regain the initiative and defeat his perceived enemies in the CCP. Tens of thousands of teenagers were released from their school studies to roam the towns and country to destroy the "Four Olds", one of which was 'old culture'. Priceless books, scrolls and artifacts, not to mention temples and monuments, were seized, looted and smashed and are now lost forever. This is "cancel culture" at the extremes.

In a recent article in The Guardian (13/8/20), Nick Cave has lamented this parlous turn of events. He noted that "the refusal to engage with uncomfortable ideas (has) had an asphyxiating effect on the creative soul of a society."

He also said,

“Political correctness has grown to become the unhappiest religion in the world. It's once honourable attempt to re-imagine our society in a more equitable way now embodies all the worst aspects that religion has to offer (and none of the beauty) – moral certainty and self-righteousness shorn even of the capacity for redemption.”

I really could not have put it better myself, though coming from someone with street cred like Cave it sounds all the more convincing. But as I have also said before, there is always room for a case by case approach, involving a lively discussion from across the spectrum of opinion. There may be statues and books that are beyond the pale, but even those might better find a new home in a museum, the more to learn from past mistakes. 

Not such a good idea.

Tomorrow it's back to business at 2RPH with the presentation of the Newcastle Herald. Readings from the latter have been shuttered (for the most part) in recent months due to the pandemic. The new start comes with a different studio and a much reduced program, only 45 minutes.

My usual Friday stable mate Peter Ryan has kindly let me take charge over the next few weeks as there is no place for a reader in the studio. The announcer will do all the chores and that it me. There is no time to take a breath but I love the challenge. One is entirely focused on the task in hand and there is no room for distraction. It is an altogether joyful busyness.

I was walking home by a back way from Linden Station, having caught the train two stops from Hazelbrook. This was my planned walk for the day, as having become a little bored with my regular routes. The trouble was, I didn't know if a continuous footpath existed the entire way back to my abode, the sections between towns often having no houses and therefore being without (perhaps) a reasonable pedestrian access.

As it turned out, there was a clear path home, via back ways, tracks, old sections of the highway and narrow corridors of gravel, so I was home in no time at all. Near Linden Station, which services what is essentially a hamlet, I stumbled on an old grave. It was by the side of the road, a simple headstone (described in a book as the Georgian Colonial-era style) to an early pioneer, one John Donohoe, who left this life in 1837, aged 58. Little accurate information can be found on his life except to say that this is an early example of a grave from that period, remembering that the Blue Mountains were only crossed (by white folks!) in 1812. I didn't take a photo out of respect but perhaps one day I will, the better to document the life of an early settler.

Choir is back though under considerable duress. Masks and a decent social distance are de rigueur. Doors to the rehearsal hall are wide open to the elements (remembering that this is winter) and some of us are still only present via zoom. I am one of those zoomers.

It is interesting to be a kind of Peeping Tom to the proceedings. I can watch but I cannot be seen. Of course I am participating via audio though my mike is muted. I am getting some practice in but at the expense of the social aspects of being with a group of people with a common purpose. I guess that will come soon enough, pandemic willing.

With the weather turning cold and wet, I have been watching more than my fair share of  TV lately, though much of this is of the "catch-up" variety. A BBC series on key dates in the history of the Roman Empire, the outcomes of which still reverberate with us today, has been most interesting. It's strange how choices made two millennia ago can still inform our lives today, but I guess that is a part of that mystical continuum that is time.

Though as for time - the arrow that appears to us - it is far stranger than any line you might draw from then to now. Everyone once thought that they were living in the present - the now - yet they are currently our ancestors. Later, we are the ancestors, with all the baggage that that word carries. It is hard to imagine sometimes.

Congratulations to Terunofuji on winning the summer Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo. The size of his achievement needs to be seen through the lens of the last three years. Plagued by injury and ill-health he fell through the ranks to the second lowest division (Jonidan), had knee operations and five times asked his stable master if he could retire.. The latter refused, urging the Mongolian to get well and get fit. He did.

Consider also that Terunofuji was starting from the lowest rank for this tournament, maegashira 17, and the picture of a remarkable comeback is complete. It's hard to say whether he can keep it up for any length of time. Many rikishi carry injuries and the turn-around time between meets is only two months making a full-recovery almost impossible. But I wish him well. At his best, he is a wonderful wrestler.

Terunofuji removes Mitakeumi from the dohyo on Day 15 to win the Emporer's Cup. Note the heavy bandaging on his knees and ankles.