We use a combustion heater for about six weeks during the coldest part of winter. Living in the mountains and finding our abode constructed of fibro means that even mild winters can be very cold inside the house. The combustion heater warms the whole place to an acceptable temperature.

But a few days ago a log shifted harshly in the firebox and cracked the glass. It fell almost perfectly in neat portions into an already hot fire. That was the end of the stove for the night.

I have been sourcing a glass replacement and other bibs and bobs to do a home repair on the door. It's an old heater and much needs maintenance work, such as the bricks that line the inner box. They are cracked and at the end of their lives. You can see for yourself below. The whole unit needs a repaint too. Hopefully she will be back in action in a week or so.

Sad and broken for now.

 When  Yeats wrote "The Second Coming" the world had just come through the worst conflagration of all time, The Great War. The changes that were wrought by that awful conflict are too many to number - suffice it to say - Europe was never the same again. So it is understandable that Yeats might see how  "mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."

Yeats second coming has little do with the Biblical version. He had developed a complex mystical system of gryres - these are spirals or vortices - that worked in such a way to determine great changes in history. I am doing his thinking no justice here, merely pointing out that we are not in Christian territory. Yeats felt that a change was coming and he uses the image of the sphinx, after "twenty centuries of stony sleep" a creature that has been "vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle" to symbolise it.

It is easy to think that we are in times unlike any other and that a giant something is just around the corner. The "end times" have often been mooted, always incorrectly. Still, there may be more to it this time. Never has humankind had the ability to so comprehensively destroy itself. Never before. This is alien country.

And when things do fall apart, often as not, " the centre cannot hold."

The creation of the teenager in the 1950's introduced a new category into the language, one I suppose made necessary by further education and cultural change. Going into the workforce not long after completing primary education was largely a thing of the past by the time I was in high school. About half of my cohort went to Year 10 while the rest continued on to the HSC. From there a small percentage went to university just as the vast majority went into the workforce.

But it was cultural change and the rise of mass marketing that ensured that this new target group would go on to become a force to be reckoned with. Rock and Roll ushered in an era of youth culture that persists to this day, mores the pity really given where music is now!

But contemporary teenagers in the West can be a difficult and unruly lot, unconditioned as they are by the kinds of norms that their grandparents were. What is the meaning of life other than making money and having fun? They have to wrestle with the snake pit of social media too, where every attitude and bodily shape and attribute is subject to raucous and often unkind comment by largely anonymous posters. Who would want that?

"It's a difficult age," a friend of mine used to regular intone.

But what age isn't?

 I have had reading glasses since my late 40's, probably the result of too much reading by too poor a light. They get an upgrade every two years as my eyes grow ever weaker and there is no doubt driving glasses will be mandated next time around, though I already have a pair on hand.

But I am thinking now that even this is insufficient. How do I know? Well only just now, I mistook a hot coal that had somehow fallen from the combustion heater (which I didn't see happen) for a toffee wrapper.

Yes, I think that it is time to have my eyes tested again!

Gardening

Pulling shallots from a doughy bed,

I reflect upon the ancient tree,

In dateless time it stands,

Spanning the countless in a blink,

From such a one another bled,

Though eons separate the twain,

Gestalt that makes us free to think,

Forsaking blind eternity.

Lately I have been attending a Catholic Church in the lower mountains as part of my return to faith. It might seem strange to any fellow protestant that I should want to do such a thing, but truthfully, much of the stuff I learnt about Roman Catholicism as a young Anglican is simply not true. Some people are still caught up in the heady days of the Reformation and its consequences. I guess that both sides are a little blinkered still by past controversies and animosities and that prejudice lingers, even after all this time.

Because I had a shift at 2RPH on Saturday, I couldn't attend my usual vigil mass at St Finbars and so decided to pop in to the local Presbyterian Church for a morning service. I am nothing if not ecumenical. If was very paired back, as you might imagine, but the core of belief is the same. Does it really matter all that much whether the eucharist is actual or symbolic, or that the Catholic Church allows tradition a place alongside scripture?

Ah, the wood and the trees!

 The winter garden is looking sharp and very serene in the thinning afternoon sun. Walking about to gather up kindling for the fire, it was impossible not to notice the way light played upon different features - a dead branch, the last of the turning leaves, a bower bird amongst the grass. It is truly a balm for the soul, the long shadows crossing the lawn, or the baptizing of most mundane of objects - a stray brick, a garden cart or a bucket full of ashes.

Later, I opened the new portable Bible I bought recently and alighted by accident upon Psalm 139. Having just spent half an hour in the fading though glorious sunshine of my back garden, I found this deep meditation upon God's foreknowledge of all creation to be a splendid follow up, unexpected but profound. Even if you don't have any belief in the manner I speak about here, this psalm is worth a read. It is almost impossible not to be moved by it.

 I am both puzzled and impatient at the lack of knowledge about National Socialism and Nazism in general. Outside of some weird redoubt in the backwoods of America, or perhaps an underground venue in Munich, it seemed incredibly unlikely that folks would find anything attractive about Nazi ideology or symbolism just a few decades ago. I can't imagine anyone posing as a proto-Nazi when I was at school - after all - we hadn't long fought a world war to rid us of this pestilence - and there was information aplenty about the Holocaust and allied crackpot material from Hitler and his ghastly cronies. Not that I am being in any way ad hominem, you understand.

So it comes as a surprise, though a pleasant one, to find that the Victorian Government has legislation in the pipeline to ban the swastika from being displayed publicly. It is a shame indeed that there is even a need for this kind of parliamentary intervention, but there you are. 

And to you knuckleheads on the far right who think its fun to commemorate a former dictator's birthday. White supremacy is an oxymoron.

Sumo fans, including myself, have been patiently waiting now for almost 12 months for the return of Asanoyama. The former Ozeki (the second highest rank in sumo's top division) fell from grace during the May tournament last year when it came to light that he had violated covid restrictions multiple times. Worse, he had lied and tried to cover it up. When it blew up he was handed a 12 months suspension.

For those wondering, each and every absence from subsequent tournaments means an automatic demotion within the banzuke, the official rankings of sumo wrestlers. Six tournaments later finds the hapless rikishi dropping down to the 4th division in the sumo hierarchy, sandanme. The chart below may be helpful, bearing in mind that the top division is named makuuchi. The way back to the top will take some time.

I know Asanoyama's offences are serious, and he had paid a high price for them, but I wish him well. He is an interesting wrestler and in my opinion, has yokozuna potential. The current troika of ozeki are underperforming and need pressure from below to raise their standard.

Gambatte Asanoyama!

Below - happier days. (courtesy, The Japan Times)

When I was reading the weather for Sydney on air yesterday, the forecast was for "gusty showers." I don't know about you, but that that is a rather gloomy prognostication, for rain blowing sideways and every other which-way is difficult enough to negotiate. Umbrellas are useless and the body is plastered by fast-moving pellets of water.

Speaking of which, a long time ago when I was an undergraduate at UNSW, we were experiencing similar conditions one day. A friend of mine, an Englishman whom I seem to have  lost contact with (David Llewellyn Evans, where are you?), had just purchased a brand new portable umbrella.

On its maiden outing, the wind whipped it inside out as he opened it, ripping the material from the struts. Calm as anything and without a word, he plonked it in the nearest bin. He knew how to be funny and cool at the same time!