Since we don’t live by politics alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
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We went back to the district where I grew up, about 400 km NW of Brisbane. The place was settled 100 years ago by some Germans from the Barossa Valley. A large pastoral lease was being broken up and made available for group settlement.
One of the families was the family my mother grew up in as a foster child, being surplus to requirements when she appeared on the planet. The farm is still owned by the great-grandchildren of the original family.
On Saturday evening the available Bahnisches had dinner (it’s still called “tea” out there) at my cousin’s place – diverse members of 9 families.
So an excellent time was had by all.
There’s water everywhere lying on the paddocks on the Darling Downs. My cousin grew the best crop of wheat ever, but at this stage the stems are rotting and the grain heads are falling on the ground. Looks as though summer crops simply won’t get planted.
But the towns are in good shape. Mining stirring everywhere.
I’ve been reading Paul Kelly’s ‘mongrel memoir’ How to Make Gravy. No superlative can suffice. Run, don’t walk, etc.
Brian, Wow. Sounds great. I went for a run along the Brisbane River. I love the cool, wet weather. Oh, and I found this:
For Sydneysiders, Paul Kelly will be doing an in-store at Redeye Records, King St, 5pm Oct 13.
Spent most of the weekend reading (still) Peter H. Wilson’s Europe’s Tragedy. A New History of the Thirtyu years’ War. History how it should be wrote, I reckon. I’m a close reader anyway, but the book is huge, the print is small, and even with glasses, my eyesight is poor. So its taking a while. Still, its worth it.
Watched Stephen Fry, Poirot on Sunday Night. Will leave it to my Catholic friends to tell me about Mary McKillop. (I think one of them is going to Rome. So he’ll be round with a bottle of white when he gets back.)
Numbers! My newest great-grandson was born 11-10-10 at 1am. All well. I’m heading over to Currency Ck to see a mate so it was good timing too. The latest ute is back in action after extensive ‘roo damage. As much as one hates to run into animals on the road, when a ‘roo leaps off an embankment and lands directly in front there’s little hope of avoiding a collision. Three times now in 20yrs and that’s taking care and using knowledge of regular crossings and ultra-caution dawn and dusk. Visitors to the area play RR with the wildlife and attempts to signpost problem areas is met with disappearance of the signs.
More numbers. We went from a zero anorexic trade name doll household to a five anorexic trade name doll household in a matter of minutes on sat. well the Hbomb will only be 4 once.
Because of the fantastic rain we had here in Melbourne, and the advent of the warmer weather the hedge in the front of our house really shoot up so I spent Sunday afternoon clipping it and put it back into shape. Also I tried to create some shape in one of the section where the hedge was damaged and almost killed by our ex-neighbours as revenge after we successfully got them evicted.
The weekend started well after watching an entertaining match of Association Football between Melbourne Hearts and Melbourne Victory. It was the first Melbourne Derby and the atmosphere was great. Victory lost, but I think ‘football was the winner’ to use a cliche.
Went to the sacred island of Miyajima with the newly-beloved and her children. It’s a public holiday long weekend (“National Health and Sports Day”), so the place was crowded. Very crowded.
And wild deer wandering everywhere.
The boy fell into the creek, so his little sister then had to do the same, and later she wailed because she was cold and her clothes were all wet.
By the time we got back to the township the tide had gone out and we could walk out to the giant Torii, where the children wanted to pick up and take home all the small coins that others had left there as offerings to the gods.
All in all, it was a good day.
Finally got some seeds into punnets after a recent trip to Melbourne.
The minister’s wife was telling me how her 7-month-old has been howling for hours at night. I asked if he could be teething. She put her finger in and felt a tooth near the surface. Two minutes later a little old lady wanders up and says, “Oh, look at those red cheeks! He’s teething, isn’t he?”
Watched The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (Is Tilda Swinton the poor filmmaker’s Cate Blanchett?) Now reading the boys the sequel my 5yo calls Prince Capsicum
dylan @ 7, I went hunting for the story about the little girls who decapitated their dolls, dipped the heads in chocolate, and handed them around at a family afternoon tea party. No luck, but I thought you might like this.
Wonderful news, Zorronsky! Congratulations! What a propitious birthday for him. No one in the family has any excuse to forget it.
Patricia WA @ 12. Binary Boy!
Cripes Zorronsky, you’ve had an up and down time of it of late.
Great to hear some good news.
thanks Fiona, Dr H and i have bets on as to how long it will be before we get something like that.
Congrats Zorronsky.
Saturday was spent at the Pride fairday in Northbridge and getting a bit sloshed with a friend afterwards, Sunday was cold and wet in Perth so I had a movie marathon. A pretty good weekend all round.
Friday and Saturday I was back at my old Uni with my son who was there to sit the SAT. I hadn’t been back for more than 20 years so it was interesting to see the changes there. And bought a coffee mug as a souvenir – heaven forbid that the only thing I would get from there would be a degree
I am so sad to learn of the death of Joan Sutherland. Truly a superb voice, and apparently a nice woman as well.
18, That struck you, too!
Almost like losing an empress, or Helen Clark of NZ, too significant to not contemplate and a testament to what a person with some character can accomplish in a life.
A letter to the ABC’s old “Backchat” programme, years ago, ruined Joan Sutherland for me.
The writer said he had tuned in to watch “The Daughter of the Regiment”, in which Joan Sutherland played the role of a 16-year-old girl who was adopted by an entire Ruritanian regiment.
But he encountered a “Daughter of the Regiment”, played by Joan Sutherland who looked more like this.
That’s a pity, Terangeree. The only time I ever saw La Stupenda live was at the St Kilda Palais in 1979 (which might even have been my first opera in Melbourne) performing in The Merry Widow. She was 53, a statuesque woman with a large nose and larger jaw (cruel people would say that you could see her jaw emerge from the wings several seconds before the rest her appeared) – but she had such stagecraft, such presence – and such a magnificent voice – that she was for the duration of the performance completely convincing.
Unlike Birgit Nilsson, whom I saw perform Tosca at the Vienna Opera – also in 1979, oddly enough. The juxtaposition of the the sixty-something prima donna and the thirty-something artiste just didn’t do it for me (but then Nilsson always acknowledged that the Italian roles were not her forte). (Wish I’d seen Callas do it – with Tito Gobi and Giuseppi di Stefano…)
Tut tut, rest of her…
Terangeree, a reminder of what public broadcasting was in its hayday in the eighties. The symphony, ballet and operatic concerts were a regular highlight for ABC viewers, usually on Sunday nights. To me it’s a quirky thing that Sutherland’s death seems like the end of an era, as roughly with Nellie Melba a century ago.
Yeah, well, Paul Walter, you noes what us arty farties are like. Latte, cardonnay (delib) anyone?
We seem to be so proud of Oz “punching above its weight” in sport – even in foreign affairs! Why the heck can’t we be equally (if not more) proud of all those wondrous people who contribute to all ( I repeat, all) other aspects of our cultural life?
Paul Kelly (no no no, not the zarkon of oz); Richard Tognietti; Sid Nolan; Patrick White (down, Dr Malcolm, down, sirrah!); Peter Carey; Graham Pushee (his last performance in Melbourne circa 1996 of Julius Caesar was to die for). Not to mention all our outstanding researchers – Gus Nossal, Fiona Stanley, Geoffrey Gurumul Yunupingu, Peter Doherty – why the hell do we seem to be either oblivious or (worse) embarrassed by these fantastic fantastic people?
How to change the mindset? How to get recognition where it is due?
Oops, Brian – pleese (when you have a spare moment) – remove accidental italics…
…. and Geoffrey Gurumul Yunupingu should have been in the preceding paragraph.
Too much editing of honours theses today, obviously. More obviously, time for bed.
Just out of curiosity, Brian, where were the Bahnisches before the Barossa? My husband’s family also emigrated from east/central Europe (once Austro-Hungarian, once German, now – if I remember rightly – Polish) mid-19th century (but definitely Lutheran – hence the exile). One scion (or the female equivalent thereof) landed in Murray Bridge, and the rest, as they say, is history.