Festivities and festivals

Hey, Happy New Year everyone (okay, both of you).
We brought in the New Year in the same old run-of-the-mill way—fireworks, champagne, a request played on (Albany) local radio, and harness racing (a.k.a. trotting). For those of you who know little or nothing about harness racing (which, I admit, was a category to which I belonged up until the last few hours of 2011—now, though, I am an expert on the subject) I can tell you that it is a bit like chariot racing but without the spikes in the wheels, or the armour, or Charlton Heston… there was however a Mr Whippy ice cream van. Basically a (not necessarily healthy looking) horse pulls a lightweight buggy which is occupied by a (not necessarily lightweight) driver. Indeed, the drivers come in all shapes, sizes, genders and ages. One of my big gambling successes (I recouped $2.20 from a $2.00 bet) came when an octogenarian skilfully steered an unlikely looking equine specimen from last to (short) second in the finishing straight. It was a really fun night but I decided against standing everyone in the bar a drink with my winnings from the last race of the evening… $1.90.
I should have pointed out (probably several paragraphs ago) that we were on our summer holidays over the New Year period—spending the best part of a week with our friends, Chris and Jackie, in Albany. I would like to say a big thank you to them for being fantastic hosts and excellent tour guides. They know where all the best beaches, walks, fish and chip shops and wineries are. There were a couple of things that we saw (which I don’t think they prearranged) that were of extra interest (and I’m not talking about the topless lady at Elephant rocks)… the most remarkable of which was seeing a man manoeuvre his seven foot pole through the Porongorup region. Truly, there was a bloke carrying the afore-mentioned accessory up a very steep incline to the top of Castle rock and believe me that is no mean feat. It has to be said that Castle rock looks even less like a Castle than Elephant rocks look like elephants, just in case you were wondering—I have to admit though that Dog Rock does indeed bare a passing resemblance to a dog’s head), I personally failed to make it to the wind ravaged summit of (not very) Castle(like) rock due to my lack of a backbone or fear of heights… whichever you prefer. I got most of the way up but failed to reach the top, as you will be able to see when you get the next set of photos (Wendy is editing them as we speak… you ought to see how good the 600 pics she has thrown away are). I should point out that, despite looks to the contrary, I’m not clinging desperately to the rock afraid to move. In fact what I was doing was bravely making sure that the 100 ton rock that has stood there for millennia didn’t fall on passers by. Wendy, the kids, the bloke with his enormous pole, and a couple of three year-olds all managed to squeeze past me in order to make their ascent.
George continued his climbing feats, later in the holiday, when he scaled the 60m tall (196.850 393 7 feet) Gloucester tree. By that time we were in Pemberton, which used to be a logging town, and still boasts some very tall trees, but these days relies more on tourism. We stayed in the, fantastic, Old Picture Theatre—the only surviving purpose built wooden cinema in WA, it has been converted into holiday flats… we weren’t kipping in the aisles or anything like that. It did still have a couple of the original wooden flip-up seats though—complete with the obligatory piece of chewing stuck to the underside. Whilst in Pemberton, we also turned our hand to trout fishing. I prepared for the activity by reading ‘Fly fishing’ by J.R.Hartley, watching ‘The Best of Fishomania’, readying my rod, and playing with my flies. All this preparation was unnecessary though because this was a trout farm where the pampered fish had spent their whole life being fed pellets, that bear more than just a passing resemblance to the substance we were supplied with as bait. You would expect that this would tilt the odds heavily in favour of the angler but there weren’t many fish being caught the morning we were there. That was until George discovered the ‘golden peg’, the spot by the inlet… he pulled three out in quick succession. Luckily, I managed to bag one (the biggest of the four… it was huge) with the last cast of the day otherwise we would never have heard the last of it from George.
We ended our holiday at the Southbound festival in Busselton. For those of you who know little or nothing about Southbound, I can tell you that it’s absolutely nothing like chariot racing. It is, in fact, a two day festival featuring music luminaries such as Arts Martial, Papa vs Pretty and Split Seconds. It was an over 18s event—so we took George and Harriet. It’s okay, don’t panic, your memory isn’t playing tricks on you the kids are still only 11 and 13 (although there are scary moments when they both seem a lot older—especially when Hattie gets dressed up to go somewhere). We were allowed to take them as long as we filled in a family registration form in which we agreed that they wouldn’t drink alcohol (which was a no-brainer… at those prices), wouldn’t take drugs (especially not the brown acid*) and that we would keep them with us at all times. This last point meant that when I went to the kebab van, they had to go to the kebab van, when I gawped at the ubiquitous ‘festival lesbians’ they had to gawp at the ubiquitous ‘festival lesbians’, and when I watched (Crowded House’s) Tim Finn they had to… ask if they could go to the other stage with their mother.
The only real restriction on us, because of the kids being under age, was that we weren’t allowed to camp… bummer. Instead we stayed at a Comfort Inn (ten minutes walk away from the festival site) and had to be content with a toilet that didn’t overflow, comfortable beds, an air conditioned room, and a shower with hot water (and a frog—but that’s a story for another day).
The musical highlights of the two days were: Beirut—complete with trumpets, accordion, trombone, French horn and Sousaphone; Arctic Monkeys—with Alex Turner trying to look like Elvis, but bearing a greater resemblance to Frankie Dettori; and Fleet Foxes—sublime. But the stand-out act, as voted for by 75% of the audience (okay, 75% of our household) was Aloe Blacc—beyond cool. Fantastic voice, brilliant band (more brass) and the backdrop of a beautiful sunset… magical.
Non-musical highlights included: Harriet discovering the beardy weirdie, trippy hippy section of the site… and getting hair braids as a result; George being afforded legendary status by many a festival goer; the exploding condom (don’t worry I’m not about to make an announcement); and a demonstration of ‘Festival Rule’ no. 35. For those of you who know little or nothing about ‘Festival Rule’ no. 35, I can tell you it states that: a woman is allowed to sit on someone’s shoulders (for one song only) but a man sat on someone’s shoulders is a legitimate target and is to be bombarded with bottles, cans, shoes and small people (it happened, believe me). Obviously, as this is a festival it is unlikely that the bottles (full as they are) still contain their original contents. I should point out that rule 35c (iii) states that a woman at the top of a triple decker is a fair-dinkum target. We saw one such woman, who was on her mobile phone at the time—George pointed out that it was probably the best way of getting a phone signal.
Before I go I should tell you that, during our holiday, we saw an advert announcing that all 234 episodes of ‘Flying Doctors’ are now available on DVD for the very first time. Strewth! I wonder how many episodes there are where the potentially disastrous situation is further complicated by ‘the water being up at Coopers Creek’. At least half, I reckon.
Your essential 5 tracks for this week are: The Trout (Die Forelle) by Franz Schubert; Cornerstone by Arctic Monkeys; Oh Well, That’s What You Get Falling In Love With A Cowboy by Lanie Lane; Hanging In The Wire by PJ Harvey; Green Lights by Aloe Blacc.

*Always good to get in a Woodstock reference—I never claimed that the blog was topical.

Kiss and Drop

Whilst on my run this morning I passed a school (actually I should probably have re-worded that a bit so it didn’t sound quite so much like I was having very unusual bowel movements). Most schools over here are designed to have what’s called a ‘Kiss and Drive’ area—basically it’s a series of bays where you can park, temporarily, just long enough to give your offspring a peck on the cheek, bundle them out of the car, and then drive on. Well, the school I ran passed today had a ‘Kiss and Drop’ area. I am guessing that this is just another name for the same thing, but I can’t say for certain. It’s just that the school I attended (way back when) had a “Kiss and Drop’ area, but it was a totally different set up. It was alleged (In fact I’m pretty sure it was proved, but we’ll stay with alleged to be on the safe side) that some of the female pupils were performing certain acts of a lude nature in return for the handing over of dinner money. Unfortunately I only ever had packed lunches… and there wasn’t much they’d do in return for a cheese and pickle sandwich.
I believe I covered a distance of 21.41592653589793km on the run, but it’s only a guesstimate because I don’t have a fancy-pants phone with an app that tells you:
how far you ran;
how fast you ran,
how fast you completed each km;
how many calories you burnt;
that it saw you looking at that lady jogger’s ‘south facing aspect; and
don’t think I don’t know that, between the 13 and 21 km marks, you went by bus.
For those of you who still work in old money 21km is a bloody long way, or 13 miles… whichever you prefer. I’m quite in to this running lark now—it’s all Wendy’s fault, she started running about 18 months ago and for reasons that I can’t quite remember now, I started on Christmas Eve last year. Well, it's not her fault entirely—Michael Palin has to take some of the blame as well (I realise I should probably explain that one but I’m not going to). We (including Hattie and George) all participated in the ‘City to Surf’ at the end of August. Wendy and George did the 12km run… George was horrified to be beaten by his mum, but as Wendy trained for it and George didn’t it was no great surprise. Hattie and her friend did the 4km ‘chat’, and I did the half marathon (which, as I’m sure you will have figured out by now, is 21km). I am planning on doing one of them there full marathon thingys next year (that’s 42km for all of the accountants reading this).
I should point out that the large gap between blogs was partly down to the running, partly down to the fact that I’m now coaching George’s cricket team (I think it’s fair to say that if the future of Australian cricket is in my hands then the Ashes could be staying in England for some time to come), and partly due to the fact that I’ve been dabbling in the dark arts… yes I am now on Facebook.

Any Road Up

We are just back from our hols - a road trip up north - a journey of more than 2000kms all told. I know some of you will be struggling to convert that to miles so I’ve done some calculations on your behalf. It comes out at 238,857 miles which is basically the distance from the earth to the moon. Actually that doesn’t sound quite right, just bear with me a sec whilst I double check my sums. You may want to hold your nose because I’ve run out of fingers to count on so the shoes and socks are going to have to come off for this one. Okay, that looks a bit more realistic it’s approximately 1250 miles which is the equivalent of Land’s End to John O’ Groats and back again and then back up to Penzance again just for good measure. Its also the same as driving from Maltby to Rotherham and back 99 times and then back to Brinsworth again for good measure. Hope that helps everyone to visualise it.
As we were only away for 6 days in total you may be forgiven for thinking that we must have spent the entire time sat in the car. You can also be forgiven you for wondering why we would want to travel so far. And you can also be forgiven for thinking that it would be madness to have your main family holiday in the middle of winter. However, you can’t be forgiven for wearing polka dots with stripes.. what were you thinking?
So, where did we go on this here road trip and was it worth it all that driving?’ Well, we went oop north. We started in a place called Kalbarri, whose Town motto is ‘You’ll love it’ (which I took to be more of an order), and boasts of some amazing scenery. I’m always cautious when I’m told that famous landmarks have to be seen to be believed even especially if it means adding unnecessary mileage onto the trip. I can pinpoint, exactly, when this ‘tourist’ scepticism began (Warning, I’m about to go off on a different tack here… no wonder we ended up doing more than 2000 kms with my inability to stay on course). Did I ever tell you the, cautionary, tale of our canal boat trip to Llangollen and the legendary Horseshoe falls? No, well… back in the days B.C. (before children), Wendy and I (it was before marriage as well), along with Bob n’ Caz, Pete n’ Hayley, Chas n’ Dave, Pepsi n’ Shirley, and Roy Rogers n’ Trigger (despite there being a strictly no pets policy on the vessel) took a boating holiday around the canal systems of Cheshire and that there North Wales. If I recall rightly we picked up the ubiquitous Una Stubbs somewhere around Nantwich. Anyway, as you can imagine, we spent the first half of the week toiling through locks, tunnels, other boats (they really should have had the good sense to get out of the way) and canal-side pubs. It was at this point that we chanced upon the picturesque town of Llangollen (I say chanced upon, but as it’s name would suggest the ‘Llangollen canal’ does in fact only go to Llangollen). Several hundred other folk, with 70ft long boats, had all chanced upon it as well which meant we were forced to park-up (I’ve a vague notion that the proper term may by ‘moor’) about a mile, or-so, outside town (having failed to find the local NCP for narrow boats). So we trekked into Llangollen, passing several signs on the way informing us that we were just a short walk from the mighty Horseshoe Falls. The group wasn’t of one mind as to whether we should make this additional journey to view this wonder of nature, but eventually we decided (having counselled a passer-by for his opinion) that we should make the de-tour. As this was B.C., the task of moaning continuously and asking whether it was much further was divided equally between us. Eventually, shortly before nightfall, we arrived at the ‘Horsehoe Falls’! Disappointing doesn’t really describe it. It was indeed in the shape of a horseshoe but it was more of a ‘stumble’ than a ‘fall’. It was generally felt that a more accurate name for the site would be ‘Horseshoe please mind your step’. The only way it could be described as breathtaking would be to take into account the 2 mile walk that we had just undertaken to get there.
There was none of that this time… the scenery is indeed amazing. The gorges along the Murchison river are 150ft deep (high?) in places and we enjoyed a fantastic walk over/through/around them. It was so interesting, in fact, that the kids forgot about their duties of moaning continuously and asking whether it was much further… despite the fact that we may have got slightly lost at one point and Harriet sustained a mild ankle strain along the way. She may, however, have mentioned the pain and agony, she was enduring, a couple of times en route.
So we did indeed love Kalbarri despite the fact that Monday was a bit of a wash out. Some heavy afternoon showers meant that we were forced to have indoor playtime. We ended up playing charades - based on the contents of our ipod. I can’t see the concept making it on to TV (unless we can somehow build in a house makeover/cooking/talent contest element into it) but it passed an hour or so. George’s mime for ‘Echo and the Bunnymen’ was inspired but his effort to do (the rather straightforward) ‘10 Global Deejays Ft Technotronic’ was poor to say the least. I called a premature end to the proceedings when faced with trying to convey the song ‘Monster Pussy’ by the Vaselines using only the medium of mime.
I know you’ve probably only just finished laughing at the last lot of photos we sent out (I refer mainly to the 70s disco)* but by the time you read this blog we will have also sent out the holiday snaps. You may well notice that the photos all have a similar theme. The vast majority of them are either of: incredible scenery, Harriet (who is by far the most photogenic of us all), or dolphins… in fact some of the pics are a combination of all three. The only slight disappointment on the trip was the fact that we went all the way to Shark Bay and we didn’t see a single shark…hundreds of bloody Dolphins and a Dugong (sea cow to you. Apparently sailors used to mistake them for mermaids… can’t see it myself, even accounting for the wearing of full-strength beer goggles.) but not a shark… not so much as a dorsal fin, or even scary music. There are sharks in Shark Bay… it’s not just a clever bit of marketing. In fact, there are several species (more than 30) in the bay including Tiger Sharks (which as you have probably guessed from the name don’t make great pets). But as the most common species in the area is the Nervous Shark (Carcharhinus cautus) it may explain why they didn’t make an appearance. It’s not that we didn’t try to attract them - we went on a trip on a Catamaran where they encourage the kids to sit in the boom net at the back of the boat… if that’s not shark bait I don’t know what is!
Actually, now I come to think of it, we did come into contact with sharks… namely the petrol stations that charge 40 cents a litre more than normal simply because they can. There isn’t a lot of room for manoeuvre when there’s the best part of 100 km between petrol stations.
Anyway, next winter we are planning on driving even further up the coast… to Coral Bay. Not sure what’s there, I really hope they’ve got a small water feature in the shape of a horseshoe.

* I should point out that it is totally accidental that there are two painted ladies on one of the Australia Day photos of Harriet. I hadn’t actually intended to get Hattie in there at all.

Wet and Wild

There is a local saying that goes ‘you know you’ve become an Aussie the first time you see a kangaroo attempt to car-jack a moving vehicle’. Okay, I may have paraphrased the saying slightly, either that or completely made it up (I always get those two mixed up).
Anyway I think I must be an Aussie now because I believe I witnessed just such an incident last weekend... and no I hadn’t been going hard at the amber nectar prior to the event (though I may have had a few after the incident just to steady my nerves). Right, it’s going to be hard to explain the exact scenario without the use of diagrams, mathematical formulae, molecular models, and/or Swedish models (they are an optional extra), but I’ll give it a go. At approximately 4.37 pm, I was travelling south along Joondalup Drive towards the Hodges Drive intersection at 67.3333* (recurring) kph. I was proceeding with extra caution due to the fact that this event took place in a torrential downpour (we’ve had several of late - more of which later). I then slowed down further at the traffic lights and, because I intended to turn right, I positioned myself in the right-hand filter lane as per the correct road-using protocol. Bored yet? Oh you will be, I haven’t even started to describe what the other 9 lanes of traffic were doing. Okay, I’ll skip that and get straight on to Skippy who emerged, stage left, from a small section of bush and proceeded to hop across two lanes of fast moving traffic. Having somehow negotiated this hazard he continued on across the median strip and into the next set of vehicles which were slowing up because they were approaching a red light (you will note that, this too, is the correct procedure according to the Highway Code). Right, now this is where interpretations of the incident start to differ. I, personally, saw a very large kangaroo attempt to car-jack a vehicle by trying to force entry via the rear door. Harriet and Lucy, who were passengers in my car at the time, saw a not particularly bright marsupial being unable to understand that this traffic wasn’t travelling as quickly as the previous two lanes that he had encountered and as a result careered into the back of the car. And clearly our interpretation would have been completely different to that of the (unfortunate) driver of the car that received the untimely redesign of its rear end. After taking a moment to collect his thoughts the driver got out of his car to get the details of the occupant in the vehicle immediately behind him - let’s face it he was going to need all the help he could get persuading the insurance company that he needed a whole new back panel and rear light configuration because a rogue Kangaroo had run amuck in the middle of Joondalup. After taking a moment to collect his thoughts, and the makers badge off the boot, the Kangaroo dusted himself down, successfully negotiated the last two lanes of traffic and sought shelter in a small section of bushland on the other side of the road (which was presumably greener than the bush that he had just left behind).
At this point the lights turned green, and after checking my rear-view mirror and disengaging the handbrake I moved away and headed along Hodges as far as St Michaels Drive.
The Kangaroo may well be an Aussie icon but they don’t half cause a dent when they decide to have an argument with your car. My car is equipped with ‘roo’ bars on the front - I’m thinking of having them fitted at the rear, and the sides as well just for good measure.
Talking of Aussie icons, Wendy and Harriet went to see pint-sized Kylie last week. Apparently she puts on a half-decent show. She did well to even get here because flights all over Australia have been disrupted, for the last couple of weeks, by a volcanic ash cloud being created by a Chilean volcano (funnily enough). The support band failed to make it to the show due to their flight being cancelled. So, I’m guessing that Ms Minogue must have overcome the problem by coming on the bus. Wendy said there was a very good light show and lots, and lots of water... cascades, fountains etc. She said that the word that best summed up the whole night was... gay! There were definitely more homosexual men there than pre-teen girls. Hattie loved it - for Kylie and the songs though, not for the gay guys.
A couple of nights later me and George headed into the city to watch a NRL (rugby league) match between South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Brisbane Broncos. Just in case you were wondering, the Rabbitohs were the home side, by virtue of the fact that they are only a four hour flight from Perth as opposed to the four and-a-half-hour journey to Brisbane (that’s when there are actually flights available). We got to the ground a good hour before kick-off, and were just tucking into our healthy salad (with a small garnish of kebab meat and pita bread) when the heavens opened. We received 30mm of rain in just half-an-hour - most of it went straight down my shirt collar. Unfortunately, stadiums in WA have been built with the idea that you don’t need protection from the elements. There are no roofs on the stands, so in summer you fry in direct sunlight and in winter you get wet. And, as I may have mentioned previously, umbrellas (along with bottled water, Christopher Biggins, and hand guns) are banned from all Aussie stadiums. By the time the game kicked off, the rate of the rain had eased so that it was only coming down like stair-rods. We reached saturation point somewhere around the eight minute mark but managed to tough it out to half-time. When we were treated to another deluge shortly into the second half we decided to swim for home. Clearly, if the administrators had taken into account the best interests of the fee-paying public then the game would never have gone ahead. But as the game was being televised, the lowly, slightly bedraggled spectator was never really going to be given much consideration.
Back-tracking a little, the same evening as the kangaroo incident in fact, Wendy and I had an enjoyable evening at the 70’s Disco. Well, I say 70’s but it actually turned out to be 70s and 80s. I think they had deliberately not told us the 80s bit because they didn’t want to see me dressed up as Adam Ant, Boy George or Madonna. The event took place in the Joondalup Reception Centre and there was a strict no-kangaroo policy. It was very much in the style of a ‘School Disco’ but with slightly less booze and drugs. The highlight of the evening (apart from Princess Leah and Catwoman) was seeing Gandhi carrying three bottles of beer. That, and watching Wendy persuade the (youngish, Aussie) DJ that if he played ‘Oops up side yer head’ the dance floor wouldn’t clear but would indeed be full of people sitting on it pretending to row a boat. ‘Bewildered’ best described the look on the DJ’s face when that was indeed what happened. The same DJ did incredibly well to give the impression that there had been a difficult decision to be made before handing the ‘Best Women’s Costume’ prize to Catwoman. His decision to give the Men’s prize to the ‘Incredible Hulk’ was slightly more controversial, mainly because most people thought he was meant to be a ninja turtle. Gandhi was robbed.
Surprisingly, in this age of the proliferation of mobile recording devices, there are absolutely no photos available of me dressed as a punk - complete with nose ring. I am told that I got the look right but I just couldn’t ‘do’ the attitude. When I bumped into people I would immediately apologise. Maybe I should take lessons from the car-jacking kangaroos.
Until next time,
H

*as you will no doubt be aware the speed limit on this part of Joondalup Drive is 70kph.

Groovy

My wife and I, and young Master George went to one of those ‘pop’ festivals, for young people, last Saturday. The weirdest thing happened (actually the whole experience was both odd, enjoyable and more than just a little bit of an eye opener)... I was asked to show some photo ID!? I was slightly taken aback at first and could only think that they must have had a rule of not letting people over 45 years of age in (I was clearly a borderline case). If they did have such a policy it proved very successful because there were absolutely no ‘upper middle-aged’ people on the entire site... apart from maybe a couple of members of ‘House of Pain’.

For reasons that never really became clear the festival was called ‘Groovin’ the Moo’. It was actually an all-ages event – so we didn’t have to cobble together a fake ID card in order to get George in (although he appeared to have one of his own already... which is just a little bit worrying). The ID was, in fact, needed to get a wrist band that allowed access to the special bar area – which is just a fancy pants term for a piece of grass, behind a fence, with a beer tent... not special at all really. The only conceivable reason I can see for the inclusion of these areas at festivals is to create dangerous bottlenecks that wouldn’t otherwise be there - and it that respect they work a treat.

It’s certainly interesting being at a festival with your 13-year-old son. We soon discovered that we both had something that the other one wanted. George wanted to be six feet two in order to see more of the performances, and I just wanted some of the attractive women (actually just one would have done) that stopped to chat to George to talk to me instead. Alas we were both left frustrated, however George will grow taller whereas I...

Obviously there were some signs of immaturity; for instance, when we passed the stand where they were handing out condoms there was embarrassed sniggering and blushes. But then George told me to pull myself together... yes I know you could see that one coming a mile off (thinking about it, that might not be the best phrase to use in this context). They were also using a prop (which seemed slightly oversized to me) to demonstrate how to put on the product they were distributing. We didn’t see it but they must also have been demonstrating the proper use of them because all of the bands had masses of ‘condom balloons’ floating passed them during their performance.

And another thing I noticed was that, like the last festival I went to, there were an awful lot of people on crutches there. At first this prompted in me a feeling of sympathy towards these poor unfortunates whose enjoyment of the festivities was being marred by their inability to manoeuvre freely around the site. And then, the ‘cynic synapse’ inside my brain kicked in and I suddenly thought ‘if you wanted to get a sizeable quantity of drugs into an event, wouldn’t the best thing to use be an innocent looking hollow tube of some sort?’ Look, I’m not saying that they were all dealing amphetamines but I just think that it’s unlikely that that morning all the invalids in the area got up and thought ‘you know what? I reckon I’ll head down and check out the Go! Team at ‘the Moo’ this arvo’. Next time you are at a festival make sure you look out for all the people on crutches and then report back to me.

So, (6 paragraphs in) was the music any good? Well some of it was, some of it was a tad disappointing (the Drums, and the ‘drug dealers’ favourites the Go! Team) some of it I just didn’t get – but ‘the kids’ loved it. The highlight of the day (according to the review in this week’s Music Paper) was a couple of DJ’s who were doing unspeakable things, involving rapping and sampling, to a Beatles track (I think it was ‘Come Together’ but it was so mashed up it was nigh on impossible to properly identify it). Call me a bluff old traditionalist if you like but I still prefer my music to be performed by ‘4 skinny indie kids’ - on guitars.

It was at this point, towards the end of the evening, that I was reminded of a lyric penned by the great Jarvis Cocker, namely: ‘Is this the way they say the futures meant to feel or just 20,000 people standing in a field?’ I came to the conclusion that it’s probably the case that once your kids start going to festivals then you should stop attending.

The Social Service candidates amongst you will have been thinking,’ hang on a minute, if the three of you were stood in the middle of a football oval down in Bunbury where was young Harriet? Well – you nanny state do-gooder you – she was staying with one of her friends from dancing. Although to be honest we could just have left her in bed and she would have slept all day. On Friday afternoon she came back from School Camp and looked like she hadn’t slept at all in the three days she had been away.

By all accounts she had a great time, although wasn’t altogether keen on the part where they dissected a fish. You see, it’s a long time ago, but when I went on my School Camp to Malham Dale I don’t remember once having to perform surgery on a Sturgeon. I was however forced to eat Kendall mint cake, which in my opinion is far more horrible and stomach churning than chopping up a Chubb. Actually I don’t see how she can have had a better time than I had in Malham. as I recall we had thick fog and cowpats, she just seems to have had zip wires, sea life centres and sherbet pips.

Her flute playing is going from strength-to-strength. The school band is now practicing ‘Supercalifragalrock’ (no, that’s not right), SuperCallygoballisticCelticareatrocius, (no, that’s not right either), SouporCauli.... oh, you know, that song from Mary Poppins.

Do you remember how some time ago (about three paragraphs), I said that when your kids start going to festivals then its time, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (I sound like Yul Brynner)... well. Me and George are planning on going to another festival in July – Jarvis Cocker’s Pulp are coming all the way from Sheffield for ‘On the Bright Side’ so it seems rude not to go after they’ve made all that effort.

To mark this occasion I’ll leave you with 5 essential tunes from Steel City artists.
1: 59 Lyndhurst Grove – Pulp, 2: I Remember Moonlight – The Crookes, 3: The Look of Love – ABC, 4: Mardy Bum – Arctic Monkeys; 5: She Said – Longpigs.
Wot no Def Leppard

There is a light that never goes out

My wife and I have been invited to a '70s' party. I'm seriously hoping that '70s' is the theme of the evening and not the average age of the attendees. I'm yet to see an official invite but am led to believe that we are expected to dress-up (or down)in appropriate garb. As you are all aware the 1970s (as opposed to the 1870s... which funnily enough, my wardrobe is more suited to) is the decade that taste forgot.The way I see it is that the choices regarding dressing up are:
1) Glam Rock Platform heels, gold lame cat suits, glitter, long hair, flares.
2) Disco Saturday Night Fever style white suits, flares.
3) Bay City Rollers Tartan, denim, more long hair, more flares.
4) Punk* Nuf said
Personally I'm favouring the latter choice. Apart from anything else it's the lazy option - all I need is some skinny fit jeans, a bin liner and several gallons of hair gel.. oh yeah, and some hair, My biggest quandary is whether to dye my hair blue or red for the occasion.
My only reservation, with going to the party as a punk, is that I did it once before, albeit 30 years ago, and it had the effect of making me irresistible to women (no, honestly, no don't laugh). On that occasion it was a general fancy dress party. As I recall, amongst the revellers, there was a French onion seller, an Andy Pandy, and a Wee Willy Winky (well it was a very cold night). On the bus ride home I had my first proper snog... with Aunt Sally (it was a girl dressed as the character from Wurzel Gummidge, I hasten to add, and not a member of my own family). I think it's safe to assume that I'll be able to avoid such incidents this time around - for a start we are walking to the event so I won't have to come home by bus.
Talking of punk - the Royal Wedding achieved phenomenal viewing figures over hers - over a quarter of the population watched it by all accounts. We had the pictures on TV but with the volume turned down and a soundtrack provided by my iPod. This meant that at one stage there were a couple of nuns in Westminster Abbey who appeared to be lip-sinking to 'Anarchy in the UK' by the Pistols... a nice touch I thought. (Coming up later - find out how my iPod caused me earache of a different kind.)
As you know, by now, I don't like to conform to popular opinion so I won't pass comment on the major talking points of the Wedding - apart from to say... Pippa - yes, the Ferguson girls - no (not with a barge pole, not even when wearing my best full-strength beer goggles). Just one thing though, Kate's (gawd bless 'er) dress was described in some quarters as being Grace Kellyesque. I would have to say that it was more Lorraine Kellyesque (I was going to say Matthew Kellyesque, but that might be a bit harsh). Oh, and one more thing, the BBC Sport website described the Wedding as a 'dry run' for next summer's Olympics... how so? Has the sport of man-handling the aging Duke of Edinburgh into a coach been added to the itinerary for the London Games? If so, is it too late to get tickets?
WARNING: IPods can seriously damage your ears as well as your hearing. Let me elaborate. I was returning home from work, walking back from the railway station (I'm good like that... combining first-class exercise with saving the planet) and it was a Tuesday - it's not important to the story but is true none-the-less. Anyway, I was just crossing the footbridge listening to my iPod (I was listening to my iPod, not the footbridge) when I was set upon by a bee (that may, or may not, have been called Eric). Without a by or leave the bee stung me on the right ear lobe and then flew off - which was quite a feat seeing as it left half of its body attached to the sting, which was in turn attached to my ear. I can only think that the buzz and pitch of the music I was listening to had created a frequency that unsettled the bee, either that or he'd had a particularly bad day at the office. The song that it had objected to so violently was (ironically) 'Heather' by the Wedding Present... again, a nice touch. For a week afterwards my already sizable ear swelled to double its normal girth and for several days I was able to pick up up satellite TV channels on my lugs.
Later that same evening I managed to smash the glass in one of paintings by walking it into a door frame. I would like to blame the sting and subsequent swelling for effecting my balance and causing the accident but I think it's fair to say that my innate clumsiness and general lack of coordination were more likely to have been the overriding contributing factors. You may be asking yourself why was he walking his paintings anyway, do paintings really need to be taken down for regular exercise, aren't they just supposed to sit on walls looking pretty? All good points, to which I have no suitable reply.
Sadly, it now falls upon me to report the tragic, untimely death of my Habitat bendy lamp (Ralph). He passed away after a short illness (and a very loud bang) at the tender age of 27. Ralph was a constant companion and a reliable servant over many years having cast his radiant beam over 104 paintings, countless University projects (all of which were running behind schedule, and several of which were worked upon throughout the night), and a few nocturnal activities that shouldn't be elaborated on here (I'm sorry but if I choose to do a bit of brass rubbing of an evening then that's my business).
All of these duties were carried out despite the fact that Ralph was a very unfashionable olive green colour and had a propensity to release an acrid smell of burning if you kept him turned on for more than five minutes (what do you mean he sounds just like his owner?). Despite the severity of his initial demise, I did manage to get Ralph working again. The problem was that once I got him turned on I couldn't turn him off again (what do you mean he sounds just like his owner?). It was therefore my onerous task to make the decision to turn off his life support machine. Luckily Ralph left a Donor card so his plug and bulb will be used to help prolong the life of the toaster and the fridge. In the tradition of the old Soviet Union I have been playing sombre music constantly for 36 hours as a mark of respect (come to think of it, I have been playing sombre music constantly for 36 years). RIP Ralph 1984-2011. Irreplaceable.
By the way is Habitat still going? Do they still do bendy lamps?
H

* Even allowing for the 10,000 mile journey and the strict quarantine restrictions, punk must have arrived on these shores before the decade was out.

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and then, in walked Kylie wearing only a pair of socks and a ‘kiss me quick’ hat.
Sorry, it would appear that we have been having a few technical issues and all the fantastic blogs that I have been writing and posting since last October haven’t been making it onto the interworldwebwide thingy. I can’t think how that could have happened when I clearly have such a great grasp of this modern technology malarkey.
So, I’ll use this blog to bring you up to speed with what’s being going one. Firstly, I have to inform you that, in the missing missives, I had successfully predicted: England’s Ashes success; the death of Trevor Bannister (Mr Lucas from ‘Are you Being Served’*); Andy Murray would lose the final of the Australian Open (okay, so that foresight doesn’t make me any kind of genius); that a Kenyan would win the London Marathon – Men’s and Women’s (again, probably not a wild stab in the dark) and that the first F1 race of the season would be held in Australia due to civil unrest on a roundabout in Bahrain. I know what you’re thinking (apart from ‘you big fibber, you’), did he put his money where his mouth is and put a wager on these predictions? Well, I tried to but was thwarted by the aforementioned Internet connection problems. No, really.
Right, so what has been going on in Perth these six months past? Well, we have had a very hot and dry summer, and so far an autumn that’s going along very similar lines. We are hoping that the long Public Holiday weekend will bring the traditional ‘Bank Holiday’ rain with it.
We actually have an extra day off, for this long weekend, besides Good Friday and Easter Monday. In fact (and this is official, I haven’t just made it up) Easter Monday has been moved to Tuesday. This is to make way for ANZAC Day (always 25 April) which falls on Monday.
We aren’t getting a day off for ‘the wedding’ though, and I haven’t checked with the neighbours but I’m pretty sure that there aren’t any plans to hold a street party to mark the occasion either. It has to be said though that Will and Kate’s nuptials are getting a fair amount of coverage down here, so if you thought you could come over here to escape the media frenzy then I’m afraid you are sadly mistaken. In fact, I got to the counter at our local supermarket the other evening (I forget exactly what health food products I was purchasing) when I was confronted (in the impulse buy section) by the golden couple’s smiling faces beaming at me from a commemorative tin of shortbread. Call me an old stick-in-the-mud if you like but my impulse buys tend to be for Lion’s confectionery, Blues CD’s on the Hallmark label, and deely boppers, not $25 tins of biscuits.
Who’s doing what/when/how?
Harriet (Hattie, Princess, Treacle, Lulu... she answers to all these and more besides) is learning to torture (did I say torture? I meant play) the flute. It’s funny because the comment we get most in reaction to this news is ‘well, at least it isn’t the violin’. Actually she plays the two notes that she has been taught, so far, very well. She has also been persuaded by her music teacher (not by her pushy parents) to join the school choir. It is my job to tell her that despite all of these talents, and her dancing ability, she is never going to be allowed to audition for ‘Australian Idol’ due to my phobia to reality TV.
Hattie and Wendy have tickets to go and see Kylie in June. On this occasion Ms Minogue may be wearing a little more than socks and a ‘kiss-me-quick’ hat – a little more but probably not much more. How is it I wasn’t invited to go?
George is now a teenager, goes to secondary school, is a Surf Life Saving cadet, spends all of his pocket money on hair product, and has more contacts in his mobile phone than I do (especially the female ones).
Last term, he represented the school at a swimming carnival and finished third in the 50m breaststroke. He probably, needs a bit of improvement if he is going to make it over to London for the Olympics next year as part of the Aussie swimming squad. He’s probably got more chance of coming over as part of the cricket squad for the 2013 Ashes series though.
Wendy is two thirds of the way through her Business Migration university course. The girly swot has passed the first two units with high distinctions and is, at this very moment, reading the learning manual for the third unit which starts next week. It’s a long time since I took an exam but I’m pretty sure that my studying technique was slightly less organised and relied greatly on the right question coming up.
She was unable to get out surfing at all this summer - due to the fact that her hand injury has been slow to heal, and not because of a lack of surf or inclement weather or anything like that (they would have been my excuses).
Clearly, there must have been other things that have happened in the last six months that I have overlooked but I’ll fill in the gaps another time. My next blog may well contain flashback sequences, mindless waffle, and obscure musical references... nothing new there then.
During the writing of this blog I have been mainly listening to The Vaccines, Paul Weller, and the Wonder Stuff (next time I’ll be choosing from the X-Z section of my record collection... might be a very brief blog).
Enjoy the Easter Weekend (that’s an order).

*Is on TV here on a Tuesday night along with (wait for it)... Bargain Hunt, On the Buses, Some Mothers do ‘Ave ‘Em, To the Manor Born, Dad’s Army, and Hale and Pace.

Post mortem

Did anyone else, other than Mark, not get their invite to the barbie?
Early indications are that the invitation for the Wilkes family went astray in the postal system somewhere near Godalming - on the eastern end of the Portsmouth Road. Even though Mark didn’t get his invite (which is a shame because I’d even included the timetables of buses that run between Perth and Stratford-Upon-Avon, not for the 197 service though; because that goes via Meadowhall.) which meant he didn’t make it to the party, there was a representative from my Huddersfield Uni* days who did turn up... and I’d not even asked him to come. Actually, that’s not strictly true, I did invite him - I just told him that the party was starting five hours later than it actually did... he didn’t fall for it though. Bartlett, or Simon as I am slowly getting used to calling him, was in fine form on the night regaling everyone with his stories of encounters with kangaroos, two metre-long tiger snakes, and pretty wildflowers. I wouldn’t mind but he’s only been in the country for five minutes and he’s already had adventures that put the rest of us to shame. So, Bartlett (he did have another nickname in College but I can’t really use it in polite company) was in charge of storytelling, and one of our neighbours was on cooking duties (he had quite rightly worked out that the choice was to take charge of the barbie or go hungry). I’d even managed to get out of the car-parking chores, by giving the job to George. I had provided him with all you need to be a car park attendant, namely: a high visibility vest; a limp, a chip on the shoulder; and a hatred of everyone else on the planet. He carried out his task with great gusto, in fact at one stage he tried to park someone on our driveway who was attempting to visit their friends who live three doors up from us. So, with all of my duties delegated elsewhere I was left free to mingle and socialise... okay I was left free to mingle and tut each time someone skipped one of the songs on my carefully crafted playlist. It was a good job that I’d prepared 30 hours worth of top notch music for our entertainment because several hours’ worth of material disappeared in the blink of an eye. Obviously I’m not really up on the rules of social etiquette (having the social skills of a brick), but surely even touching your hosts remote is a definite no, no (as well as being a feed line for a ‘Carry On’ style joke). Personally, I like to give a song more than a bar-and-a-half before deciding that none of the attending guests are going to like it... call me a bluff old traditionalist if you like. I’ll name that tune in... oh, no I can’t because we appear to have gone on to the next one already. (You may want to read this bit in a raised, slightly agitated voice, to get the desired effect).
Deep breaths... I’m calm now.
Next subject.
This weekend we split-up into boys’ and girls’ teams to do male/female bonding type things. I think we may have got the roles a bit mixed up though because Hattie and Wendy went off to tackle the elements and the great outdoors whilst George and I went shopping.
Perhaps it was hearing Simon’s tales of daring-do in the bush (more ‘Carry On’ feed lines anyone?) that spurred Wendy to want to go camping. I’m not sure that they were exactly roughing it in the back of beyond though. In fact they were on a campsite with all available amenities, although, in truth, they might have had to cope without a socket for the hairdryer.
In fact mine and George’s shopping trip should have been a bit more dangerous than that. We braved a CD sale run by RTR FM. Once a year they sell-off all of their promo CDs in order to raise some cash and make a bit of space in the office. The sale takes place in the back room of a pub, with very low lighting levels and all the CDs dumped into boxes, or lined-up in no discernable order. It has to be said that it wasn’t unlike Mark’s music filing system back in our Uni days – although, of course, it was cassettes back then; and at least the CDs at today’s event were in cases. The event was heer heaven; it took me back to the days of rummaging through the Woolies bargain bins. George loved it too. He spent a couple of week’s worth of pocket money but managed to pick-up some real bargains, one of which was by a band that he knows I dislike intensely... which is clearly a bonus.
Whilst driving to the record sale, we passed a sports oval where various teams were playing football. A little further along the road we passed a second sports oval where various teams were playing cricket. Still further along the route we passed another oval where various teams, of mixed gender and age, and bedecked in club colours were playing Frisbee. No, I didn’t believe it either, but they were still playing when we drove back again. I didn’t even know it was competitive, How do you win? I thought that you just threw the Frisbee in such a way that your mate had to go and pick it up from in front of the attractive lady in the bikini sat three doors up the beach from you. And then he would return the favour. But surely that’s a game where everyone wins.
Anyway I’m off. Next time I’ll tell you all about Harriet‘s ballet shoes, and how she took 7 seconds off her 50 metre freestyle PB. I might even to tell you about the Halloween ‘pool’ party that George attended
See you soon.
H

*okay, so technically it was a Polytechnic when I started there

Double decker Elvis

Hello there.
It’s Saturday night and I’ve got nowhere to go and no one to play with so I thought I’d bore you instead. As Jean Paul Sartre once said (or was it John, Paul and Ringo?) ‘For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it’. So prepare to be recounted to. I should probably explain why I have no-one to play with: Harriet is barricaded in the lounge watching a Garfield movie; George has just left for another sleepover, his last words as he left were ‘we won’t be blowing anything up tonight’, which is reassuring; and Wendy has gone out for the evening – to a 9th birthday party? (That is a genuine question, not just the Aussie inflection infection).
We were in Sydney last weekend – hence the short gap between blogs (what do you mean you should go more often?). We weren’t there for long, but the kids and I managed to get in two days of sightseeing and exploration of the city. We were staying at a beach resort several kilometres (or a few miles - if you prefer imperial measurements) from Sydney itself so we had to catch a train into the centre – which was great because the trains are double-decker (and yes, we did have to sit on the top deck). They’ve also got seats that you can adjust so that you can either face the way you are travelling or, if there’s a group of you (and you’re more sociable than me) you can have facing seats. Clearly this is a health and safety nightmare, having all those moving parts in the control of the general public but they appear to get away with it. Obviously, after such a fun-filled journey in to the city, it was always going to be difficult to maintain such high levels of excitement. I think I managed it though by taking them to a huge record shop. Well, there’s not that much else to see in Sydney–there’s this bridge thingy, and a bit of water, and this strange looking building made up of dairylea slices... I think it’s called the Oprah House - well, I guess it will be when, TV Queen, Ms Winfrey brings 300 of her closest friends over to film some shows here in December. I say here, but obviously she isn’t coming to Perth.
I have to say that my favourite part of Sydney is the bit of water – I love the harbour, even though we only saw a small portion of it. We had a ride on a ferry (George’s sea legs held out for the half-hour journey) which was excellent, a great way to see the World famous landmarks (no, not the filming of Aerobics Oz style). Whilst queuing for the boat we discovered that Elvis is, indeed, alive and well and waiting for a ferry to Parramatta. The refreshing thing was that, unlike your usual ‘King’ look-a-like, this one had gone for the Elvis circa 1959 look as opposed to the bloated, white jump-suited, Vegas years look favoured by most ‘did you know my middle name is Aaron’ wannabes.
Like I said earlier we found a huge record shop (I mean it was a big shop, not that it was selling oversized records). And yes, we may have spent a small amount of time in there but I was quite democratic, the kids got an equal amount of time to peruse the shops of their choice – although I think it’s fair to say that democracy ended when it came to allocating the spending money. George decided to spend his time torturing himself in the Adidas originals shop – his pocket money is hardly a match for the charging power of the German sportswear manufacturing giants. Harriet chose a shop whose walls were bedecked in pink taffeta, and was awash with bedazzling jewellery that sparkled and glittered, and said buy me Hattie, buy me! Harriet is attracted by all things shiny – she is almost magpie like in that respect. Which brings me seamlessly to my next point - we are now at the height of the swooping season. What on earth is the swooping season I hear you ask? Well bimbo, you know how Australia is the land where everything tries to hurt you, well come springtime even the magpies get in on the act. It’s called swooping but in essence it’s out-and-out GBH. For once I’m being serious - the main causes of injuries in spring are snake bites and magpie attacks. I say magpies, but they are a bit chunkier than the UK version - basically they are crows with a white shirt on. Swooping isn’t just confined to magpies however. It won’t surprise you to know that I have been swooped on several occasions, including once by a honey eater–which is a bird that resembles a thrush, but with a bigger nose.
As its spring, George has started playing cricket again. He’s still at the same club but is in a different team, in which all the parents have been allocated match-day roles. For instance next week my role is to nominate the team’s player of the day. As it’s a new team I don’t know who any of the lads are, but what I do know is that there are two Aarons (I blame Elvis), two Sams, two Blakes and a pair of twins. The thing is, now that George no longer wears glasses I can’t even pick him out on the field so I’ve got no chance of working out who’s who. So it’s going to be between the tall lad, the short lad, and the slightly rotund lad.
I’ve solved my sporting activity problem - we have managed to get the beach volleyball team back together. We’ve made a few, shrewd new signings, injected some fresh capital into the team, and changed the team’s name... we are now called ‘may contain nuts’ (yes, it was my idea, and as punishment the rest of the team have nominated me to be the one that has to tell the umpire what we are called each week). All these changes have brought instant results... we are yet to win a game, in fact we are yet to win a set. Despite this minor detail, or maybe because of it, it’s actually much more fun now.
We are having a Barbie next Saturday - invites are in the post. Obviously, if you’ve got a party trick or two you are much more likely to have been selected to attend. For this prestigious occasion, I have been putting together a playlist on i-tunes, so far I’ve got 30 hours of music – do you think that will be enough? (Bearing in mind we’ve invited Lindsay Lohan, Owen Wilson, Paris Hilton, Cliff Richard, and a bunch of accountants).
Anyway, have a great week
This week’s top 5 - The Airborne Toxic Event - Does This Mean You're Moving On?; The Jezabels - Violent Dream; Beck-Loser; Pink Floyd - See Emily Play; Paul Weller - No Tears To Cry.
Wot no Collins?

Contagious?

George and I were in the car, the other day, listening to the radio (whilst at the same time maintaining 100% concentration on the road – well, George might have been). We were tuned in to, local station, RTR FM at 92.1 on the radio dial (although I don’t think they have dials anymore... it’s all new-fangled digital stuff nowadays). It being a Saturday afternoon, the usual excellent music programming had been replaced with a ‘young persons’ show, tackling ‘yoof’ issues. On this particular occasion we were being treated to a discussion on STI’s or STD’s – whichever you prefer (although I suspect your preference would be to have neither). The young person presenter (of indeterminate sex) was chatting to a (female) expert about prevention, testing, and (where possible) treatment of STI/Ds. Which brings me, eventually, to my point (yeah, there is actually a point to all this). The expert was giving us lots of facts and figures and good advice on all aspects of the subject, but she was doing it in an Aussie accent... which included the inflection at the end of a sentence? Like she’s asking a question? Now the inflection is common practice in oz speak (like starting a sentence with ‘Ah mate, ... ’) but some people use it a lot more than others. In this case our expert was suffering from a very severe case of the inflection infection (although I don’t think it’s an STI/D). This meant that despite the fact that she clearly knew her facts the inflection made it sound that she was unsure of what she was saying. It was very disconcerting, I’m sorry but if someone is talking to me (giving expert advice or otherwise) I need them to at least sound certain of what they are saying, and not... ‘It’s a very straight forward operational procedure Mr Davies with absolutely nothing to worry about?’, or ‘of course I’d like to go on a date with you Harry?’, or ‘Phil Collins is the ninth best drummer of the last 25 years*?’ The inflection has definitely reached our household, the kids have the full blown disease and, despite having the inoculation jab, Wendy occasionally shows the symptoms. I have, to my knowledge, slipped up only a few times but it is becoming a more common occurrence. I have also started to say data with an ‘r’ in it (darta) mainly because if I don’t no-one knows what I’m talking about. Australian people tend to struggle a bit with my accent anyway - although, at work, a couple of the Aussie clients I speak to on the phone have started to talk to me in a very passable Yorkshire accent. I have also learnt that if you want someone to win then you are barracking for them, not rooting for them – because over here rooting means something quite different and more or less takes us right back to the beginning of the blog (and no it hasn’t got anything to do with driving).
Backtracking slightly, I was forced out of a record shop by Phil Collins yesterday. I had just begun my usual Saturday morning pursuit (no, not that one – the other one), perusing the ‘Alternative’ CD section in JB Hi-fi when I realised that my ears were being assaulted by the sounds of Mr Collins torturing songs that had, in a previous incarnation, been sixties Motown classics. Despite the fact that the songs were being marginally improved by constant announcements over the tannoy for ‘a member of hardware/software/ firmware to go to the computer counter please’ I only got two thirds of the way through ‘Jimmy Mac’ before having to escape the premises (it was either that or inserting USB sticks into my ears). Whilst making my exit I noticed that the offending album appeared to be riding very high in the charts over here. Oi, Collins... No!
Spookily, as I sit compiling this work of fiction, I can hear the sounds of someone (who is at least two streets away from us**) practicing the drums... they actually sound quite good but that’s probably because they are at least two streets away from us.
The kids have broken up from school this week having completed term 3. They brought home the results of the Naplan tests that they sat back in term 2 (I was unable to ascertain whether this delay was due to a very slow marking system, or that the results had been sitting in the kids’ school drawer for a term-and-half). They both did very well, with their marks being above the school and National averages in all subjects. Harriet’s best subject was reading but she also did very well in writing, and grammar! and. Punctuation. George did well across the board but his spelling was exscelant and his (creative) writing score was almost off the scale. He can’t remember what subject they were given to write about but he does know that his story centred upon a hitman who was disposing of Russian spies. In an earlier project they were asked to write a story about a hamster (it had a cute name like ‘fluffy’ or ‘hammy’, or ‘brian’). George’s story was about a drug-trafficking cartel who were smuggling their stash across national borders inside hamsters (including fluffy). I’m guessing that it won’t be too long before we get a visit from some Government department or other... social services, special branch, meals on wheels? Do you think we should be worried? He has also developed a habit of being able to name all of the weapons used in film or TV programmes that we watch (there are always weapons involved no matter what we are watching... even Songs of Praise). Not only that, he can also produce reference books with pictures of the weapons involved. Whilst part of me wants to admonish him for knowing too much about guns and weaponry, I have to admit that I also get a warm glow of paternal pride from his love of backing up his facts with reference material (definitely a Davies gene).
It’s a public holiday tomorrow (Monday) for the Queen’s birthday (not sure if we are celebrating Liz’s April or June birthday). I wonder whether we will still have the holiday in September when it’s the King’s Birthday? Anyway, it’s going to be sunny again tomorrow so there is an outside chance of us venturing into the pool for the first time since last summer. Be warned, I think my board shorts are in the huge pile of ironing that seems to have magically appeared in the laundry room so I may be forced to wear my budgie smugglers. (cue the music from jaws).

*As voted by readers of Rhythm magazine (The drummer from Slipknot was at number one)
**The reason I can hear them from that distance is because its 25 degrees today and I’ve got the doors and windows open. That, married to the fact that the CD I was listening to – Not by Collins- has finished and I can’t be bothered to stretch the full 18 inches needed to change it.

This week’s blog was brought to you by Chemical Brothers – Further (Parlaphone 2010), Emiliana Torrini – Fisherman’s Woman (Rough Trade 2004), and In the Night Garden (BBC Audiobooks Ltd 2007)

Extreme ironing and freestyle shopping

Day three in ‘the house’ (spoken in an exaggerated Geordie accent). This morning, Harriet was called to the Dairy Room (okay it was the office but I was partaking of cheese and crackers, and a glass of milk at the time) to ask her why her bedroom resembled... insert a metaphor for something messy and cluttered here (or let’s just say, Room 101). As you may have gathered, Wendy has now left for her (nigh on) three week trip overseas and the household is now being run as an Orwellian, Totalitarian State. I would like to think that I am the leader of this new regime but I’m not 100% sure that is really the case. Actually, everything is bowling along as normal with just one or two minor alterations to the usual schedule and a bit of re-rostering of chores. The only major upheaval is that I am now on ironing duty.
Did you know that there is actually a sport called extreme ironing, where people jump off tall objects (buildings, rocks, David Prowse) and iron whilst making the descent. The thing is by jumping off something that high in order to do the ironing I would be creating a whole new load of clothes to be washed by the time I landed, especially undergarments. Besides, to me, any form of ironing is extreme – I think I must have had a traumatic experience with an iron as a young child (as I did with pickled herrings, and bread and butter pudding*) because I definitely have a phobia of ironing. Is there a name for a phobia of ironing? Anyway irons, like dogs, can smell fear – which is amazing really because all I can ever smell when I’m doing it is clothes burning. I can just about cope with ironing most clothing but some of Harriet and Wendy’s outfits have been designed to resist all attempts to de-crease them. They are like those dogs that have been bred to extreme to be just one mass of wrinkles and folds – the name of which escapes me for the minute (the name of the breed that is not of the individual dog). You may have noticed that this section has rambled on a bit (and that is different from usual, how?) but at some point I am going to have to stop procrastinating around the bush and tackle the ‘extreme’ pile of clothes that is sat quivering in the basket waiting for me to attack it with an hot iron.
Just before I do that, however, I should also explain the freestyle shopping part of this blog’s title. Wendy’s preferred method of food shopping is to work out exactly what meals we are having for the week and then to buy the ingredients required in the exact quantities needed... without deviating from the list. I am more of a store cupboard person myself and tend towards a much more freestyle approach to the weekly shop. I’m not saying this is the correct method of doing it, indeed it does leave you open to the odd mistake... I never could find a recipe that truly brought out the talents of the tamarillos (formerly known as the tree tomato) that I bought that time. My method is to buy something and then work out a meal around it. For example I will buy gammon steaks, remembering that there is a tin of pineapple rings in the pantry, with the notion of making gammon Hawaii (exotic or what?). It is only when I come to prepare the meal, and have difficulty locating the tin of pineapple that I remember that during a (drunken) game of Trivial Pursuit some of the wedges had gone astray and in a flash of genius, replacements had been fashioned out of pineapple chunks and food colouring. Instead of changing the menu, after this set-back, I simply find a replacement ingredient... perhaps a tin of fruit cocktail (every store cupboard has one) would work. That subtle blend of syrupy liquid, pear (by far the main ingredient), peach, grape (usually just the one) and two halves of a miniscule cherry would fully bring out the flavour of the gammon. On the subject of cherries, I think it is commonly accepted that the ones in Haribo ‘tangfastic’ are indeed sweets of the highest order. I do need to correct an error from the last blog (what do you mean, that would be all of it?) - When I said the other Haribo variety was kiddie mix, I meant of course ‘Starmix’. I can only put this error down to the huge sugar high I was on at the time due to the consumption of several packets of the aforementioned product. Of course the highlights of Starmix would have to be the fried eggs and the love hearts – everybody knows that.
I’m rambling again, aren’t I?
And now... that ironing.
Actually, before I do that, I just want to have a quick word with Stacey, if I may. The rest of you can just chat amongst yourselves for a while (Quietly!). And no she isn’t getting preferential treatment it’s just that she’s the only one to put her hand and answer questions in class. So don’t go calling her a girly swot and teacher’s pet. I should point out that she never hands in her homework assignments on time... or ever for that matter.
Stace, I do actually have the XX CD and I believe (as Gertrude Stein says**) it’s a good album but not a great album. It’s certainly a well crafted work and I reckon it will get better with a few more listens but it’s not yet up there with the likes of ‘For your Pleasure, Rumours, Seamonsters, The Seldom Seen Kid, or Christmas with the Chipmunks (the re-mastered version... obviously). I missed them play live (the XX, not the Chipmunks) at this year’s Laneways festival because they clashed with (the mighty) Echo and the Bunnymen.
Right, back to the class. Barrett, don’t think I didn’t see what you were doing with that protractor, and Hazel, come away from the door dear.
Okay, ironing.
It looks very sunny outside (20 odd degrees), it seems wrong to keep the kids cooped up on a day like this, maybe we should go down to the beach for a couple of hours. Then I’ll do the ironing later.

* I should point out that these were two different incidents and they were not served up together as one meal.

** A spot prize to anyone who can tell me where I ‘borrowed’ that from

Did you mean the XX?

I’ve just been on to google and typed in Paul Weller + Mercury Music Prize winner and it came back with the above reply. Surely the former Jam front man was robbed. I see that after some late, irregular betting patterns (for once not involving the Pakistan cricket team) the Modfather was a short priced favourite to take off the coveted title. He’s taking defeat very well, by leaving the country and coming over here to entertain the convicts – I shall be passing on my commiserations to him when I go and see him next month. I am hoping that it will be third time lucky and I do get to see him as my two previous attempts to watch him in concert have ended in disaster. I think the first show was cancelled due to illness or bad weather, or both but the second time I was definitely thwarted by a Fire Safety Certificate... or lack of. It wasn’t me; it was actually the venue that was missing the vital paper work. I have all of my up-to-date Fire safety documents having once successfully extinguished a fire in my boxer shorts. I should point out that it wasn’t actually a conflagration in my underwear – it was in fact a house fire, but I was only wearing boxer shorts at the time of successfully tackling the blaze. Luckily there are no photos to go with this story.
As you will have (no doubt) noticed - I have gradually got away from the vague notion that this is actually a blog about ‘the Davies family living in Australia’ and have accepted that I am, in fact, serialising my life story. I warn you now that it’s only a matter of time before we get to anecdotes such as ‘the jelly fight’ that took place at one of my birthday parties. You’re thinking that there is nothing unusual about a jelly fight at a children’s birthday party... I was 24, it took place in the street, and the police files say that the fight took place at some time after midnight. Chances are though that we won’t dwell upon the stories of the ‘bring and buy sale’ cabbage, and the de-handgranadeing of my brother’s airfix soldiers with a pair of scissors (an incident that George finds highly amusing).
Before I descend further into naval gazing, I should give you the latest news of ‘the Davies family living in Australia.’ Since I dissed him (a term that I believe was last used in late March 1990... at about 10.39am) for being a lazy, good-for-nothing couch potato type thing in my last entry, George has: played for the school rugby (league) team in the State competition, accompanied Wendy on the 12km ‘City to Surf’ walk, and won a prize for finishing third in the sprint race at the Sports carnival. Obviously, it is my words of ‘encouragement’ that have spurred him on to these sporting achievements. With this in mind I have no qualms in telling you about his latest step into adulthood – he was turned down by a girl when he asked her to dance at the school disco. But instead of doing what I would do (i.e. keeping it quiet and picking over it for the next 10 maybe 20 years and painting at least 40 pictures on the subject), he happily discussed it with all his mates and decided that next time he would ask a girl ‘early doors’ so that if she turned him down he would still have time to ask someone else. I think it might be time for that DNA test... this is clearly not Davies behaviour.
Another sign of George’s impending maturity is the fact that he has made his first mix tape (this is a move that is much more symptomatic of the Davies gene). I say mix tape, but clearly there was no cassette recorder used in its making and quite frankly the skill levels required for making up a compilation album these days with the help of i-tunes are negligible compared to how we had to do it back when I were a lad. It is only a matter of time before George combines both of the above items i.e. making a mix tape to give to a girl – and then getting rejected. The art of making a mix tape as a token of your affection is a very tricky one. The pitfalls are endless because basically you are looking for the balance between: including music that you know/or think you know she’ll like and including music that you think she should listen to (Beyonce-PJ Harvey); including music that doesn’t make you look too much like a morose, basket case and including music that makes you look like a soppy romantic wimp (Nick Cave - Nik Hayward). Judging by the number of times I got dumped, and the lengthy list of restraining orders I have against me I’m guessing I never did get the balance quite right.
Harriet is now allowed to take her earrings out having done the necessary six week probation thingy, or whatever it is you do when you have new holes put in your ears. This also means that she is allowed to put new earrings in – I’m not sure whether this is something that you are supposed to do on the hour every hour but that is exactly what she is doing at the moment. She is currently in the kitchen rustling up some buns with some sort of apple filling (actually they might be muffins), and apparently in order to do this you have to remove your flower shaped earrings and replace them with ones that are shaped like turtles (or they could be tortoises)... derrr, everyone knows that! . You never see Jamie or Ainsley making apple based bun type, muffiny things without their reptilian earrings in. (short pause) I just got called in to the kitchen to witness a double-yolked egg, I’m not sure that I expressed the sufficient amount of excitement that I was expected of me – they did look like identical twins though.
Hattie is getting over her disappointment of not being able to do her ballet exam this year because of our trip to Sydney. She can still go up to the next level but she won’t get a certificate, although I’m sure I could cobble something together in photoshop if necessary.
Wendy is almost packed ready for her overseas trip of many flights. She’s having one or two problems meeting the weight requirements (there is a lower weight allowance in South Africa than the UK – 20kg) and also the fact that there could be a sizeable difference in the climactic conditions – especially if the weather in the UK turns a bit autumnal. It does mean that when flying back to Perth from the UK she will have an extra 3kg of baggage allowance – I think is planning on using it for chocolate.
Anyway, I’m off to study my ‘Parenting for Dummies’ manual to ensure that everything runs smoothly whilst Wendy is away... I’m guessing I’ll be reverting to bribery before the week is out.
I leave you with the stunning news that Sunday shopping and Haribo sweets (yes that includes tangfastics and kiddie mix) have arrived in WA.
H

You’re an embarrassment

One of the great perks of parenthood is the opportunity to be a total embarrassment to your children. The great beauty of it is that it’s something that you don’t even have to work hard at to achieve great results.
Once the kids gain a say in what clothes they are allowed to buy/wear, the best remaining opportunity a parent has for causing great embarrassment is the sleepover. As I found, just last weekend, simply walking around the house singing along (with gusto) to your favourite songs can leave your daughter squirming in distress in front of her friends. Obviously, my rendition was note perfect - but as I was singing along to the Wedding Present at the time that doesn’t mean that it was particularly pleasing on the ear.
And George has discovered that just because you are sleeping over at someone else’s house it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are out of reach of parent-caused shame. He spent most of last evening’s sleepover at his friend’s house fending off texts from his mum reminding him to share his sweets, brush his teeth and not to let the bed bugs bite. She forgot to tell him to make sure that his mates didn’t put pink zinc cream on his eyebrows whilst he was asleep - which of course they did. And by passing on that information to you I am able to continue to pile on the embarrassment, especially now that George has taken to reading the blog to find out exactly what I’ve been saying about him. As a result of which, he asked me to point out that his inoculation last week was not for ‘Nintendo thumb’ but was in fact for ‘couch potato bum’. Actually, that’s a bit unfair on George seeing as he recently gained a place on the Connolly team in the Inter-Schools cross-country. In fact, if anyone should have that injection it should be me. Since the premature demise of my volleyball career (thanks Jay) my exercise regime has been reduced to walking to the shop (okay sometimes I drive) to buy fruit and veg (well, fruit pastilles and potatoes, okay... crisps). I’m not even playing snooker any more due to the fact that the club closed down whilst I was on my two-week-tour of the UK. I came back to find an advert in the paper informing me of the fact that everything was for sale: snooker tables, kitchen equipment, furniture, staff... the lot. I put in an offer for the rather attractive brunette with the sarcastic smile (well it was always sarcastic when she aimed it my way) but I think I was outbid by the old bloke, with the limp, who played on table 5. I’m so unfit at the moment that I managed to tweak a hamstring at work the other day... whilst sitting down. I’m currently researching various alternatives for attaining regular exercise (no, not that). I’ve narrowed the choices down to: indoor soccer, squash, or pole vaulting (looks easy to me). Unfortunately, I can’t really do anything until Wendy has completed her tour of the UK and South Africa so I’ve got another month or so of couch potatoing to look forward to.
George’s sporting abilities may be improved by the fact that he is now able to wear contact lenses. He is trialling them at the moment and seems to be able to put them in and take them out without too many difficulties.
We recently enjoyed a very pleasant family outing to see Florence and the Machine (look, I know you are supposed to have family outings to the zoo, or McDonalds, and not to concerts by popular music performers, but we have to try and balance our ability to embarrass the kids with a certain amount of ‘cool’ parenting) . It was a great show, Florence is very theatrical with a decent set of pipes (and pins to match), and ‘And the Machine’ are a very talented bunch of musicians – it’s the only gig I’ve ever been to that has featured a harp solo (or even a harp at all for that matter). Talking of gigs. If you are in the north of England on 1 September you may want to make your way to the Boardwalk in Sheffield where my 14-year-old nephew is performing with his new band Disfunctioned. Billy is the bass guitar player in the group and I’m not sure how they have managed to land such a major venue for their debut outing. I’ve not heard them but I’m assured that they play both kinds of music... heavy, and metal. I have already made my apologies and said that due to a lack of a bus service between Perth and Sheffield I shall be unable to attend. I have however promised to go and support them should they embark on an Australian tour (so long as they come over to the West, as a lot of acts actually by-pass us and Adelaide and just do the big cities over in the east).
Whilst my sporting pastimes have dried-up of late , I am still attending Art Club. I know, it’s amazing that they haven’t kicked me out yet. Not only am I still going, but they do seem genuinely interested in my style of painting. Comments I have received include: ‘I’ve never seen it done like that before’, ‘it’s a bit small isn’t it?’, ‘have you finished?’, and ‘no-one else has got one like that’. I’m pretty sure that they were talking about my artwork. In fact, they are so intrigued (confused) by my dabblings that they have asked me to give a demonstration of my technique and ideas to the group at the November workshop. As nerve wracking as this prospect is I am helped by the fact that I do have some previous experience of presenting my artwork to an audience. Did I ever tell you about my appearance on South Korean TV? Oh yes, back in the late 90’s they couldn’t get enough of me over there - I managed to create an entire generation of Korean couch potatoes (hence the invention of the vaccine)... well, maybe not. What actually happened was that me and Dusty had a very enjoyable art holiday in St Ives (I say art holiday, but there was a fair amount of eating and drinking, okay mainly drinking involved as well). During one of the Art School sessions a TV crew from the South Korean version of ‘Wish You Were Here’ turned up to film the class. The rather gorgeous female host (who bore absolutely resemblance to Judith Chalmers) decided she wanted to interview me – I’m not fluent in the language but I’m pretty sure that what she said was ‘I really want to chat to this bloke because he looks like one hot stud-muffin to me’ (or something along those lines). I have no evidence that the interview actually made it into the final programme but I do have photographs to prove that such an event did occur (in fact I have them about my person at all times).
I will leave you with the news that, just like you in the UK, we in oz now have a hung parliament. In the end the nation was just not able to choose between the Sheilah and the Budgie Smuggler. As I write this they are both desperately trying to get the 5 Independents and 1 Green on board to help form a Government. It could take a while, who knows Harold Holt might even turn up to resume as Prime Minister before they have sorted it out.

You may feel a small prick

If you get quezy at the mere suggestion of Injections, piercings and pricks of any kind then look away now... actually, I’m already starting to feel a little peaky myself. This week we are mainly dealing with sharp pointy needles.
Harriet, George and Wendy have all had injections this week in mouths, arms and hands (are you sure you’re not feeling quezy yet?). The first to get the needle was Hattie, she had to have a filling in one of her milk teeth (she declined the choice of having it forcibly removed). According to Harriet’s description of the incident the needle was at least two feet long. She was very brave and probably benefited from the fact that they just did it there and then and she didn’t get time to worry about it (I find I’m the same when I get my hairs cut... both of them). She had had a similar experience just two days before when she decided that she wanted her ears pierced. She had been toying with the idea for well over a year before suddenly deciding that this was the time (a bit like me when I was contemplating buying the ‘The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’* CD...okay that only took a couple of minutes to decide but it seemed a whole lot longer).
I seem to remember that piercings (ears only) were very popular when I was at secondary school, so much so, in fact that there was at least one person in every year that pierced their own ears with a compass. Actually (as my, then, Maths teacher Mr ‘Richo’ Richardson would have corrected me) that should be ‘pair of compasses’. You know, the things with a point at one end and a pencil on the other that you use for drawing circles - not the thing that you use to find out which way to go (no I don’t mean sat-nav, or a policeman). You couldn’t use a navigation compass to pierce your ears - that would be utter madness – whereas using an un-sterilised, blunt pointed bit of metal on your own ear is an eminently more sensible thing to do. No doubt the majority of these people who liked to inflict pain on themselves went on, in later life, to become live studio audience members for ITV sit-coms, Jim Davidson’s agent or Sheffield Wednesday supporters. Anyway, as far as I’m aware the holes in Harriet’s ears were produced by more conventional and hygienic methods. She is very happy with the piercings and as yet (to my great relief) hasn’t mentioned getting any others done (i.e. nose, eyebrow, tongue or belly button... I know there are other possibilities but I don’t even want to think about those).
After a discussion with Wendy on the subject George has indicated that he is never ever, ever having his ears pierced, either conventionally or DIY... we’ll see whether he still feels the same in four years time. Meanwhile, he had his inoculation jabs last Tuesday - one in each arm. He had the tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough vaccine in one arm, and the hepatitis B and ‘Nintendo thumb’ vaccine in the other. I don’t know which arm got which, or whether that matters... but there were some very definite side-effects, namely nocturnal, projectile vomiting (oh yes, the best kind). George and at least four other of his classmates were violently sick during the night, luckily only one of them was actually sleeping at our house at the time (that’s George, of course). Although, whilst I was cleaning up at 2.30am (Wendy somehow slept through the whole episode) I was struggling to see how this could possibly be the work of just one person. Luckily, he soon recovered ... he was well enough to go to school the next day. Well, we sent him anyway.
The brighter ones amongst you (I’m saying nothing) will have worked out by now that it must be Wendy who had the injection into her hand. You will have also worked out that such a procedure is never going to be anything but painful... not many flabby, fleshy bits to inject into in your hand. Not surprisingly, this wasn’t the first idea they had come up with for fixing up her old surfing injury. She damaged a tendon whilst battling 2 metre waves way back in the summer and despite anti-inflamatories, finger straps and lots of verbal encouragement the injury hasn’t cleared up. So, as a last ditch attempt, before she has to go under the knife, they (those clever medical boffins) decided to try a cortisone shot. Not sure if it’s working yet but it has created some very interesting bruising and her biceps are firming up.
As part of his PEAC course this term George is building a model (00 gauge) of his ‘Dream Home’ (it just looks like a normal home but this one doesn’t appear to have his mum and dad in it). In fact, as I type this (very slowly), he is sat next to me hacking through thick card with a Stanley knife and covering the surface of my desk (quite why he couldn’t use his own desk I’m not sure) in generous layers of rather evil smelling glue . Clearly these are the sort of things that you should do only do under the supervision of a responsible adult ... oh dear.
Wendy is still in the process of booking flights for her South Africa/UK trip, so as yet she has been unable to finalise dates/times/flight numbers/aeroplane meals/where her luggage will end up, yet. It’s taking a bit of working out seeing as she is going to be on about 7 or 8 flights during her 3 week trip. The week she gets back from the UK she is going to have to fly over to Sydney for four days to attend a conference with work. Luckily it just happens to coincide with the second week of the school holidays so me and the kids are going to tag along with her (to Sydney that is, not the conference). We have no plans to climb the harbour bridge, although I am quite keen to find out where they film Aerobics Oz Style. All I know is that the Opera House is always in the background, and there are always some balding, middle aged men milling around as well (a role I was born to play).
Anyway, I’m off to watch a new Aussie TV comedy/drama that looks like it might be half decent... the first one I’ve come across in the two-and-a-half years that we have been here.
Later,
H
* The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are an American indie guitar band that ‘I’ recently discovered. They are excellent, albeit with a terrible name.
Please note how I managed to do a whole section on body piercing without once mentioning Queen Victoria’s husband. I wonder if anyone has done a DIY version of that with a pair of compasses. Oohh no.