Hector’s sense of solidarity with other species of bird life has been boosted by the sad tale of Percy the peacock, who after three years of allowing the 500-odd humans of the English village of Martin to wander unmolested and with their customary aimlessness within cooee of his digs, is to be ‘rounded up’ for bad behaviour.
Hec gleaned this information from his assiduous browsing of the virtual pages of the ‘Expat Telegraph’, the cybersheet produced by the London newspaper The Daily Telegraph, a publication that seems determinedly dedicated to keeping alive the traditions of eccentric Englishness.
It seems Percy’s human neighbours were OK with him while he was single and he was a “local character”. But when he collected a mate last year and thereafter fathered a selection of hatchlings, things are said to have gone downhill. They claim Percy and the boys began attacking scores of cars, not to mention pinching parsley, runner beans and sundry other consumables from people’s gardens (a shocking crime!), and waking everyone up with a frightful racket at about four in the morning.
What first drew Hec’s attention to Percy’s predicament, beyond the fact that he could perhaps spend a useful short holiday here in Bali training up the local chooks on how to stick with a schedule for racket-making, was the fact that his home territory is Lincolnshire, a bucolic county in eastern England that by coincidence houses Hector’s own Head of Flock.
As well, he has significant sympathy for Percy’s predicament. He remembers – well, just – several instances of playful vandalism that he committed himself in former times. He is proud of his youthful service in A (Amuck) Company, the First Battalion, The Hues and Cries (Motto: Last In, Your Shout), for which he received the Unbecoming Conduct Medal and Bar (or quite possibly, Bars) and a commendation for exemplary misbehaviour.
A fortnightly diet of worms and other non-theological experiences
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
THINGS YOU JUST CAN’T SAY (ANY MORE)
HEC’S attention has been briefly diverted from matters of importance – the rising cost of premium poppy seed for the feed box in The Cage being of primary concern – by yet another instance of Aussie foot in mouth disease.
Hot on the heels of manufactured outrage over the fact that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s youthful media flack, Lachlan Harris, hasn’t yet grown up and is rude to everyone – the little fellow is 28, however, and should have worked out how to get along with people by now – is the sad story of Boris Johnson’s new (and now ex) chief political adviser at City Hall in London.
James McGrath, who is 34, was appointed with much hoo-ha after Johnson won this year's election as Lord Mayor of London, the city which McGrath, according to a profile published in The Australian newspaper in May, considers to be the centre of the universe.
He is from Nambour in Queensland, Australia, which is certainly not the centre of the universe, or indeed of anything else. Those in doubt about the need the ambitious among the locals have to exit the place have only to check the origins of the said Kev and his sidekick Wayne (Swan), who also long ago migrated to regions more favourable to personal advancement.
McGrath’s mistake was to state the bleeding obvious: that if people from other places didn’t like what was happening in London, they could go elsewhere. Unfortunately for Mr McGrath, the people to whom this advice was publicly proffered were immigrants. Ergo, Mr McGrath committed a race-based sin in opening his mouth – indeed, even in thinking such dark thoughts.
Hector is an amiable fellow, for that matter an immigrant himself, and cares not a whit where other cockatoos of his acquaintance came from, what they look like, what they eat, how many other cockatoos they share their cage with and under what arrangements, or how they spend their time, provided it’s legal. Well, those black cockatoos from around Canberra way are a bit of a noisy nuisance; but hell, you make do, don’t you?
The trouble is that many simple truths have been firmly thrown into the dark pit of the ‘Don’t Mention the War’ file.
Today, the preferred view of the chatterers and activists who spend their time dreaming up imagined ills and then squawking about them is that if you’ve generously decided to bestow your favour upon some other country by migrating there, the polity you have thus blessed must immediately change to accommodate your desired outcomes.
That’s all nice and warm and touchy-feely. It’s also bullshit.
The real benefit to newcomers lies in the existing protection and opportunity that living in a democratic and well serviced place offers people – native or immigrant. Most immigrants (to anywhere) implicitly know that. They also know that no one owes them a living or has an obligation to change their own historic cultural precepts or belief systems on their account. They know that if you decide for whatever reason that you don’t like living in London (or Britain itself, or Australia or New Zealand or Canada or the United States or any other free society) then your option is clear: Don’t.
They know that if you seek change within a democratic system, you owe it to everyone to use the regular social and political mechanisms available to you, to argue for a different way; and they understand that it certainly won’t happen last week, is likely not to do so this week, and indeed may not happen at all.
They also know that the worst enemies of migrant populations are those from within their own ranks who make a living out of going on ‘We Want’ missions.
These are the noisy, selfish, self-important people poor chaps like Mr McGrath stumble over. He should have known that what he said would result in losing the fine view of London from his office that he so enthusiastically spruiked in print so recently. He should have known that his new boss, Boris the Bonker, having so lately secured office as Chief Star, Centre of the Universe, would cut him loose if he became an embarrassment.
If Mr McGrath, Falling Star, late of Nambour and London, didn’t know all that, he shouldn’t have got the job in the first place.
Hot on the heels of manufactured outrage over the fact that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s youthful media flack, Lachlan Harris, hasn’t yet grown up and is rude to everyone – the little fellow is 28, however, and should have worked out how to get along with people by now – is the sad story of Boris Johnson’s new (and now ex) chief political adviser at City Hall in London.
James McGrath, who is 34, was appointed with much hoo-ha after Johnson won this year's election as Lord Mayor of London, the city which McGrath, according to a profile published in The Australian newspaper in May, considers to be the centre of the universe.
He is from Nambour in Queensland, Australia, which is certainly not the centre of the universe, or indeed of anything else. Those in doubt about the need the ambitious among the locals have to exit the place have only to check the origins of the said Kev and his sidekick Wayne (Swan), who also long ago migrated to regions more favourable to personal advancement.
McGrath’s mistake was to state the bleeding obvious: that if people from other places didn’t like what was happening in London, they could go elsewhere. Unfortunately for Mr McGrath, the people to whom this advice was publicly proffered were immigrants. Ergo, Mr McGrath committed a race-based sin in opening his mouth – indeed, even in thinking such dark thoughts.
Hector is an amiable fellow, for that matter an immigrant himself, and cares not a whit where other cockatoos of his acquaintance came from, what they look like, what they eat, how many other cockatoos they share their cage with and under what arrangements, or how they spend their time, provided it’s legal. Well, those black cockatoos from around Canberra way are a bit of a noisy nuisance; but hell, you make do, don’t you?
The trouble is that many simple truths have been firmly thrown into the dark pit of the ‘Don’t Mention the War’ file.
Today, the preferred view of the chatterers and activists who spend their time dreaming up imagined ills and then squawking about them is that if you’ve generously decided to bestow your favour upon some other country by migrating there, the polity you have thus blessed must immediately change to accommodate your desired outcomes.
That’s all nice and warm and touchy-feely. It’s also bullshit.
The real benefit to newcomers lies in the existing protection and opportunity that living in a democratic and well serviced place offers people – native or immigrant. Most immigrants (to anywhere) implicitly know that. They also know that no one owes them a living or has an obligation to change their own historic cultural precepts or belief systems on their account. They know that if you decide for whatever reason that you don’t like living in London (or Britain itself, or Australia or New Zealand or Canada or the United States or any other free society) then your option is clear: Don’t.
They know that if you seek change within a democratic system, you owe it to everyone to use the regular social and political mechanisms available to you, to argue for a different way; and they understand that it certainly won’t happen last week, is likely not to do so this week, and indeed may not happen at all.
They also know that the worst enemies of migrant populations are those from within their own ranks who make a living out of going on ‘We Want’ missions.
These are the noisy, selfish, self-important people poor chaps like Mr McGrath stumble over. He should have known that what he said would result in losing the fine view of London from his office that he so enthusiastically spruiked in print so recently. He should have known that his new boss, Boris the Bonker, having so lately secured office as Chief Star, Centre of the Universe, would cut him loose if he became an embarrassment.
If Mr McGrath, Falling Star, late of Nambour and London, didn’t know all that, he shouldn’t have got the job in the first place.
Friday, June 20, 2008
FAT LOT OF GOOD
HEC was all atwitter this morning, when he heard a report on Australia's Radio National, which doubles as world headquarters of Worryworts Inc, that Australians are virtually all tubbies.
Not Teletubbies, of course, engaging little creatures though they are - and such a hit with Indonesians, for most of whom the term 'tubby' is just a dream, or a nightmare if they're among those who are convinced The West is A Bad Thing. But Aussies are probably a tad tubby, from watching too much television, eating too much junk food, and generally not doing enough exercise.
Among the cures for their condition lately promoted is additional tax deductions for gym memberships (the Nanny State is not only alive and well Down Under, it's positively plush, especially now Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has revealed his membership of Wowsers Worldwide). Of course, they don't really need tax concessions to get off their bums. They just need cranes, apparently.
It's interesting, Hec notes, that the Australians' claim to be the world leaders of fat has been swiftly knocked back by the Americans, who traditionally claim have the biggest, best and greatest of anything going.
But perhaps the Canadians should also lodge an official complaint. Hec treasures a moment from long ago, when a nice little Aussie bird of his passing acquaintance who had lived for years in Hong Kong told him, while on a visit to Edmonton, that she was glad she was in Canada: She no longer had the biggest arse in town.
Not Teletubbies, of course, engaging little creatures though they are - and such a hit with Indonesians, for most of whom the term 'tubby' is just a dream, or a nightmare if they're among those who are convinced The West is A Bad Thing. But Aussies are probably a tad tubby, from watching too much television, eating too much junk food, and generally not doing enough exercise.
Among the cures for their condition lately promoted is additional tax deductions for gym memberships (the Nanny State is not only alive and well Down Under, it's positively plush, especially now Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has revealed his membership of Wowsers Worldwide). Of course, they don't really need tax concessions to get off their bums. They just need cranes, apparently.
It's interesting, Hec notes, that the Australians' claim to be the world leaders of fat has been swiftly knocked back by the Americans, who traditionally claim have the biggest, best and greatest of anything going.
But perhaps the Canadians should also lodge an official complaint. Hec treasures a moment from long ago, when a nice little Aussie bird of his passing acquaintance who had lived for years in Hong Kong told him, while on a visit to Edmonton, that she was glad she was in Canada: She no longer had the biggest arse in town.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
OH YUM, SOME FABULOUS STODGE
WHEN he was but a fledgling, Hector enjoyed British food. He had to. He was one of that polyglot ethnicity of former up-and-at-‘ems at that time; although a privileged one, spending much of Britain’s post-WW2 rationing period ‘abroad’, in that latter-day Outremer where people always ate well in comfortable contrast to the poor peasants at home.
A recent article in the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph – a publication that sometimes seems to suggest that not only is the spirit of Empire alive and well, or at least kicking, but also that it was a wholly English confection (hrrmph) – set his mind to reminiscence. The article had to do with the rather recent discovery that British food can actually be good for you. Since this is not a theory Hec has had to put to the test since 1969, he is unsure of the scientific basis of the claim.
But he clearly remembers (really) that in those distant days – in that fabled Outremer, glowing in the last fading rays of the sun finally setting on the Empah – there existed a state of beneficence and plenty. Notwithstanding these attractions, especially in the culinary department, the vicarious rewards of ‘British cuisine’ were deemed immediate; a warm tummy. No one in those days got tense about the future imperfect (risk of obesity and heart attack, etc, etc) which is all you hear about nowadays, because people have nothing better to talk about and can often actually see their navels, the better to contemplate them.
He looks back on those times with a certain nostalgia: in particular to the staple fare of prepubescent males of the day; war comics, so much more reflective than the do-it-now, drum-those-digits, zap, ‘!@#$!’, cybergames of today’s world.
These comics, works of art and fine fiction in their own right, were those in which Fritz, Hans, Hermann, and assorted other cruelly caricatured Germans ran around doing ‘don’t panic’ routines on various battlefields – places where derring-do was exclusively a Brit domain, carried out by cheery chaps in Monty berets – screaming ‘Donner und Blitzen!’ and, if really pressed, ‘Gott in Himmel!’ Not a ‘scheissen’ within earshot; and never an overly-explicit Saxon adjective.
Even then, in his very tender years, Hec was wont to ponder: ‘!@#$, did they really?’
In fact, while the victorious Brits were complying with their American ally’s post-war demand to abolish their Empire, a process in which Hec played a small noddy walk-on part as a naff schoolboy, Gott truly was in his Himmel and everything was pretty much right with the world.
You would sit leisurely over a memorable curry lunch – the sun beating down and the natives beating about the bush, playing at being mad dogs (if cross) or Englishmen (if on the public payroll) – and enjoy the luxury of safely speculative contemplation of the fabled properties of Spotted Dick. Or treacle pudding. Or even – these for aficionados only – semolina or tapioca pudding. Toad in the Hole often sprang to mind while nibbling on Middle Eastern, Indian and other exotically oriental delicacies. Favourably. Really.
Potato cakes (so much more fun-filling than hash browns, though the Brits of the era hadn’t woken up to the fact that the chaps from their first empire had invented them). Yorkshire pudding. Yum.
And that old-time favourite, rhubarb crumble. A regular treat, as Hec used to jest.
A recent article in the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph – a publication that sometimes seems to suggest that not only is the spirit of Empire alive and well, or at least kicking, but also that it was a wholly English confection (hrrmph) – set his mind to reminiscence. The article had to do with the rather recent discovery that British food can actually be good for you. Since this is not a theory Hec has had to put to the test since 1969, he is unsure of the scientific basis of the claim.
But he clearly remembers (really) that in those distant days – in that fabled Outremer, glowing in the last fading rays of the sun finally setting on the Empah – there existed a state of beneficence and plenty. Notwithstanding these attractions, especially in the culinary department, the vicarious rewards of ‘British cuisine’ were deemed immediate; a warm tummy. No one in those days got tense about the future imperfect (risk of obesity and heart attack, etc, etc) which is all you hear about nowadays, because people have nothing better to talk about and can often actually see their navels, the better to contemplate them.
He looks back on those times with a certain nostalgia: in particular to the staple fare of prepubescent males of the day; war comics, so much more reflective than the do-it-now, drum-those-digits, zap, ‘!@#$!’, cybergames of today’s world.
These comics, works of art and fine fiction in their own right, were those in which Fritz, Hans, Hermann, and assorted other cruelly caricatured Germans ran around doing ‘don’t panic’ routines on various battlefields – places where derring-do was exclusively a Brit domain, carried out by cheery chaps in Monty berets – screaming ‘Donner und Blitzen!’ and, if really pressed, ‘Gott in Himmel!’ Not a ‘scheissen’ within earshot; and never an overly-explicit Saxon adjective.
Even then, in his very tender years, Hec was wont to ponder: ‘!@#$, did they really?’
In fact, while the victorious Brits were complying with their American ally’s post-war demand to abolish their Empire, a process in which Hec played a small noddy walk-on part as a naff schoolboy, Gott truly was in his Himmel and everything was pretty much right with the world.
You would sit leisurely over a memorable curry lunch – the sun beating down and the natives beating about the bush, playing at being mad dogs (if cross) or Englishmen (if on the public payroll) – and enjoy the luxury of safely speculative contemplation of the fabled properties of Spotted Dick. Or treacle pudding. Or even – these for aficionados only – semolina or tapioca pudding. Toad in the Hole often sprang to mind while nibbling on Middle Eastern, Indian and other exotically oriental delicacies. Favourably. Really.
Potato cakes (so much more fun-filling than hash browns, though the Brits of the era hadn’t woken up to the fact that the chaps from their first empire had invented them). Yorkshire pudding. Yum.
And that old-time favourite, rhubarb crumble. A regular treat, as Hec used to jest.
Monday, January 21, 2008
RING, RING. WHY MUST YOU GIVE ME A CALL?
Telephones have always given Hector quite the wrong sort of buzz. All that unnecessary squawking!
Plus, they so often are inhabited (at the other end) by someone on a mission, even if that mission is simply to wreck your day.
Hence his long-standing practice has been to have short phone sessions. The vocal equivalent of an SMS text does the trick in most cases. There are exceptions: we all have those occasions where, on the phone, our contribution is mostly ‘yes’, ‘no!’, ‘really?’ These interventions are to remind the caller that, yes, no, really, you are still listening; even if you’re not.
The situation worsened significantly when some unspeakable cad invented mobile phones, aka cell phones or, in Indonesia, hand phones. They’re all the same: they bring bad news, or news you can do without at the moment, or inconsequential matters that would be far better advised remaining in cyberspace, being put in an email, or handing over to the snail.
Plus, whatever happened to the telephone ring? It used to be that a phone alerted you to the inconvenience of someone calling by a simple and actually quite melodious ‘ring’ sound. It varied. The Americans, who have been interrupting other people’s conversations at least since Valley Forge, liked the long single ring. Hector loved seeing American movies in the old days, when cage entertainment was just a Sci Fi dream, chiefly because unless they were Westerns and predated all the Bells, instead featuring America’s pioneers of wall-to-wall litigation, the Sioux, they invariably included this somnolent yet somehow disturbing and vaguely threatening sound.
Nowadays, and not only on mobiles, you don’t get many rings. You get the ‘1812’ (warning: classicist calling), or a selection of high-irritant muzak grading down to the latest dorky Rap Zapper. Ugh!
So for Hector, phones have always been a health hazard. They have always disturbed his sleep (whether at home or in the office).
He was thus thoroughly chuffed to read in The Independent, one Britain’s chief bringers of bad news to the upwardly worried, that mobile phones actually do ruin your rest time. Well, he always did think they were the wrong sort of brainwave.
According to this august journal – which Hec understands is published in all 11 other months too, and daily to boot; no wonder they have to run so much from Worry Wort Central (they’d never fill it otherwise) – phone-makers’ own scientists have discovered that bedtime use can lead to headaches, confusion and depression.
The latest news from WWC suggests that that using them before bed, or in bed which they say teenagers customarily do, causes people to take longer to reach the deeper stages of sleep and to spend less time there, which interferes with the body's ability to repair damage suffered during the day. Yeah! You gotta sleep off those Big Macs.
Hector’s advice: Never go to bed with your best phone. It's never a satisfying experience and can do serious harm to your relationship.
Plus, they so often are inhabited (at the other end) by someone on a mission, even if that mission is simply to wreck your day.
Hence his long-standing practice has been to have short phone sessions. The vocal equivalent of an SMS text does the trick in most cases. There are exceptions: we all have those occasions where, on the phone, our contribution is mostly ‘yes’, ‘no!’, ‘really?’ These interventions are to remind the caller that, yes, no, really, you are still listening; even if you’re not.
The situation worsened significantly when some unspeakable cad invented mobile phones, aka cell phones or, in Indonesia, hand phones. They’re all the same: they bring bad news, or news you can do without at the moment, or inconsequential matters that would be far better advised remaining in cyberspace, being put in an email, or handing over to the snail.
Plus, whatever happened to the telephone ring? It used to be that a phone alerted you to the inconvenience of someone calling by a simple and actually quite melodious ‘ring’ sound. It varied. The Americans, who have been interrupting other people’s conversations at least since Valley Forge, liked the long single ring. Hector loved seeing American movies in the old days, when cage entertainment was just a Sci Fi dream, chiefly because unless they were Westerns and predated all the Bells, instead featuring America’s pioneers of wall-to-wall litigation, the Sioux, they invariably included this somnolent yet somehow disturbing and vaguely threatening sound.
Nowadays, and not only on mobiles, you don’t get many rings. You get the ‘1812’ (warning: classicist calling), or a selection of high-irritant muzak grading down to the latest dorky Rap Zapper. Ugh!
So for Hector, phones have always been a health hazard. They have always disturbed his sleep (whether at home or in the office).
He was thus thoroughly chuffed to read in The Independent, one Britain’s chief bringers of bad news to the upwardly worried, that mobile phones actually do ruin your rest time. Well, he always did think they were the wrong sort of brainwave.
According to this august journal – which Hec understands is published in all 11 other months too, and daily to boot; no wonder they have to run so much from Worry Wort Central (they’d never fill it otherwise) – phone-makers’ own scientists have discovered that bedtime use can lead to headaches, confusion and depression.
The latest news from WWC suggests that that using them before bed, or in bed which they say teenagers customarily do, causes people to take longer to reach the deeper stages of sleep and to spend less time there, which interferes with the body's ability to repair damage suffered during the day. Yeah! You gotta sleep off those Big Macs.
Hector’s advice: Never go to bed with your best phone. It's never a satisfying experience and can do serious harm to your relationship.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
10-POINT PLAN TO SURVIVE YOUR BALI DRIVE
Hector prefers to drive. It beats flying, under one’s own steam as an Avian can or in one of those metal cylinders that today flit ubiquitously about the sky under the control of an Aviator and where, according to the latest Mittel Europa pre-history derivative forest nymph myths circulated by Those Who Desperately Want You To Believe The World Is Shortly Coming To A Very Nasty End, they are killing us with their unsociable emissions while unlawfully warming the globe and unnaturally interfering with the ozone layer.
But of course these days he lives in Indonesia, where using the roads is subject to many little local difficulties not necessarily found in countries where there is enough money to build them in the first place and maintain them – more or less – thereafter.
A popular pastime for some shorter-term visitors to the part of Indonesia in which he lives – the island of Bali – is hiring a vehicle. Rates are cheap, the cars are generally crap but so are the roads, and if you focus on the kilometres rather than the time taken, nowhere is very far from anywhere else. Plus petrol costs Rp4500 a litre (that’s around 50 US cents).
Visitors intending to drive while in Bali might like to browse through Hector’s Handy 10-Point Primer:
But of course these days he lives in Indonesia, where using the roads is subject to many little local difficulties not necessarily found in countries where there is enough money to build them in the first place and maintain them – more or less – thereafter.
A popular pastime for some shorter-term visitors to the part of Indonesia in which he lives – the island of Bali – is hiring a vehicle. Rates are cheap, the cars are generally crap but so are the roads, and if you focus on the kilometres rather than the time taken, nowhere is very far from anywhere else. Plus petrol costs Rp4500 a litre (that’s around 50 US cents).
Visitors intending to drive while in Bali might like to browse through Hector’s Handy 10-Point Primer:
1. Indonesia notionally drives on the left. Always veer left if approached from any direction by a yellow truck, a petrol tanker or a bus driving immensely fast and randomly. Unless it’s on your left, in which case you’re toast. And that’s if you can see it in the cloud of black smoke all trucks and buses produce. The black smoke is mandatory for all large vehicles so as to obscure from the view of potential victims their registration plates and driver’s face.
2. Indonesians drive all over the place. Wherever suits is the rule. This is especially so with motorbikes (see below).
3. White lines, which are rare outside of bigger cities and their surroundings, have nothing to do with keeping left or even (what a concept!) in lane. They are driver testing devices: you pass the test if you can keep your vehicle centred over the white line and you get bonus points if you can keep your wheels equidistant from the mid-point. There is no difference between broken white lines and solid ones. A broken white line simply means the road line-painting machine was playing up at the time, or the paint was running out. Or someone came out with a bucket and stole half the paint before it dried.
4. The overwhelming majority of Indonesians ride motorbikes. On your right, on your left, up your clacker. Motorists are kind of, sort of, well, supposed to at least look as if they’re thinking about the road rules from time to time. Motorbike riders are exempt from this requirement.
5. Drivers and riders turning out onto busy roads never look right. They might see the approaching traffic if they did that. Nor do they stop. That would cost them valuable points in the highly popular national Shit-That-Was-Close Near Miss competition.
6. On the open highway (ha!) a vehicle flashing its right-turn indicator (a) may be turning right – this is however very unlikely; (b) might be saying it’s safe to pass (it never is); (c) could have a driver who has inadvertently activated the indicator while sending text messages on his mobile phone; or (d) might be thinking vaguely about turning left in approximately 10 kilometres; if this is the case it will travel towards its objective in the middle of the road at 20kmh.
7. Traffic lights in Indonesia go amber before they go green (that is, as in most civilised countries; but only if they’re working). All Indonesians have a chromosome that impels them to hit the hurry-up-in-front horn just before the light goes amber. The further back in the queue they are, the more advanced they are in timing this chorus. Ignore the horn-hoon immediately behind you at a red light: he will almost certainly stall his vehicle anyway.
8. Most intersections have free turns left on red. Don’t get in that lane if you’re going straight ahead. You will spark a riot and a policeman will materialise from nowhere and demand from you large quantities of untraceable currency.
9. Everyone goes straight ahead from right-turn lanes at traffic lights. Except the buzzing cloud of motorbikes on your left, and an occasional yellow truck; they will all turn right, across your bows, as you pull away on green. It’s a good idea to use your hazard lights at such places. It never means you’ve broken down (all Indonesian vehicles are beyond repair, except government Mercedes limos, see below). It means: I’m going straight ahead from this turn-right lane.
10. If you hear sirens, it may be an ambulance out trying to catch customers, or it could be a huge police escort for the shiny new Mercedes limo of the deputy assistant under paper shuffler in chief who is late for a tea or who has forgotten to take his files to a meeting. Police escorts often also use loud hailers, through which high-volume but totally unintelligible intelligence is transmitted (in Indonesian). Don’t try to understand it. Assume it is the local lingo for ‘get out of the [insert your preferred adjectival profanity] way NOW’ and do so. The difficult bit is to guess which point of the compass they will come from.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE YOUNG AND FOOLISH
Some people say that Hector’s a crusty old curmudgeon. Of course, Corey Delaney wouldn’t. The newly celebrated 16-year-old let’s-wreck-the-neighbourhood party organiser from Narre Warren, Melbourne, would never have heard the word or, on the evidence of his serial post-party television appearances, have the faintest clue what it means.
Nevertheless, Hector feels disposed to fly an urgent interdiction mission in Corey’s defence. Not because the young man has been unfairly treated, but because like many 16-year-olds, he’s clearly a nincompoop. Another word he wouldn’t know, understand, or on the evidence of his televised media celebrity appearances, be able to pronounce.
A lot of folk have been thoroughly stupid in the Corey Delaney House Party matter, now apparently a ‘global’ story.
They include, in descending order of demerit: Corey’s parents, who left him alone at home while they went on holiday 1000 kilometres away; the Victorian police, whose senior leadership has ensured the entire force now looks as if it comprises a deliciously and dangerously impractical genetic synthesis of Keystone Kop and PC Plod; the media, for forgetting (as it always does, especially on a slow news day) to apply common sense to appreciations of story ideas and presentation; and Corey himself, an uneducated, mindless little dork without an ounce of understanding of what self respect actually means or involves. But then, he’s 16 and clearly shouldn’t be let outside unless under supervision or on a leg-rope.
But, ahem, Hector admits that on the way to becoming a crusty old curmudgeon, he was responsible for a minor trail of riot and rampage. Not in recent years, to be sure, and never to the extent that young Corey apparently managed in the previously undiscovered and soporific suburb of Narre Warren.
But there was a week in London in the early 1960s that Hector confesses is completely blanked from his mind.
That too involved a Must Not Be Missed Party. Someone else’s; and it wasn’t at anyone’s parents’ house. But it must have been a knockout blast.
Little Corey, instant media celeb, says he doesn’t remember his party because he was out of his head. Hector, former unapprehended raver, relates to that.
It would be unfair, even as a curmudgeon, to feel negatively towards Corey simply because he speaks in MySpace grabs, wears yellow sunglasses and a duvet in public, and has a nipple ring. Times change and one should not be churlish about this.
In Hector’s teen years, nipples were never a matter of public record, or ringed except by the natural aureole. They were things (female things) that were reserved for between-consenting-adults-time or the teenage facsimile of same if you were bad enough to get lucky enough. Today, when you are officially a Nobody until you’ve made a tit of yourself, a nipple ring is apparently a Must Have among the low and disgraceful.
So let’s not be too hard on Corey. One day he may realise he’s been an idiot. Let’s hope so.
Nevertheless, Hector feels disposed to fly an urgent interdiction mission in Corey’s defence. Not because the young man has been unfairly treated, but because like many 16-year-olds, he’s clearly a nincompoop. Another word he wouldn’t know, understand, or on the evidence of his televised media celebrity appearances, be able to pronounce.
A lot of folk have been thoroughly stupid in the Corey Delaney House Party matter, now apparently a ‘global’ story.
They include, in descending order of demerit: Corey’s parents, who left him alone at home while they went on holiday 1000 kilometres away; the Victorian police, whose senior leadership has ensured the entire force now looks as if it comprises a deliciously and dangerously impractical genetic synthesis of Keystone Kop and PC Plod; the media, for forgetting (as it always does, especially on a slow news day) to apply common sense to appreciations of story ideas and presentation; and Corey himself, an uneducated, mindless little dork without an ounce of understanding of what self respect actually means or involves. But then, he’s 16 and clearly shouldn’t be let outside unless under supervision or on a leg-rope.
But, ahem, Hector admits that on the way to becoming a crusty old curmudgeon, he was responsible for a minor trail of riot and rampage. Not in recent years, to be sure, and never to the extent that young Corey apparently managed in the previously undiscovered and soporific suburb of Narre Warren.
But there was a week in London in the early 1960s that Hector confesses is completely blanked from his mind.
That too involved a Must Not Be Missed Party. Someone else’s; and it wasn’t at anyone’s parents’ house. But it must have been a knockout blast.
Little Corey, instant media celeb, says he doesn’t remember his party because he was out of his head. Hector, former unapprehended raver, relates to that.
It would be unfair, even as a curmudgeon, to feel negatively towards Corey simply because he speaks in MySpace grabs, wears yellow sunglasses and a duvet in public, and has a nipple ring. Times change and one should not be churlish about this.
In Hector’s teen years, nipples were never a matter of public record, or ringed except by the natural aureole. They were things (female things) that were reserved for between-consenting-adults-time or the teenage facsimile of same if you were bad enough to get lucky enough. Today, when you are officially a Nobody until you’ve made a tit of yourself, a nipple ring is apparently a Must Have among the low and disgraceful.
So let’s not be too hard on Corey. One day he may realise he’s been an idiot. Let’s hope so.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)