Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, December 11, 2002


MARGARET TOBIN IS SADLY MISSED


THE year went badly awry again, one dreadful thing after another, but the October killing of Margaret Tobin in her office on Hindmarsh Square was the one that knocked me around a fair bit. Margaret, the head of Mental Health Services, was shot in the back as she returned from lunch. Someone has been charged with her murder, so we shall see. She had addressed a staff meeting of Messenger journalists a year or so earlier. She was forthright and funny, alight with compassion for reforming an ailing system. Afterwards, we went to lunch with a few senior editors and over a glass of wine she was again funny and forthright - off the record, of course - about certain politicians. She was an easy woman to like. She also possessed special powers of persuasion. At her urging, we did a series of articles on hostel care in the western suburbs, and the paper editor concerned even attended a conference in Canberra for ``beyondblue'', the national strategy on preventing and treating depression. The editor, a Laborite, found himself seated next to the beyondblue chairman, former Victorian Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett, which he thought would be very depressing indeed. In fact, said our man afterwards, Kennett was not really a boofhead but a quiet, reserved bloke. Hmm, it's possible, I suppose. Also at lunch, I remember we discussed with Margaret whether or not manic depression should be called bipolar disorder. I had a couple of friends with the illness who still insisted on calling it manic depression because the term best described what they felt, ranging from elated euphoria to the black dog of suicidal depression. They could call it whatever they liked, said Margaret, it was their illness. But we mostly talked about how the parklands and the streets had been turned into open-air psychiatric wards. She agreed the policy of freeing people with mental illness from such institutions as Glenside Hospital into the open community had gone too far. What was a well-intentioned attempt to safeguard the human rights of patients had proved itself to be a seriously misguided lunacy. For some, their freedom was a freedom to come to harm. Too sick to recognise their own need for care, their health suffered; no longer compelled to take their medication, they didn't. A mental health system was useless to a patient who was unlikely to use it. Some of them lived in hostels until their problems became too difficult to manage. Frightened and fragile, they took to the streets, lived in squalid squats, with a cardbox box or a bus shelter for a bed. Their plight only raised official interest if they came to harm or broke the law. The typical response was to take them into police custody. Was such an unwell person really better off in a prison than in a treatment program? No, she said. This was Margaret Tobin's battleground. Did she make things better? I expect so but I would like to have quizzed her again over another bottle of wine. She is my Person of the Year.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, December 4, 2002


HEARTFELT THOUGHTS ON TECHNOLOGY


HEART pacemakers have an electronic switch whose ability to control the heartbeat can be affected by a magnet held too close. Fridge magnets must be a considerable worry. I know of someone who tried to commit suicide by taking a drug overdose except his pacemaker kept zapping life back into him until he was eventually found and taken to hospital to have his stomach pumped. Honestly. The point is, like it or not, we are all slaves to technology. As humans, I think we are much the same people as our ancestors of, say, 3000 years ago in our moods, thoughts and feelings. What has made a difference in our lives, however, is the change in available technology - from using a stylus on clay tablets, for example, to operating an Excel spreadsheet, not that it makes any difference to the bottom line. I once knew someone who was so preoccupied by medical technology that he became an unwelcome presence at the hospital beds of friends, and was once ejected from an intensive care unit for fiddling with the dials on a patient's heart monitor. He eventually died of a heart attack himself, which I guess was some sort of justice. At another level, when my son still lived at home as a teenager, the best way to get him moving in the morning was to carry the TV out of his bedroom and into the kitchen. He would follow. Although I use a computer every day - there is one here at my fingertips - I have a nostalgic affection for low technology. I like the feel of ordinary ballpoint pens; I much prefer paper towels to hand blowers; and I like the fact that footy scoreboards at suburban ovals are still changed by hand. Yet, I find myself being drawn to the new technology around me. I have even come to terms with my mobile phone whenever I remember to switch it on. When computers were first introduced in newpaper offices, some people went to extraordinary lengths to delay being trained or to avoid using them altogether. Anxiety levels soared and RSI - repetitive strain injury - was endemic. Now, were computers or email access to be withdrawn from the workplace, bedlam would ensue. No, ``technophobia'' is no longer the problem - instead it is spending increasing amounts of our lives plugged into the cyberworld. Psychologists have identified www.addicts who prefer the on-line world to the "real world'', who find personal fulfilment and satisfaction without ever leaving the safety of their screens. Their mental and physical health inevitably declines and, in an attempt to get them out more, a US counselling service has even been established ... on-line, of course. As with all things in life, the trick with technology is to find a balance between its pluses and minuses. After a couple of English schoolgirls were abducted and killed earlier this year, panicked parents wanted to insert microchips in their daughters to keep track of them all the time - as if growing up was already not hard enough. Technology can also bypass people's brains for their hearts.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, November 27, 2002

HIT'N'MISS RULES IN WINDFALL GAME


FEELING brand new this morning with the sun out, I checked again to see if any unclaimed money had been left in my name with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Still nothing. ASIC recently sent out a newsletter offering $200 million from forgotten bank accounts, insurance policies and company share sales - all waiting to be returned to its rightful owner. ``And you could be one of them,'' it said. Apparently all this unclaimed loot is transferred to the Commonwealth after seven years. All I had to do was logon to the ASIC consumer website at www.fido.asic.gov.au and, bingo, the money was mine, all mine. I was feeling light-headed from the anticipation. But nothing turned up. Yet my money has to be there somewhere because I sure as hell don't have it with me any more. I cannot understand how the bank could have lost track of it. I typed in ``Des Ryan'' and clicked on the ASIC search. It returned ``O hits - Have your read Search Tips?'' Well, no, I hadn't. I went to Search Tips and it told me to type in my surname, or my surname and first name in any order, or my surname and initial in any order. ``You should try all 3 methods!'' it urged, as if this were a game of gambling options. So I tried all three methods. Absolutely useless. Perhaps I was typing in the wrong name. Ryan may not be my name at all. Or someone may have left me lots of loot under an alias. It happens in the movies. I went to the ASIC Advanced Name Search, which offered a ``fuzzy'' search of all the names that were similar in sound or spelling to mine, or the one I used to think was mine. ``O hits'' again. Hmm. I noted this time that ASIC had included a disclaimer saying it did not guarantee the ``quality or consistency'' of the data, as the information was being supplied by the various financial institutions. A cunning plot - those accursed banks again. I figured that your chances of winning would be improved if you were dead. I took a punt on my father's name. Zip again. Sorry, dad. I typed in Malcolm Fraser - nil; Bob Hawke - nil; Paul Keating - nil; Rob Kerin - nil; Pauline Hanson - nil; Natasha Stott-Despoja - nil; Simon Crean - nil. None of them is dead, of course, except in a political sense. Just as I was beginning to suspect the whole thing was a sham and the Federal Government had no intention of handing back any of the $200 million, I typed in John Howard and got ``14 hits''. Woah, Prime Minister! On further checking, while there were indeed 14 John Howards owed money, none of them unfortunately was PM John Winston Howard. ``Find your money, find it easily - and best of all, find it for free,'' ASIC's newsletter spruiked shamelessly. I don't much like games of chance and would rather just have my money back, no questions asked, if you don't mind.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, November 20, 2002


POSSUM WAR'S FINAL SOLUTION


NOW is the time of the year when the conversation around countless backyard barbies turns to the never-ending Great Possum War of Adelaide. Many neighbourhoods have been under siege for years. Possums squabble inside the roofs; ceilings develop unspeakable stains and odours; and gardens are stripped of their flowers and new growth. One particular grapevine has not borne fruit for five years because the possums keep eating the new leaf tips. At her wit's end, the householder has tried everything from trapping, to blocking every entry point in the roof, to now boiling quassia chips and spraying the liquid around to dissuade them. Quassia is said to be as bitter as bitter can be and, since Fauna Rescue says it is a natural pesticide and a poison, I will take their word for it. Herbal healers also claim quassia stimulates the appetite, promotes bile flow, expels threadworms, treats malaria and dysentery and even helps people to quit alcohol. The possums do not know what they are missing. Even more bitterly, possums have the power to divide people who would otherwise be good neighbours. One side wants the possums removed and good riddance; the other puts up feeding boxes which only encourages them. Oh, yes, tears have been shed before bedtime and, owing to the possums, not much sleep is to be had afterwards. People go to desperate lengths. A friend caught three possums in his roof, stuffed them live into a hessian bag, and took them on the bus to Cobbler's Creek, beyond Tea Tree Gully, where they were released to face certain death at the hands of other possums. On the way there, he showed some schoolkids on the bus what he had in the bag and they oohed and aahed at how cute they were. If only they knew what the nice man was doing. Another friend, a respectable company director for most of the time, told me over a barbecued chop that he had shot the possums in his backyard gum trees. He loaded a shotgun with Z-shot, fitted a silencer so the neighbours would not become alarmed, and even had a laser sight with a red spot to take aim in the dark. It seemed a bit over the top to me but certainly showed how passionate people could become with possums. Having seen a possum stand its ground against a cat, I told Gunsmoke I would back a possum against a cat any time. Maybe, he said, but not against a Rhodesian Ridgeback which he owned - a very serious possum dog indeed. Fauna Rescue has all sorts of advice on how to deal with possums such as installing a one-way flap in your roof; erecting tree boxes and feeding platforms; pruning to leave a gap between the roof and trees; putting metal collars around tree trunks; installing lights in the garden and in the ceiling; and the list goes on. None of them particularly works. The best way of handling the problem is possum ragout. Master chef Cheong Liew makes a good one at the Hilton although, let it be firmly noted, he obtains the possums from Tasmania. (www.faunarescue.org.au)

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, November 13, 2002


STING NUMBS HORSE SENSE


PEACHES, I really like, and nectarines and plums, too, but not apricots - fresh, preserved or as jam - no way Jose, or Simon. As a kid, every backyard seemed to have an apricot tree in it and the smell of summer for me is still the sickly sweet smell of apricots rotting in the hot sun, maggot infested and squishy underfoot. Yuck, the smell hit me again just by thinking about it. The other day I was at a house warming and Simon T, one of the guests, mentioned that the apricot tree in his backyard at Parkside had set no fruit this year. Ho-hum, Simon, diddums. But when he blamed it on urban consolidation - uh-huh - I was, you might say, a lot more intrigued. Simon said he had been inspecting the tree that very morning and wondering why there were no apricots when it suddenly struck him ... he had seen no bees either this season. Given that fruit trees needed bees for pollination, he believed the two might be linked. Quite possibly. Assuming there was indeed a bee shortage, I suggested it might have been too cold for them although that was a guess. Frost perhaps? Pesticide? Or maybe the drought was to blame although I could not think why. I also threw in an aside about noticing some European wasps floating around my bedroom window last week, thinking the wasps might have driven away the bees. But Simon was not to be distracted. He thought the lack of bees had something to do with all the old houses being demolished to make way for the crowds of neo-Tuscan units that kept popping up everywhere. He said the bees no longer had roof spaces or sheltered eaves in which to build their hives, therefore no bees. Marginally possible, I supposed, though rather stretching it a bit. Matthew M, who had been standing there listening only because we were blocking his access to the Esky, said as a matter of fact there were plenty of bees at his place at Glengowrie. No bees at Parkside but lots at Glengowrie - hmmm, perhaps they were migrating towards the coast as they grew older, the same as humans. Obviously heading for retirement at Brighton. Or were they aspirational bees making for Holdfast Shores? Matthew worried about the bees stinging his little boys. I told him clearly the best way to deter bees was to plant an apricot tree, just ask Simon. We could have gone on like this all afternoon but fortunately a cold wind sprang up and I went home. The bees were still playing on my mind a couple of days later when I was seeking divine guidance, the tips of strangers, signs in the shape of clouds, or whatever, to try to pick the winner of the Melbourne Cup. Obviously all the omens pointed to Beekeeper, so I backed it for a win and a place, and threw in Miss Meliss as well because the name Melissa was Greek for "honey''. Beekeeper ran third, which at least meant I got some of my money back.
The winner Media Puzzle was too obvious for someone in my job and I had been stung before by going on gut feel.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, November 6, 2002


CLAP AS IF YOU LIFE DEPENDS ON IT


SOMETIMES, at the end of a good concert, the random applause of the audience mysteriously combines into a single, rhythmic beat and everyone claps in unison and finds it hard to stop. It always reminds me of the Playschool song: ``If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands...'' I have been to one or two plays where almost noone clapped, which made me feel bad for the actors. The sound of one hand clapping is death in a theatre. In the US - where else? - audience clappers are planted in stinker shows to give the applause a boost. Odd, since Americans would applaud the snapping of a violin string. I have also been to concerts of experimental music that were so disjointed and full of silences, it was hard to know whether the orchestra had stopped or was just pausing. When they did finally stop, there was stunned silence, followed by a smattering of uncertain clapping, suddenly erupting into shouts of Bravo!, as if covering the embarrassment of not understanding a note. A group of friends recently went to the opera Don Giovanni just to see the ABC weathergirl Kirsti Harms, done up to the nines as an anguished Donna Elvira. Strange that she is better known for doing the weather than for being a fine soprano - such is the looking glass world of TV celebrity. Opera singers once had bowsprit bosoms - the larger the bosom, the louder the volume - but the new generation of singers such as Kirsti are slender athletes by comparison, and can actually act, too. Anyway, all that aside, things went well in Don G and afterwards the audience expressed its appreciation with thunderous applause and even a bit of very un-Adelaide cheering. At my own restrained pace, I counted a minimum of 500 claps; the average was probably 600; and a real enthusiast might have exceeded 700. The applause lasted at least four minutes, at the end of which the surge of enthusiasm began to wane, a natural ebb related to having sore palms as much as anything. Yet the cast stayed on stage for more applause. The judgement of these things is a delicate matter - you do not want to be still standing there longer than the clapping. I hate repeated curtain calls and encores beyond what is deserved. Ballet is notorious for it. I mean, we don't double or treble tip at restaurants. But we have yet to reach the desperate state of the Communist Party district conference in Moscow, as reported by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago. At meeting's end, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for and of course everyone stood up and the hall echoed with stormy applause for four minutes, five, and continued. Stalin's goons watched to see who would stop clapping first. Eight minutes. Nine. Ten. No one dared stop. Then, after eleven minutes, an official on the podium suddenly sat down exhausted. That same night, he was arrested and spent the next 10 years in the Gulag. Do not be the first to stop applauding.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, October 30, 2002


PUBLIC HOLIDAYS WITH INTEREST


AUSTRALIA is said to be the only country where public holidays are declared for horse races - the Adelaide Cup in May and the Melbourne Cup next week. Actually, the Melbourne Cup has become a sort of unofficial half-holiday here, too, the race that stops the nation and all that. With one thing and another - Cup lunches, office sweeps and sorrows to be drowned - by the time the race is run at 2.40pm, the troops are as tired and emotional as a Governor-General on Cup day, and there is little point in going back at work. Not that I am opposed to public holidays but I have always thought a horse race was a fairly flimsy ground for having one. Even in South Australia, where racing is supposed to be the first or second biggest industry in the State if TAB turnover is included, only a miniscule percentage of the population would bother going to Morphettville for the Adelaide Cup. Mind, other countries have their odd little public holidays, too. Taiwan has a Tomb Sweeping Day; Japan, an Adults Day; South Korea, a Children's Day - held on a Sunday, which rather defeats the point of having a day off; and Taiwan again, a Teachers Day on a Saturday, so no day off there either. By comparison, a horse race is positively rock solid as an excuse for a day off. The one that always gets me, though, is a Bank Holiday, still observed in both the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales. Why? Are the banks' efforts in making hundreds of millions of dollars profit so very arduous and stressful? What is so special about banking that it requires a particular holiday of its own? Why not a Taxi Day or a Hardware Day? True, in certain parts of the Mediterranean, the banks close at lunchtime and then re-open only if they can be bothered, which is not very often. But it is not the same thing as a having a declared holiday. For some reason or another, Bank Holidays are common in Britain and Ireland. The UK had three this year. From what I have determined, they were first introduced in the UK by the Bank Holidays Act 1871 and confirmed in the Banking and Financial Dealings Act (1971), which gives them statutory backing. Again, why? Oddly, the same law does not automatically entitle bank and financial sector employees to a day off although if the shop is shut, there seems little point in having them around. The UK law also makes provision for payments to be deferred until the next business day, which must be rendered almost meaningless now with electronic and internet banking. It all rather sounds as if a Bank Holiday has become a shorthand way of people saying, look, we want a long weekend off but we cannot think of a good reason for having it. A horse race is as good an excuse as any. I only wish I could offer you a Cup tip worth banking on.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, October 23, 2002


NO DOG ON MY TUCKERBOX


A GOOD friend of mine brought his Staffordshire terrier Kauri to a lunch the other day in Gouger St, and then expected me to eat at an outside table to keep her company. I refused, of course. I always feel more comfortable eating inside than outside anyway, and the thought of sitting on the footpath and having a dog slobber over my leg through lunch was simply too much. Kauri had to be taken back home and my pal has not tried to bring her to lunch again. Our friendship continues. The other thing is that a Staffie is supposed to be one of those breeds which, rightly or wrongly, is associated with attacks on humans. Which means Kauri is possibly one brain snap away from eating someone, and I have no wish to be first. To be honest, though, she seems pretty harmless thanks to a gentle owner who treats her with tenderness and devotion. They really do love each other - ugh. Other dogs should be so lucky. In the Mall recently I saw a weedy feral being dragged along by a rottweiler on a leash, cutting a swathe through the frightened shoppers. He had no hope of keeping the dog under effective control if it really bolted. Scary. My rule of thumb in these matters is the more aggressive the dog, the more inadequate and insignificant the person, as if the dog acts as a personality substitute. Also, although the feral and the rottweiler looked nothing alike, a lot of people do resemble their dogs. Someone with a punishing face, for example, might own an English bull terrier - the notorious pig dog. Speaking of which, I was interested to see Princess Anne was charged recently with allowing her bull terrier to run loose through Windsor Great Park where it attacked an Asian couple and bit one on the leg. Are dog's racist? Do dogs stutter? It sounds like it. Do they mutter obscenities? Only those owned by the Royals. Now where were we? Ah, yes, since Princess Anne seems to have spent much of her life actively courting public disapproval, I was not surprised to see she owned such a beast as a pig dog. The attack led to predictable calls for bull terriers to be banned in the UK. Or, better still, to ban the Royals. Nothing I have read has convinced me that banning specific dog breeds has reduced dog attacks anywhere - not in the US, Canada, Britain or Germany. Breed alone is not a reliable indicator of potential attacks on humans. Take a closer look at the owners instead. For all that, I think all dogs should be microchipped to identify them and link them back to their owners. Why not? And anyone who calls their dog ``Killer'' should be automatically microchipped as well, and have their DNA taken and be made to wear a collar. That way, we can keep track of their movements and, should they turn vicious, their dog can be removed for safe keeping. I have had dogs in my life - a corgi, labrador, cocker spaniel and a fox terrier - and I liked them all well enough. I just did not wish to share my lunch table with them.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, October 16, 2002


11 HOURS EATING KILLER PYTHONS


THIS Saturday, come hell and high water, bantamweight Verity Edwards will compete in the Hawaiian Ironman, a combined 225km of swimming, cycling and running in one day. Verity, a twentysomething Messenger journalist, expects the whole thing to take her about 11 hours to finish, by about 6pm Hawaiian time. The cutoff is midnight, so she has some time up her, er, singlet. The Hawaiian Ironman - there is no Ironwoman - was first staged on the island of Oahu, named after the oh-ah-oow noise that tri-athletes made crossing a lava field in the scorching sun, as they really do in this event. The swim leg is 3.9km, equivalent to swimming between Henley and Grange jetties twice. I know someone, not Verity, who has done the annual Henley-to-Grange swim twice, both times while pregnant. The extra bouyancy apparently helps. The bike leg is 180km, the same as from Woodville to Nuriootpa and back. ``Nigel's parents live at Nuriootpa,'' Verity said after a training ride, ``so when we get to the halfway mark we sit down for 15 minutes and eat homemade chocolate cake and lamingtons. If you can't eat chocolate cake when you're riding 180km, when can you?'' Quite. In a recent Hawaiian Ironman, the side winds roared over the lava field so fiercely that some competitors were knocked off their bikes. Should the wind blow again this year, Verity, all 52kg of her, will be tossed across to the next island. The final leg is a marathon run of 42.2km, or about 3000 jelly snakes in Verity's training regime. She carries snakes with her for the sugar hit but thinks she will take carbohydrate gels during the event itself. She knows lots about nutrition now. I mentioned that we were told at school never to drink water before playing football because it would cause stomach cramps. Same thing with eating food inside half an hour of a swim. Both old wives' tales, said Verity. Imagine how damned good I would have been with water. She has spent 12 months preparing for this weekend's race. I asked how much weight she had lost in hard training and she said, not much, maybe a kilogram, because the fat had been converted into muscle. My excuse, too. She certainly looked great before leaving for Hawaii last week, positively glowing in fact, no blisters, trim and taut, although she said she was feeling a bit tired from the training. Have another Killer Python, Verity. Her partner Nigel did the Hawaiian Ironman in 2000 and after running all day in the sun, Verity said the unburnt silhouette of the painted numbers on his arms and legs could still be seen weeks later. I do hope she gets a nice number. As it happens, another friend of mine, a woman of middling years, is doing the New York marathon next month. What has got into these women? Mind, she is going to walk the course, not run it, and afterwards she has an apartment to herself in the extremely exclusive Trump Towers where she can recover before going shopping on Fifth Ave. Life for an elite athlete is hell.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, October 9, 2002


NON-STOP JOURNEY SLOWING DOWN


STILL on tour and wall-eyed from long hours on the road, I have even taken to snoozing at rest stops, which comes as a surprise. We had a family rule on the Adelaide-Melbourne cannonball run: On the way there, you filled up at the Shell station at Tailem Bend, and then got back on the rail non-stop all the way to Melbourne. On the way back, the fill-up was at Beaufort and that was it. We rocketed past the asteroid clusters of petrol stops and motels strung across the countryside. If you wanted to go to the toilet, you should have gone before and bad luck. I once blew a tyre at Fiery Creek, near Ararat, and a female passenger in the back took advantage of the situation to dash frantically into the bush and was not seen again for some time. Her lucky break. The kids learned. My son says he cannot get into a car now without feeling a sharp pain in his bladder. And my daughter admits that she, too, has become a non-stopper on long journeys, given to chiding her partner whenever he wants to pull over to take photos: ``But we've just passed that truck!'' echoing my own sentiments. She has gone from an ``Are we there yet?'' child, to: ``We could be there by now!'' The difference now for me, I suppose, is the current journey has largely been an aimless wander - South Australia, Victoria, NSW, wherever - with no real deadline. At my age, I also need more nanna naps. At day's end, I even look forward to the cheap motel with no hot water, leaking taps and rooms that smell like the disinfectant toilet lollies in a men's urinal, and could easily be mistaken for one by the tiles on the wall. The deodoriser is supposed to mask the stench of stale cigarette smoke so the room can be passed off as ``non smoking''. Except no amount of perfumed cover-up can kill the smell of a smoke-seeped pillow. Speaking of smoking, here is an aside from this trip: I was sitting in the foyer of the Sheraton in the Park, in Sydney - no, not staying there, just waiting for someone - and even though there were plenty of other empty sofas around, four Japanese men sat next to me and all lit up cigarettes, duty free no doubt. I felt ill and had to move away. Hard to believe I was a smoker until - what is it now? - five years ago. But I like cheap motels, the seedier the better, so long as they are reasonably clean. My affection for them is partly a romantic notion arising from old private eye movies - the blinking neon sign and the blonde floozy with the Saturday night special - and, oddly, Hunter S. Thompson, the American writer. Back when he was covering US politics for The Rolling Stone magazine in the '70s, he was congenitally unable to meet a deadline. He would be locked away in a remote motel to write, along with a typewriter, a quart of bourbon, several bottles of vodka, grapefruit and a selection of drugs. So Thompson said. The doubts that someone off his face, as he claimed always to be, could manage to write anything that made sense never spoiled the effect of his motel imagery in my mind. I am now in the $45 a night Shamrock Motel, at Balranald, and the drought hereabouts is bad.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, October 2, 2002


CAFE SOCIETY OF UNDESIRABLES


A CAFE is probably not doing well when the waitress has to be asked to wipe dust off the table and afterwards she stands there taking the order and yawns in your face. The Melbourne CBD is filled with many such nameless cafes - this one overlooks Myer - whose business largely depends on providing city workers with a styrofoam coffee on the run. With an early appointment when I was in Melbourne recently, I ordered bacon on toast and coffee. The waitress appeared warmer at a distance. Up close, she was just another bored teenager with sunken eyes who disliked waiting on other people and should have been made to wear a mood badge stating Resentful or Sullen. Instead of which, her badge said Aurora. Yes, another hippy child named after a natural phenomenon, a herb or a mineral. One can only assume her parents were smoking dope at the time of the birth. Aurora slopped a wet dishrag across the table, left behind dirty smears and said nothing. She was wearing a pushup bra that failed to produce a cleavage and low hipster jeans that revealed a black G-string from behind. Eye-catching, to say the least. In late 19th century Vienna, cafes were a haven where artists and writers who lived in squalor were able to meet, read newspapers and debate. Many, of no fixed abode, gave the local cafe as their postal address. The same vibrant cafe society seems to be sadly lacking these days. There was not even a paper to buy while I waited. Office girls kept coming in for takeaway coffee. I had been waiting so long for my own coffee that I considered ringing the cafe on my mobile to put in a takeaway order Afterwards, I went to pay and the cash register showed $5. I was thinking that's not too bad even though the bacon was underdone and the toast was burnt at the edges The girl asked: "Was that one or two pieces of bacon?" "Two," I said, and she changed the bill to $7. On the back wall was a framed Vision Statement: "To understand, believe in and maintain the true meaning of HOSPITALITY so as to ensure that our industry retains an excellence in reputation." I left no tip. That evening, my son and I went to dinner at a Thai restaurant at suburban Prahran, selected at random because it was the cheapest we could find and near to where he lived. A television the size of a small removal van occupied the back corner. Mr Bean was on and it was hard to get any service or even to have a conversation above the canned laughter. The other diners seemed to be having a jolly time, though. One couple even asked to be moved closer to the TV and a group of young men glared at us because our talking was disturbing their viewing. But the final straw came from the waiter: "Sorry, sir, we do not have a licence to serve alcohol." So nice to be heading back home in Adelaide - such a civilized place by comparison.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, September 25, 2002


BIRTHDAYS CAN BE SO UNKIND


WHEN my brother-in-law woke up in bed on his birthday recently, his wife - my sister Maureen - said: "Happy birthday, Barry, how old are you?" "Forty four," he said. "Sorry, mate, you're 45," she said, and when I caught up for a birthday drink with him that night in his backyard shed in Geelong, he was still depressed. So what if he had guessed incorrectly? It can happen. At the very least, Maureen should have let him spend the rest of the day thinking he was 44 and not put him straight until they were in bed that night. A hard woman. The last time she remembered my birthday she wrote in the card that I was two years older than I really was. After pointing out the error to her, she said, listen, the next time I remember your birthday, you will be that old, so hang onto the card. Fair point. Over a few beers with his mates in the shed, Barry said he had gone to the credit union at lunch time and when his turn came at the counter, the young female teller had said brightly: "Happy birthday, Barry." A bit startled, he had asked how she knew and she said the computer screen automatically flashed up a greeting on every customer's birthday. "And if I hit this key," she had said, "this happens..." at which "Happy birthday to you..." started playing on every computer in the office, and all the staff and even some customers began to sing along. Barry winced at the memory and opened another stubbie. "When I asked her how old did the computer say I was, she said 45. Are they allowed to hold that sort of information on a computer? Isn't it a breach of privacy or something?" None of us knew although I thought playing Happy Birthday might constitute a form of public harassment. The next day, on a tram from Carlton to the city to meet my son Paul, sitting opposite me was a 19 year old girl talking to the air. Once, a girl sitting on a tram talking to herself would likely be thought of as mad. This one was just using the hands-free attachment on her mobile phone. I knew she was 19 because she was inviting someone to her 20th birthday party next month and she said her sister, who was 24, was bringing a boyfriend who was 30. "I know," she said, "but he doesn't seem that old." My face must have given me away because her glare was as cold as the Oodla Wirra truckstop. Contempt is such an obvious emotion. Now, while it is true that my Medicare card gets more use than my Amex these days, I have not yet reached the stage where I sit waiting for the carers to come and change my incontinence pad. I can still do it myself. Why, when I was in Broken Hill recently I even climbed a steep hill to a sculpture park overlooking the city. They told me about it afterwards when I awoke in the heart unit. Psst, don't go telling anyone this but Jeff Tate, the chief executive of Onkaparinga Council, turns 50 this week. ``Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you...''

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, September 18, 2002


THE SERGEANT, THE COOK AND THEIR THREE GUARDS


ON TOUR again and here in the streaming rain, are the World War II aviation fuel tanks at Wolseley, on the Victoria-South Australia border, just where the sign on the Duke's Highway said they were. Shorts and T-shirt yesterday; today I had to buy a yellow spray jacket at Bordertown and was sitting rugged up in the car on the gravel roadside, taking photographs of the tanks through the open window and trying not to get the camera wet. A marker sign at the wire fence read: "World War II Fuel Tanks Wolseley - No 12 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot. Constructed early in WWII. Initially two 120,000 and one 40,000 gallon tanks and a barracks were constructed. Camouflaged to look like farm buildings. Depot commenced operations mid 1942 with a Sergeant, cook and three guards. Later 3 additional tanks were added. Disbanded June 14, 1944." Years ago, I had a sudden urge to turn off the highway to look at the landmark Serviceton railway station, on the Victorian side of the border, and drove the 7km to Wolseley out of idle curiosity, being so close. The six circular structures, all by themselves in a paddock, affected me in unaccountable ways back then, evoking a sense of them as more than just a group of abandoned fuel tanks. I described them to friends later almost in terms of a sacred shrine. They had a Stonehenge sort of feeling in their isolation, made by human hands but no longer connected to human affairs. Just humour me. In a thousand years, archeologists will be speculating on whether we danced around them at the winter soltice and sacrified our children. This time, the longer I stayed by the side of the road looking at these tanks in the rain, imagining what went on here during World War II, the more I wondered about the RAAF men who stood guard over them, about as far from the front line as it was possible to be posted and still be actively on uniformed service. "What did you do in the war, grandpa?" ... "Er, well, you see, there were these big fuel tanks at Wolseley, and umm - never mind." Who were The Sergeant, The Cook and Their Three Guards? How did they fill their days? Can anyone help me with more details about them? Also, the official correspondence of the time gave the name of the property owner on which the tanks now stand as Alice Elizabeth Thiele, a "married woman", of Victoria St, Prospect. No Mr Thiele was named although a reference was made to two sons, also unnamed, who farmed the property. Disinclined to sell in the first place but faced with compulsory acquisition, Alice drove a hard bargain on price with the Commonwealth, to the extent that I would wish her to be on my side in any real estate negotiations. Does anyone remember her? At one time, possibly in the 1940s, a police officer by the name of F.C.B. Thiele was based at Wolseley. Was there a connection? Any information would be gratefully accepted, at PO Box 197, Port Adelaide 5015. And then I might get a good night's sleep.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, September 11, 2002


EVERYONE NEEDS A CONSULTANT


LATE one afternoon, locking my bike to a handrail near the Oostende bar, in the East End, four blokes in overalls were hosing the brick pavers and making the place wet. A raggedy old chap, of no particular address, stopped nearby to watch the activity and said to the one splashing the hose around: "There's no garden there, mate. Waddaya think your doin'?" "We're from the council," said the one with the broom. "Yeah, well, there's enough of you." Quite. Once, a government job, even one hosing pavers, was almost a birthright, which anyone could claim if they wanted it. Towards the end of my school days, governments at all levels were in a competitive bidding war for your services: teachers' college scholarships, free officer training at Duntroon and even the laughably easy Post Master General's entrance exam. The Public Service had a slightly harder exam which I do not remember anyone failing, after which you were given an office desk in Cobweb Corner and started planning for your retirement. Footballers, if they could not find jobs as car salesmen, could always get one with the local council. I remember in pre-Power times when Port Adelaide footballers often were to be seen in the council crews that maintained the Commercial Rd median strip. Being unemployed then was no particular impediment to having a fulfilling lifestyle. You had only to feed the old Commonwealth Employment Service any sort of blah about your job desires and they would have to take it on face value. You might ask for a job as the window cleaner on a submarine, or as the safety officer in an Alka-Seltzer mine, or as a flush monitor in the public loos. The CES would go in search of your dream job and, meantime, the dole cheques kept arriving fortnightly, which gave you time to invent ever more unlikely jobs such as a chook de-egger. Working all the angles of the full range of benefits, it might have been possible to live in the grand style, with a butler and a nanny even if you had no children. Things have changed. Government in Australia long ago abandoned the attempt to provide for the welfare of all its citizens. Instead, it now offers a basic level of security, and leaves people to look after themselves to become rich and successful. Or not. And the market is left to go about its business with very little government interference to prevent excess and corruption. But when corporate society has no further use for you, before you have to think of taking the kids out of private school, the government consultancy dripfeed is still the best option. Back in the East End, the old fella was egging on the council crew: "You blokes wouldn't work in an iron lung." They eyed his matted hair and ragged layers, and one of them said: "And who are you?'' Gathering his greatcoat around him and stepping over the puddles in his sandshoes, he said: "I'm a consultant".

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, September 4, 2002


HAIL TODAY AND GONE TOMORROW


THE forecast was 13 degrees, thunder and small hail but, so what? One needs to go to suburban footy from time to time, if only to counter the deadening effects of habit spent watching it on TV. Especially when the game is Central Districts versus Sturt, with all its tribal and class warfare; the Doggies' triumphalism over back-to-back premierships; and the faded memory of Sturt's glory years. Ceentraaals! The last time they met, at a wintry Unley Oval, a strange man in a Double Blues beanie told me he was only there to perv on the Sturt dancing girls doing their pre-match routine to the gay anthem "It's raining men". True to his word, he left as soon as they finished and possibly spent the rest of the day vandalising supermarket barcodes. Just two minutes into the game, a Sturt supporter in front turned around and said to no-one in particular: "Gee, the umpiring's a bit lopsided, isn't it?" No, mate, the game was lopsided. The final score was Centrals 12.8 (80) to Sturt 4.6 (30) and three of Sturt's goals came after half time when it was all over. Ceentraaals! A Bulldogs fan nearby suggested Sturt might like to use liniment next time instead of moisturiser, and it was on for one and all. Someone in the crowd challenged me, without looking at the Budget, to name one Centrals player apart from the Gowans brothers and Marco Bello. Everyone knows the Gowans, and Marco, I know, because I sat behind his sister and her friends at the last SANFL grand final and they screamed whenever he went near the ball. Loved your work, girls. As for the current playing list, well, when I see No20, I still think of Wilbur Wilson, No 44 is still John Platten, 8 is Mark Norsworthy, and 56 is Jamie Thomas - all from the grand, if unsuccessful, days. After waiting 25 years, I missed the Dogs' first premiership in 2000, being in the Greek Isles at the time. Had I known they were going to win, I would have cancelled the trip. I was there last year, though, and even bought a new Bulldogs scarf for the occasion. After we beat the Eagles, a little girl with Eagles ribbons in her hair was walking out of the ground with her dad holding hands. A Centrals skinhead, whose mouth had only a superficial relationship with his brain, bent over and roared into her face: ``LOSER!!'' Witness the exact moment at which a lifelong Central Districts hater was created. I like SANFL footy. Where else would you have the former State Treasurer Stephen Baker serve you a barbecued sausage and onion under the grandstand at Unley? Or where else, at quarter time, are the players still given watery orange cordial instead of those new sports drinks loaded with electrolytes? At half time, with the forecast small hail an imminent threat, I went home to watch the rest of the game on TV and fell asleep on the sofa. But I will be there next weekend for the Centrals v Sturt clash, the last one this year, because Sturt will not make it to the grand final.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, August 28, 2002


NOSTALGIA A DISH BEST SERVED OLD


CHILDHOOD memories are so wispy and vague for me that I have almost no sense of nostalgia, as if that part of my brain has been lobotomised. A case of repressed memory, maybe, or just that nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to me as a kid that I can remember. Imagine my surprise then, between the fourth and fifth courses at The Grange restaurant, at having a flashback to the first time I dined out with my parents - a Golden Fleece restaurant in the early '60s. Golden Fleece service stations - ``Active 8's Great Mate'' - opened their own restaurants long before Big Macs hit town. Remember Stanley, the cutout driveway attendant? And the fibro cement motel next door? I must have been about 10 and whatever I had to eat - probably fish and chips - was not as important as the occasion of actually going out as a family to dine in public for the first time. Plastic tableclothes, paper serviettes, aluminium ashtrays ... and you had to wait for a table on busy nights! Other people have other first-time memories. A friend of mine clearly recalls as a toddler going to the Warradale Hotel and eating oysters in a high chair. Dining out was such a rare treat then, usually a special occasion like a birthday for which money had to be carefully saved up. Mind, you still have to budget for The Grange - at least I do - to taste the fare of Cheong Liew, whose exotic and complex recipes are more admired than attempted by home cooks. First, take four sea urchins ... that sort of thing. Cheong used to teach at the Regency Park Hotel School, which had trained 80,000 people at last count, so the graduates are everywhere. Which reminds me of Tom, the Czech barman at the Excelsior Hotel, Balmain, who last time I was there had a black eye and skinned knuckles from having fought off a couple of louts while walking a girl home the previous night. Never having been south of Sydney and proud of it, Tom said he knew nothing about Adelaide except the damsel in distress was a Regency Park graduate. See? These days Regency Park is known as the Regency International Centre for Hospitality, Leisure and Food Studies, phew, and it expects to have 10,000 students by 2005. It even runs a cooking course for corporate team building, for which I hope a blood rule applies. More nostalgia: On my last trip to Geelong, I visited the Tien Wah Cafe for the first time in, oh, 40 years. Nothing had changed: the same dark wood panelling, same rosette wallpaper and the same bottles of soy sauce. My dad used to bring in empty billies and have them filled with takeaway food. Does Cheong do his ragout of possum as takeaway? On this night, the Tien Wah was empty except for a bewildered woman in a mustard coloured tracksuit, who ordered fried rice, gagged and gasped for water, went outside and returned 10 minutes later demanding to know why her rice was not ready? Sad and depressing - nothing like I remember - and the steamed dim sims were soggy and disappointing. Much like nostalgia.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, August 21, 2002

SCRATCHING AT THE SURFACE OF THE HILL


BY THE time I drove into Broken Hill in the topaz light, the late sun glinting off the gravestones on the left, the cyst was draining poison across my shoulders and up the sides of my neck. Even my earlobes hurt. Typical. Take a few days off to relax and travel, and a cyst the size of a cricket ball erupts on the back of your neck. Thanks. That first night, seeking pain relief, I drank beer in the nearest pub and chatted footy with the nuggety old blokes with Brylcreemed hair and saltbush sprouting from their ears. Broken Hill worries about itself: The day's Barrier Daily Truth had stories about its ageing and declining population; of government benefits being the most common form of local income; of one of the highest youth suicide rates in the country; and of having to import ``Adelaide DJs'' as headline acts at the local clubs. Thank God for footy. By chance, the NSW Governor Marie Bashir was visiting Broken Hill at the same time, and staying in the same hotel. She said she liked the hotel's four grain bread. I would like to have challenged her to a game of billiards except I could not raise my sore neck high enough to get a line of sight at the balls. The next morning, feeling worse if possible, I drove to Silverton and peered across the arid Mundi Mundi plain, the edge of the world, which is supposed to mean ``a place where there is much permanent water''. A joke, surely? The winter flies were a pest, constantly having to wave them away until I absent-mindedly slapped at one on my neck. The scream must have reached Arkaroola. Something had to be done, so I went to the Broken Hill Hospital in search of drugs, for which I would have killed by that stage. ``This hospital will not tolerate AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR and supports police intervention,'' said the emergency department sign. Thanks for the warning. The woman doctor at Reception said: ``Yes, oh, I see, it's your eye.'' ... ``Huh?'' ... ``Your right eye is inflamed.'' ... ``As impressed as I am by your quick diagnosis, the problem is my neck. I can live with a terrigium but not a cyst." A different doctor eventually saw me and we had a chat about Magnoplasm and molasses and other home remedies, and whether or not the cyst should be lanced. He thought not, and sent me along to the hospital pharmacy for antibiotics where the girl asked: ``Do you have a pensioner card?'' No, I bloody well do not, and she quickly gave me the drug for $15.40, which was cheaper than the all-you-can-eat buffet at the Musicians' Club that night. Later in my hotel room, standing up from the toilet faster than my stiff neck allowed my head to rise, I banged my skull on the towel rail and took a piece out of my scalp. Owowow. Taking extra painkillers and the two antibiotics as prescribed and, not wishing to risk any further injury, I went early to bed. On Central TV at 8.22pm, a giant bilby was being tucked into bed, just like Fat Cat did on Channel 10 in the '70s, and the voice-over said: ``Goodnight Boys and Girls.'' ``Goodnight Mr Bandicoot,'' I murmured, and fell into a drugged dream of hard desert rain on corrugated iron houses.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, August 14, 2002


GREAT GLORY AWAILS US


POGROMS, jihads, ethnic cleansings, Inquisitions and Crusades - one could be forgiven for asking did God really intend to establish religion? Something dark sits at the heart of organised religion, something inherently intolerant, that leads to evil, slaughter and barbarism. A too human darkness. The trouble is every religion rests on an absolute belief in its own superiority and the divine right to impose its version of the truth upon others. Never mind which truth because in the world of religion no connection necessarily exists between what is true and what is believed to be true. Faith is the act of knowing something to be untrue and still believing it. True, many people need and depend on religion to get them through this life and onto the next. Good luck to them. Me, I placed more trust in the epigrams that used to appear on old MTT bus tickets. Sorry about the outburst of righteous indignation here but you can blame State Attorney General Michael Atkinson and his whacky idea to legislate to ensure that noone can be discriminated against on the basis of his or her religion. Michael, Michael ... whatever possessed you? Did your mother not warn you about discussing politics and religion in polite company? I want to be free to set my sights on cults such as the Scientologists, or to take aim at religion generally, and do not want Michael Atkinson blocking my view. In my experience, religions, especially the crackpot ones, are more than capable of defending themselves and attacking debunkers without needing State intervention on their behalf. Even Catholicism - my lapsed religion, a religion of mostly elderly women - generally has a good sense of humour about itself. Beset with all sorts of problems such as declining congregations and very few priests left to serve them, only a Catholic could quip: Will the last priest to leave please extinguish the candles? Of course, people with different religious beliefs should not be vilified but that is not the same as racism or sexism, which are matters of fact not faith. A quick aside: I recently heard a gay man rail against what he called the ``three evil -isms: racism, sexism and homophobia''. Uh-huh. God, I hope blasphemy prosecutions no longer occur in this State. My lawyer says it is unlikely but not impossible. Once, in the old Judaic tradition, misusing the name of God was blasphemy and the penalty was stoning to death. In the supreme irony, Jesus's assertion of his divine nature was blasphemous and led to his execution. Does blasphemy apply only to a Christian God in Australia or is the privileged protection extended to Islam as well? No, it does not. Look, the greatest freedom is to be allowed to be yourself, free to find personal fulfilment, and if people need religion in that quest, absolutely tremendous. But I put ``atheist'' on the last Census. If I guessed wrong, the consequences for me in the hereafter no doubt will be dreadful. You take your chances in this life, as well as in the next.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, August 7, 2002.


ONCE MORE, KEN, WITH FEELING


KEN Barnes - mornin', Ken - rings me from time to time to pass on his compliments whenever I write something he likes. He has more than a passing interest in my columns because he is a volunteer for the Royal Society for the Blind and he reads his local Messenger onto tape for RSB clients. For the blind, it means Ken's soft English accent is me. They have an impression of me through Ken and, thanks to him, they may consider me to be beautiful, strong, graceful and sociable. Sadly, I am none of those things but Ken undoubtedly makes me sound more cultured than I really am, for which I am grateful to him. I never write with anyone particular in mind but, knowing Ken will have to read it later, I try to keep out swear words and tone down any criticism of English sporting failures, which are many. Yes, I do have the power to put words into Ken's mouth, which he must find unsettling at times, but then I have to rely on his emphasis and intonation to convey the sense of what I have written. Not always easy. You would like Ken. He used to be a compositer at Messenger Press, typesetting headlines letter by letter, so having him read the paper aloud has a nice link to out shared space-time continuum. In a previous life he was also a member of the original BBC recording team on The Goons, a show dedicated to nonsensical plays on words if ever there was one. He would probably enjoy an old advertising mate of mine who, among his crimes of illiteracy, has spoken of creeping ivory on the garden wall, an immaculate contraption and his vagina pills, er, angina pills. Sorry for making you read that, Ken. Heh-heh. My mate's blurred speech also includes the Walk for the Dole scheme, saying antidote when he means anecdote and problems with the word superfluous, as in ``as superfluous as a seat on a chariot''. He says suferpluous. He is tremendous fun to play Scrabble with. Can you do an Irish accent, Ken? Then you might produce something that sounds like ``a liar and a barrister are one and the same''. Which may well be true in some cases but is substantially different to saying ``a lawyer and a barrister''. The other evening, half listening to the TV headlines in the other room, I was more than a little surprised to hear an item about a rape crisis and ABC nudes. Suddenly paying much closer attention, the story was about rate rises on the ABC News. Enjoy that, Ken? Someone once said to me: ``I thought that column was good until I found out you wrote it.'' Quite. The thing is, if you happen to enjoy what I write, don't spoil it by wishing to meet me in person. Speak to Ken instead, a lovely chap.
I enjoy the thought of Ken being my public voice. Better him than me. Another nice read, thanks Ken.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, July 31, 2002


TRY EXPLAINING IT TO THE KIDS


ONE Saturday morning a while ago in the Barossa Valley, I was involved in a ``hypothetical'' organised by the Law Society on the detention of asylum seekers at Gulag Woomera and shortly at Gulag Baxter. Also on the panel were academics, lawyers, the clergy, officers from the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) and the Liberal MHR Christopher Pyne, who was Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock for the occasion. Pyne made a pathetic Ruddock - far too animated and colourful, giving as good as he got with derisory asides at the ``hysterical rhetoric of the Feminazis'' on the panel. To be fair on Pyne, only Ruddock can do Ruddock, wearing an Amnesty lapel pin and doing his doublespeak routine, the point of which seems to make the asylum debate so boring that people will not be tempted to think too deeply about it. Ruddock also proves that having hooded brown eyes does not necessarily mean you are well connected with the Taliban. Pyne had to leave early, pity, after which the DIMA officers, sentiment running against them, were given a few uncomfortable moments and did not hang around for lunch. Asked if the fence around Baxter would be electrified, one officer seemed most offended and said, no, the technical term was ``energised'' - a subtlety worth noting as you fizz and crackle upon the wire. As for breaches of human rights, the same officer said DIMA, in support of free speech, had provided cardboard on which the Woomera detainees could make protest signs. So there. My hypothetical dilemma, posing as a journalist, was to be told by a redneck editor that a Catholic priest harbouring Woomera escapees in his Adelaide presbytery would be raided by the police that evening. The priest was a close friend of mine. What to do? What a coincidence, I said, for this very evening the priest and I were going out to dinner, or would be now. There was also some hypothetical banter about journalists at a Woomera riot being knocked down in a melee of pro bono lawyers seeking publicity; and of the ``Dob in an Escapee'' campaign run by the redneck editor - first prize, a family trip to Christmas Island in a leaky boat. Much more seriously, the citizenry has become disconnected from politics for all sorts of reasons but when did we become indifferent to the fate of helpless people and insensitive to their ill-treatment? Now, wincing at lip sewing and suicidal kids, we offer a tut-tutting, dismissive shake of the head at refugees behaving badly and what else can you expect of extremists? Extremist Australians, I mean. Faced with a supposed invasion of, er, which minority is it this time - Muslims? - democracy can be a dictatorship of the majority. History is said to be a chronicle of what ought not to have happened and to that extent, the future will bear down hard on us for what we ought to have done and did not do in our treatment of asylum seekers.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, July 24, 2002


BUILD A BETTER MOUSETRAP NO IMPROVEMENT


HUMAN ingenuity has given us many things: the wheel, laser, beer, mousetrap, microchip, beer, boomerang and beer, to name eight important ones. Most inventions are designed to solve problems - beer - and we are generally better off for them. Some we use every day - beer - and others we use whenever the need arises, such as a boomerang. Or a mousetrap. Such a simple, ingenious device - a sprung wire attached to a base - even the latest models are not really better for being made of moulded plastic. The one I bought recently, promising 30 per cent more whacking power, boasted of its, ahem, attractive, clean styling. ``Nobody but you will know it's a mousetrap,'' it said, as if I care. It also suggested using peanut butter as the bait, which I have done. So now we wait. The thing is, a mousetrap is a truly useful device that does not require the tub-thumping, hard sell to survive in the markerplace. A pity the same cannot be said of other products, currently available overseas: aromatherapy tablets in your shower nozzle. You have to purchase a special nozzle, however; squeeze-pack of coloured margarine in electric blue and shocking pink, the same colours that are added to kerosene or petrol to supposedly make them off-putting to kids; 3-in-1 nail polish which changes colour to match the wearer's mood swings. Mauve, for example, switches to silver grey under stress and then to gold in the sunlight. Only in America; women's tights - in the US again - which release subtle amounts of moisturiser onto the legs all day. Peeling them off at night must feel dreadful; Nuku Nuku Ashiyu powder, from Japan. Added to bathwater, it becomes a gel which is said to hold the heat longer. A special dissolving agent must be added to turn it back to liquid. Ugh; Phota Lite glow-in-the-dark powder, which contains the same enzyme responsible for a firefly's light. Described by the Japanese makers as a ``fun drink additive'', try slipping some into your best mate's beer for a laugh. Ah, human progress. Closer to home, another example that irks me is the Gillette Mach3 Triple Blade ``shaving system'' - blatant merchandising that has little to do with offering an innovative product. Whatever next, Gillette - four blades, five, nine? Sitting here with a beer watching the mousetrap in the corner behind the telly, no mouse, dead or alive, has made its appearance for over a week now. Perhaps the mouse recognises the thing for what it is, even if other people can't. Or maybe it prefers crunchy peanut butter. Nothing less than the body of a dead mouse will satisfy me, however, and I have a good supply of beer in the fridge to wait it out. The US essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson almost said: If a man can build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to his door. But not mice, it seems.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, July 17, 2002


ALTERNATIVE MUSIC COMPLEX, TWISTED


NOT one for gazing too deeply into my own navel, or anyone else's for that matter, the thought of writing a song that might satisfy angst-ridden youth is quite beyond me. Too depressing, too much despair and anguish, not enough "Keep Your Sunnyside Up". Personally, I prefer to vacuum seal my innermost feelings, armour rivet them in fact, so there are no unwise cracks. I am happy enough in an unsettled way. "You struggle with the great unrest and play the cards against your chest." That line is by my pal Johnny O. He writes songs - both words and music - in his spare time and plays the instruments and sings, and then does the programming, recording and production at home. Most impressive. "Your expectations are too high, you're building me up, and then I'm a lie." Johnny O recently finished making his own CD titled "Tremor - this bag of bones". It took him two years, off and on, and he intended to run off 500 copies for the alternative music sub-culture but, at $1200, decided not to waste the money. A pity. "Every day passes like yesterday's chances, a drop in the water, or sand in the ashes." Someone, not Johnny O, has suggested the CD's influence is trip-hop, whatever that is. To me it sounds like Pet Shop Boys meets U2 meets Philip Glass. Johnny O shudders. Overwhelmingly, though, the mood is dark, anxious and depressing, a trough of human miseries. Which is surprising given Johnny O has a great sense of humour, drives a yellow Sandman panel van and goes surfing. A surfer, not a sufferer. True, his love life is often complicated but no more so than other men who find it difficult to come to grips with the concept of romance. Sex and affection are enough. "Love's all round her but love's not within her, her husband's not dead he's just resting and hateful." Sounds like a man who is down and content to stay down. Why so dark and gloomy, Johnny O? Could you possibly write a happy song? Staring vacantly into space, he said: "Happy songs are twee; the only alternative to the horror I write would be aggression.'' Best left as it is then. "And in this small town, with irritations and limitations I compensated with engines of hatred." At 37, Johnny O is a bit too old for adolescent angst although he insists not all the lyrics are personal revelations. "There are lots of red herrings in there, mate.'' I should hope so. "Exorcise all the demons inside you. Prepare for the future and forget what's behind you." He has started work on another CD, having learned some lessons from the first. For one thing, he would use fewer layers of instrumentation; nor would he sing in the bathroom again to achieve an echo effect. The echo, once there, cannot be removed - better to do it later electronically. Useful advice, Johnny O, but what are we to make of this? "Monotony, it grinds your bones, you're a prisoner in your three bedroom home, and then you hear a noise in the silent night, then you're outside naked except for the moonlight."

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, July 10, 2002


SOUNDS OF SILENCE HELP AMUSIA


ALL those national anthems during the World Cup and I did not hear one footballer singing in tune as the camera passed him by - more proof that singing is not a natural ability for most of us. No matter their colour or creed, the players were uniformly awful, as flat as an Italian dummy spit. The fact is, if singing was as easy as soccer, everyone could do it. I think dancing is more natural; even so, watch the white kids trying to keep the beat to black music at the next Glenelg Jazz Festival. Heh-heh. My dad did a passably tuneful Bing Crosby impression when he was in a good mood, and whistled while he worked for the rest of the time, which could be very irritating. I have never heard my mother sing and nor can I really remember her listening to music on the radio. I just don't know, she possibly regards Mozart as a mere tinkler. I have a friend who is having singing lessons - for the self-discipline as much as anything. In conversation, she always digresses, distracted by side anecdotes, and slides all over the place. Singing, having to stick to the lyrics, must be a great trial for her. But she is improving and soon should sound something like Peggy Lee. We hope so. At my place, three radios, all tuned to the same station, are strategically located in the bedroom, bathroom and living room. The musical ``sweet spot'' - the point at which all three fill your ears in unison - comes by lying on the bedroom floor, head pointed across the hallway towards the bathroom. It does not help me to sing any better but I enjoy doing leg-lift exercises there to the William Tell Overture. Hi-ho, Silver, awaaaay! Being raised as a Catholic, we were expected to join the church choir or at least sing along with the hymns. I could sing in tune until my voice broke and that was that. Thereafter, taking a vow of silence, I mouthed the words and allowed no sound to come out. A devout, spindly woman, who we called the Praying Mantis, used to screech the hymns rhythmically and startingly out of tune. Sang like a drum, she did. She may have suffered from amusia. I cannot find the word in the Macquarie Dictionary but, be assured, amusia is a condition, usually resulting from brain or hearing damage, which means a victim cannot detect different musical pitches or even different melodies. Tone deaf, in other words, although it is hard to believe someone could listen to "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and "A Hard Day's Night", and not notice any difference between them. I like the story about the US opera diva Florence Foster Jenkins, from early last century, who made a career out of murdering Mozart, Verdi and so on - all sung with great gusto but totally, utterly out of tune. Not letting such a minor detail get in her way, Florence's career climaxed with a recital at Carnegie Hall, after which she said: "Some may say that I couldn't sing but no one can say that I didn't sing.'' Bravo.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, July 3, 2002


ALL REVEALED IN GREAT SOUP HUNT


"Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolyroly poured out from Harrison's...'' (James Joyce, Ulysses). NEVER having read Ulysses all the way through, I have done the next best thing and dined at Harrison's, in Dublin, and last weekend I made mockturtle soup. A new challenge, of sorts, after my son Paul boasted of his new-found expertise at soup making, the latest phase in his culinary development after mastering Pasta Surprise and a Cheezels Jaffle. We all go through it. When I visited him recently in Melbourne, he proudly showed me a plastic container of lumpy, grey, congealed gloop, which he said was vegetable soup. I said it most certainly wasn't, and we had one of those, oh yeah, you can do better, rounds of oneupmanship that fathers and sons have. Hence the mockturtle soup. First, a recipe. The last time I went looking for a soup recipe - mushy pea soup for a pie floater - was in pre-www days and it took me ages to track one down from the chap who owns the GPO pie cart. This time I went straight to the Internet. That's the problem with the Net. Once, you could spend an enjoyable lunchtime arguing the toss over, say, the cause of fairy rings. Now, everyone knows the answer is there waiting on the Net, all you have to do is look it up. Such a conversation killer. I quickly found that mockturtle soup required some oxtail, and went to the butcher's where I got caught up in one of those I say-I say-I say vaudeville routines: "Do you have an oxtail?'' ... "Not the last time I looked.'' Boom-boom. "Listen, I want to make mock turtle soup.'' ... "Don't mock turtles, they can't help it.'' Boom-bloody-boom. There should be a law against butchers. By chance, as often happens with the Net, I had also come across a Soup Personality Survey which asked me to pick a statement that best matched my normal soup eating style: Do I eat my soup with a large spoon/with a small spoon/from a mug/from a bowl? I clicked Bowl, to be told I was a Free-Spirited Enthusiast who "lives life to the fullest, never caring what others may think, marches to the beat of a different drummer but could not be happier''. Too close for comfort. Clicking Mug, I was a Care-Free Independent, "not as concerned with etiquette, is self-reliant and on-the-go. Knows how he likes it, doesn't want to be told how to do things.'' Another close call. I emailed Paul for his response to the survey, and he replied Large Spoon, which said he was a Purposeful Traditionalist: "Knows what they want, in soup and in life, uses the simplest way to get from one point to another.'' Yeah right. The Soup Personality Survey claimed it had received more than a million queries from people eager to have themselves revealed for what they really are. How sad. I told Paul the mockturtle soup was excellent and asked how was the vegie soup? Delicious, he said, and what a pity I had not tried it instead of scoffing. "No, my boy,'' I said, "that would have been gruel and unusual punishment.''

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, June 26, 2002


SORRY IS NOT THE ONLY WORD FOR IT


FOR old time's sake, John Gregory had thought up a special menu of such delicacies as Mimili Mains - ``freshly opened tin of curried sausages in cheesy sauce spaghetti''; and Pipalyatjara Dessert - ``freshly thawed frozen bread and margarine with live honey ants''. A nice touch for a reunion lunch with our Welsh mate Taffy who I first met on a trip with John to the Pitjantjatjara Lands in 1978 when Taffy was a school principal there. John was president of the Institute of Teachers at the time and, for his sins, now heads the renamed Australian Education Union in SA. Some people never learn. Taffy spent five years in the Pit Lands and the experience changed him, as it would. He last went back three years ago to show some overseas friends where he had lived but could not find the house. What he did find deeply distressed him - the social and physical devastation - and he could hardly speak about it over lunch. He said petrol sniffing was out of control. It was bad enough back in '78. We recalled how, on the night before John and I had arrived, a teacher aide's caravan had caught fire. The aide had grabbed the hose but whole sections were missing where the sniffers had chopped out lengths to use as petrol siphons. The caravan was gutted. A white teacher there had mentioned to me how it was easier to leave your petrol cap unlocked otherwise the sniffers would use a star dropper to put a hole in the fuel tank. Taffy, a good and decent man, always kept his petrol cap firmly secured and went around removing the jam tins of petrol attached by string to the sniffers' faces. He and his staff also used to round up the sniffers first thing, take them to school and give them something hot to eat and drink to try to keep them there. Invariably young men, they were taken out hunting and camping, or set to work dismantling and rebuilding cars ... anything to keep them away from the jam tins. Taffy had a bright idea to have the sniffers initiated as soon as they came of age instead of making them wait until last as a punishment. Once initiated, he reasoned, they came under adult tribal law and their fear of a spear through the thigh might work wonders for their bad habits. Nothing came of it, though. He never once saw a female petrol sniffer back then. Now, as we ate lunch, an inquest was under way into the deaths of three more sniffers, one of them a young mother. A man of humour and wit, Taffy has a lovely Welsh lilt to his voice, an essential part of his identity, and he can still speak the language, boy-oh. Which made it all the more wrenching when he said the kids were not taught in their own language at Pit Lands schools any more - only in English. Absolutely outrageous! Kill a language, kill a culture! Damn the government and curse the education system! Grrr. Except, as Taffy and John said, the Pitjantjatjara were the ones who wanted English to be the language of instruction. They could see plainly enough that those who were educated in English made the money and had the influence. Therefore... The Aboriginal story is always complicated.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, June 19, 2002


BLIND AS A BAT AND BATTY AS HELL


DURING World War II, off in the wild, blue yonder, the US Air Force fitted Mexican free-tailed bats with incendiary bombs on strings, intending to release them over enemy territory to do their worst. How a bat, even on massive doses of steroids, could ever manage to fly weighed down by a bomb on a string is beyond me. Never mind, the USAF expected the creatures somehow to do their patriotic duty, and to know exactly when to chew through the string to release the bomb on target. Strong and incredibly smart, too. I have heard rumours of a similar project involving bomber dolphins, trained to sink ships, but have never had it confirmed. One would hope dolphins were too smart to become suicide bombers. The USAF devised a technique by which the caged bats were parachuted over the drop zone and then released. Leaving aside the weight of the bombs, the other problem was the bats flocked together upon release, as bats are inclined to do. On one occasion, making a quick break for it, they left the test range in the desert and blew up several military buildings and an above-ground fuel tank in a nearby town. The best laid plans of fledermause and men. The Kamikaze Bats likely emerged around the same time as the US was developing the A-Bomb and one can imagine the boffins arguing heatedly about which project should be given higher priority. One cannot help feeling they got it wrong. My source for this batty anecdote is the reliable London Review of Books (April 4, 2002), therefore it must be true. Or true enough, anyway, to enter my growing file of silly idiot "military intelligence'', which started years ago on reading "Hitler - my part in his downfall" by Spike Milligan. Spike, who had served on the Home Front during WWII, reported that owing to a lack of guns, bullets or both, his platoon was armed with lengths of wood, which they aimed at targets on the rifle range and shouted in unison: ``Bang!'' Such stories restore your faith in harmless human bumbling although I suppose the wartime consequences could be potentially disastrous. Another account, also from the LRB scrapbook: During WWI this time, London was being bombed from zeppelin balloons in an early form of The Blitz that later wreaked so much havoc in WWII. The zeppelins had relatively quiet motors that were hard to hear at a distance, which naturally was of concern for the air raid defences. The military answer was to recruit blind men whose hearing was thought to be extra sensitive. And then to equip them with stethoscopes. Uh-huh. I shall report again on the strange workings of the military mind whenever new evidence comes to light. Over and out.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, June 12, 2002


ODD JOB OF EVEN ODDER THOUGHTS


STANDING at the kitchen sink peeling a couple of hard boiled eggs for Des's Can Curry, I was watching the workmen put the finishing touches on the office block next door and thinking, you know, journalism is not a proper job, not really. Unlike those blokes - the bricklayers, plumbers, concreters and so on - who have been hard at it for six months, from digging the trenches to glazing the windows. They are the bona fide workers, let me tell you. Journalists, on the other hand, inhabit a twilight world, a predicament shared with other ne'er-do-wells such as lawyers, booksellers and poets. Not a real job among us. In 18th century France, the aristocracy was barred by law from any profession that bore the taint of trade or manual labour, leaving only the Law, the Church or the Military as acceptable careers. Journalism was not considered acceptable. In the late 19th century, Viennese satirist Karl Kraus defined a journalist as a person who had ``no ideas and the ability to express them''. I resemble that remark. Over the years I have known journalists who had anxiety attacks on deadline, which is not recommended; several ``hanging's too good for 'em'' rednecks; some emotional wrecks who laboured over tear-stained pages; one who opted out to start an artificial flower farm; another who went rock sculpting; and a few who were mad or went mad. None of them would be able to run a dispute mediation service. Those of us who have managed to last the distance into middle age - male editors mainly - often have a balding, soft, buffed pink appearance. Stood side-by-side, we look like the chorus line from the Beer Barrel Polka. At the other extreme, among the current crop of young Messenger journalists, we have a former member of the Australian Girls' Choir, an elite triathlete and a young woman who says she has purple ugg boots which she wears in blue PJs with ducks on them. Uh-huh. Ordinary people, sort of, but across the generations we all share in a desire to have readers. Yes, you. Newspapers are engaged in a never-ending discussion about readership - up, down, sideways - understandably so given forecasts such as, by 2010, half of all retail shopping in the US will be online or by mail order. Some newspaper editors find it tiresome having to deal with people who are unwilling to recognise their paper's obvious advantages. Not me. Unemployment is tiresome. Discarding the last of the eggshells, it struck me that once, before the plastic supermarket bag came along, I would have wrapped the kitchen scraps in neat, tight newspaper parcels that would not come apart in the bin, and later would decompose gently at the tip. In those heady days, you had to have a newspaper in the house otherwise the rubbish was unmanageable. Newspapers were useful beyond their content, which may have added, say, 10 per cent to their circulation. There you go: Ban plastic supermarket bags in order to increase newspaper circulation. Yes, I know, it is hard to believe I am paid to do this job.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, June 5, 2002


MINIMALISM FOR DUMMIES


A FRIEND dropped by the other day to ask if she could use my spare room to practise her singing and, fair exchange, I asked would she mind dusting between the do-ray-mees? A clean flat for a few flat notes. Having sung Panis Angelicus and Glocca Morra over and over, she finally emerged for water and, asking her how the dusting was going, she said it was not possible to dust and sing at the same time. I showed her the door and she said: ``Why don't you just get a cleaner?'' Hey, my mother, although she hated vacuuming, never paid anyone to come in and clean her house and, dammit, neither will I! I never heard her say ``Cleanliness is next to Godliness'' but mum gave me the impression that God frowned on those who did not keep their houses in good order themselves. Eternal glory awaits the penitent duster. In my case, cleaning is not the problem so much as the clutter. Minimalist decor defeats me. Show me a solitary table and a corner lamp in a vast area of empty floorspace, and I keep asking myself where-o-where do they keep their junk? The situation is so bad at home the available living space keeps decreasing and the accumulated mess seems to have reached critical mass where it no longer requires any contribution from me or even my presence to continue expanding. The ironing board cannot be left standing by itself for a few hours without returning to find it covered in newspapers and magazines. Determined to fix the problem once and for all, I recently drove all the way to the IKEA store in Melbourne and paid $680 for DIY shelving units, wheeled them outside on a trolley, found they would not fit in the car and, cursing mightily, wheeled them back inside. IKEA offered to deliver them to Adelaide for $200. ``Wouldn't it be cheaper to just open a store there?'' I suggested, to which they said: ``You want to buy the Adelaide franchise?'' And all I wanted was some shelving. In the circumstances, no wonder my eye fell upon the latest Inside Out magazine, promising ``Well-Behaved Bedrooms'' and sagely noting: ``Wardrobes attract clutter like a mailbox attracts junk mail.'' How true. I place a brick inside my letterbox at weekends, when most of the rubbish arrives, to prevent the deliverers getting the flap open. It works surprisingly well. Among Inside Out's other Zen-like pearls: ``Life is too short to keep knickers, bras and the like in an orderly fashion.'' Couldn't agree more. It also had tips on how to accommodate an ``obsession with turtlenecks and stilletos''. They know me so well. One idea I did like was to use secondhand dressmaker's dummies, at $77 apiece, to draping clothes on. You could fill whole rooms, like having friends around for party dressups, and never have to wine and dine them. In the spare room, one unpacked box remains from the last time I moved. It contains stuff that I obviously do not need such as broken keyboards and cracked refrigerator shelves, and should be tossed away. Then again, you just never know...

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, May 29, 2002


CHILLING FEELING NOT SO THRILLING


FEELING old and cold and as flat as a ballerina's chest, with only the snap of a Codral blister pack to keep me from dozing off, how many hours has it been now since I took to my sickbed? Days, possibly. At a low ebb, when I sat on the toilet this morning it was so cold, condensation formed on my cheeks. And each time I reach over to the bedside radio I cause static. The State Treasurer just said ``somethink'' on radio. Why do South Australians say ``somethink'', ``nothink'' and ``anythink''? Very curious, darlink. This time, in addition to the Codrals, I am taking liquid echinacea, whatever that is, which also promises temporary relief from coughs, colds and flu. The label says it contains 45 per cent alcohol, more potent than whisky. I am delirious or drunk - I care not which. Speaking of labels, I had a curry the other night and a Kingfisher lager for the first time, said to be India's most popular beer, which the label stated was a "rare pleasure, colourful and revered''. Are we really expected to take such nonsense seriously? Only in India. The label first suggested that Kingfisher be served cool, quite sensibly so, but then the copywriter had another rush of blood: "Most Thrilling Chilled''. See how being crook can provide idle time to reflect on scatterbrained things that might otherwise pass unremarked? Another example: A squat woman takes her three dogs to The Orphanage park every Saturday and as soon as she lets them loose, bedlam is unleashed, the hounds of hell. Away they dash as a hunting pack, fighting among themselves and attacking any other dog in the vicinity, with the woman frantically chasing them in ever widening, hopeless circles. She reminds me of the old saying: ``It must be fat cos jelly don't wobble like that.'' With absolutely no control over them - Raver, Dozer and Rupert - she screams hysterically instead: Rupert! Rupert! Rupe! Rooop! Rooopert! ROOOOPET!! Raver! Raver! Rave-AAAAH! It takes her at least an hour to round them up and she must go home exhausted, emotionally and physically drained, the perfect example of someone who should not be allowed to have dogs. Every Saturday is the same. And each time, having got the beasts back on leash, she spends ages going through her bag looking for the car keys. How many hours do women waste looking for keys in their bags? Days. What time is it now? Did you know people are never buried wearing a wrist watch? I never wear a watch anyway and right now I feel like death warmed up. Wallowing in self-pity? You bet.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, May 22, 2002


END OF SEASON TOO FAR AWAY


HAVING been away from Geelong for so long, no realistic possibility exists now to return there to live. Naturally enough, Geelong-born and bred, many connections remain. I have plenty of family there who always make to feel welcome, which is not the same as being made to feel at home. Much time has passed but one inescapable legacy is my continuing support, against all wisdom, for the Geelong football side. No choice, you cannot help where you were born. I crawl through most football seasons on my hands and knees and as I write this piece on deadline, Geelong and Port Adelaide are about to play here and I have to assume Port won. Geelong supporters rarely have the opportunity to experience optimistic airs. Once, all too briefly, ``God'' did play for us, providing the illusion of having supernatural power on our side. It was a delusion. Now the son of ``God'', Gary Ablett Jr, is wearing the Cats colours. Shall we come to know him as ``Jesus''? Given the burden of his name, just making a career of footy, unscathed in body and soul, would be miracle enough. In my youth, whose centrepiece is still the '63 premiership, to support any side other than Geelong was out of the question. Strangulation by a Cats footy scarf awaited the traitorous. In those halcyon years, the landmark T&G building in Geelong's mainstreet had two statues in the clocktower which appeared every hour to clang a bell. They were dressed in Geelong footy jumpers whenever we made the finals, which was often then. The precinct around the T&G is now occupied by reject shops, $ shops and pawn shops. So it goes. What else? The great 1950s Geelong coach Reg Hickey lived just around the corner from our family and we attended the same church. I used to say, ``Good morning, Mr Hickey,'' on my best behaviour because dad said he was a legend when the word still meant something. Mr Hickey's youngest daughter Christine, who played in the same tennis club, was always pleasant to me although she was a bit older and I was shy of her. Nice girl. Christine is Port Adelaide captain Matthew Primus's mother. Say hello to your mum for me, Matthew, and why aren't you playing for the Cats. I know, I know, blame Malcolm Blight. What else? A perfect tackle should be rewarded irrespective of ``prior opportunity''; the Crows have barrackers not supporters; and the best way to stop ``flooding'' is to erect extra sets of goals on the wings. Actually, footy tackles seem to be getting a lot more up close and personal this season to the extent that we fans are no longer just spectators but witnesses to sexual assault. Here's something else: I recently went to Unley Oval and watched Sturt thump Glenelg, neither of which I like much. The Sturt players did cartwheels and air splits as they ran onto the ground for the second half. There, I think all the footy is out of my system for now, so I can go and watch Port flog Geelong in peace. Of the 16 sides in the AFL, I can name 12 that will not make the final 8 and Geelong is among them. Sigh.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, May 15, 2002.


TA SERVES YOU RIGHT


THE best headwaiter I ever saw in action was Terry Armstrong from the old Braested, on Greenhill Rd, when it was still a restaurant in the '80s and not the aged care home it has become. Everyone knew him as TA. He remembered all the guests' names and food preferences; always walked clockwise around a table, leading with the left foot and serving from the right; and never carried more than three plates, all balanced on one arm if necessary to leave the other hand free to arrange a guest's napkin. TA was a combination of relaxed charm and professional perfection. Carer, adviser and entertainer. TA had the gift. He also used to camp it up a fair bit. One of his naughty tricks was to go around a matronly table of eight serving each in turn and on reaching the guest of honor - perhaps the grande dame celebrating her 80th birthday - he would release a windup toy that had been hidden in his palm. Ho-ho, the cackles of horror and delight as a little plastic willy on two feet waddled across the table. I think it was TA who told me that a person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person. But there are limits, TA. Such as the lunch I had recently with a cop and a publican at a newish city restaurant where we had three young waitresses always in our face like a revolving door, more like spruikers, repeatedly interrupting the conversation to get our orders out of the way. ``The duck breast? Fabulous choice, sir - that's just what I would have ordered! ... Oh, the lamb is fabulous, too, but best slightly underdone, yes, even if it does turn your stomach ... The riesling is a favourite of mine, sir, one of Wolf Blass's best vintages. Fabulous.'' With the meal over and an unfinished bottle of wine on the sideboard, suddenly we became invisible and I had to serve myself to the wine while the girls milled around elsewhere chewing their hair ends. When the matron d' finally heaved into view, she had the gall to say: ``You poured that in the wrong glass.'' A corked tongue. This is not a restaurant review, lucky for them. Instead, I left no tip, I will not return there as a paying customer and will happily repeat the name to anyone who asks. I blame the speed eating trend - ``I want to eat and I want it NOW!'' - the serve yourself buffet, the all day breakfast, the table of eight who order coffees and start complaining if they do not arrive within a minute. Which rather begs the question: Which is more important, the food or the service? I have returned to restaurants where the food was ordinary if the service was good; rarely, however, have I bothered to return when the service was slovenly or pushy, no matter how good the food. I do not remember any particular dishes at Braested but I do have happy memories of TA. Presumably he has retired. I have not seen him for years but some time ago, second or third hand, I heard that he wanted to catch up for old time's sake. But his phone number went missing. Ring me, TA, and we will lament the decline in service standards over lunch.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, May 8, 2002.


WHEN BLOOD TURNS TO ICE


IN A city that has no weather to speak of - we have a climate while Melbourne has all the weather - the change in Adelaide's seasons can be a subtle and ill-defined thing. At this latitude, we are supposed to have four seasons but the transition from one to the next is not clear. Yes, rain occasionally falls in winter and the summers are hot and dry - but between those two extremes it can be hard to tell where one ends and another begins. To try to draw a distinction, I have adopted a couple of personal rules of thumb. Les Burdett is one. Summer never starts officially for me until I hear Les, the Adelaide Oval manager, on the radio being interviewed about the state of the Test wicket. Les is said to prepare the best wickets in the country, possibly in the world, and he once went to New York to prepare a private pitch. So when I hear Les saying yet again, as he does every year, that "it's the attention to detail, mate'' that makes his wickets so good, I know everything is as it should be, the cricket gods are smiling and summer can proceed. At the other extreme, Anzac Day always marks the first serious rainfall, when I begin to think about lighting an open fire if I had one. Last Anzac Day, at an ouzo gathering of Greek friends waiting for the first rain, Zuma John said winter for him meant the first snowfall in the Alps and he told us about the first time he went skiing at Mt Buller. Without going to the bother of having a ski lesson first, he caught a lift up the mountain and by the time he reached the top, he was so hot and sweaty he threw off the snow jacket, the windcheater and the skivvy. He did what? Perhaps it was the high altitude combined with the physical exertion but the next thing, having no idea how to turn or stop, off he slid down the hill. Topless. The trouble was the sun had moved to the other side of the mountain by then and the snow was quickly becoming icy. Too late, Zuma John was rapidly gathering awesome speed, straight as a rocket, screaming at people to get out of his damned way until finally, thank God, the slope began to level off. Then he spotted the lake dead ahead. Panicking, he flopped onto his back to get some braking traction and the ice crystals ripped his skin to shreds. Wooosh, smack into the water, grateful to find it was quite shallow and he was not going to drown. Freezing, bleeding and half-naked, standing there knee-deep in the lake, Zuma John looked back up the slope to where his clothes sat in a distant pile and worried deeply about himself. His wife Peggy - known as The Flannelette Monster - quickly assured us the episode had occurred long before she knew him. I should hope so. No one would consciously marry an idiot. On the return bus trip to Adelaide, Zuma John said he was in such agony from his bloodied back that he took a Mogadon to help him sleep. Except he was unable to lean against the seat and instead had to strap hang all the way home, hallucinating wildly. Zuma John gives my winter new meaning.

Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, May 1, 2002.


DRUGS WAR A FUTILE FARCE


IN MY solitary year of studying Applied Chemistry in 1970, it dawned on me that lysergic acid diethylamide was almost easier to make than to say - that's LSD to you and me, baby, the chemical of psychedelic dreams. Our lecturer never actually taught us how to make LSD but its chemical formula was plain to see and, even for a plodding first year student like me, the production process could be deduced quite easily. Yet I never made LSD for much the same reason that I never tried it either, or heroin, or cocaine or any of the so-called designer drugs such as amphetamines or Ecstasy. Cowardice. No promise of chemically-induced pleasure could overcome my fear of taking something that had been blended in someone's back shed and adulterated with whatever else happened to be handy. My job eventually brought me into contact with the real life narcotics industry - I use the word ``industry'' quite deliberately - and I met people who were later to die of drug overdoses, including a cousin whose death broke everyone's heart and crushed the fun out of her parents. One time, my place was broken into by a heroin addict and his prostitute girlfriend who stole my laptop and VCR to fund their habits, and he died of an overdose not long afterwards. So it goes. For all that, I have reached the stage now where I think all drugs should be legalised. All drugs. I must be out of my mind suggesting such a thing but to my way of thinking, the minute a drug is made illegal, the black market booms and the drug-crime cycle begins. And then the rest of the ``drug industry'' clunks into gear - police, health and welfare workers, lawyers and politicians, judges and jailers - all at a national cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. A ship of fools. Not only is the ``war on drugs'' ineffective, it is a futile waste of money, scandalously so given the way the ``war'' is used for self-serving ends by our politicians. Even the head of the National Crime Authority has admitted the drug war is lost, which rather begs the question: Why we are persisting with a policy that is such an expensive failure? Makes no sense to me. Anyone who suggests that cracking down harder on drugs is the answer must be suffering delusions of denial. The drug producers and smugglers love prohibition because it increases their profit margins without much increasing their risks of capture. Some people will try drugs, some won't, but very few, say no more than 2 per cent, will become problem addicts. Decriminalising hard drugs will make no difference to the addiction rate. The addicts need to be treated as if they have a medical condition not a criminal one, in clean, supervised heroin injecting rooms, if needs be. Premier Mike Rann has promised to hold a drug summit in June, which is all well and good. But, as I understand it, heroin injecting rooms will not be on the agenda. Why not, Mike?