Published The Advocate, July 23, 2005
IN AN unfortunate case of bad timing, I know of one Coastal farmer who saw no future in the dairy industry and got rid of his cows a year ago to concentrate on growing spuds. Then Bonlac announced price rises for milk and the potato industry fell in a hole. You can't help bad luck. It reminds me of a package of media junk mail once sent in by a certain Josephine Poon from Hong Kong. I have never met Josephine Poon but it is a lovely sounding name. Josephine starts: "Here is an exciting press release for your highly respected paper which is going to make your readers jump up for joy." Oh, joy. "Getting rich is always great news. GREAT NEWS!" Oh, great. The exciting press release was about to be filed in the exciting wastepaper bin when my eye caught Josephine's next line: "Most people are unaware that cattle gallstones are of great value." I had been pondering this very point for years. Josephine enclosed some overseas press clippings including one with the headline, "Farmer rakes in moo-cho bucks," which told the story of Raoul, a poor Spanish farmer, who was deep in debt and about to lose his cattle farm if he missed one more payment. Then Raoul found a gallstone the size of a hen's egg in one of his slaughtered cows and the following day he picked the winning numbers in a $160,000 lottery jackpot. So he slaughtered another cow and, behold, a second gallstone turned up. The day afterwards Raoul learned he had inherited $650,000 from a long-lost uncle. Good for Raoul. The problem, of course, is you cannot go killing all your cows on the off-chance of finding a gallstone. One alive cow is still worth more than one gallstone, putting aside the lottery windfall for a moment. But wait, there's more: Josephine said cow gallstones had a legitimate role in Chinese medicine for the treatment of fever and blood pressure, and she was happy to pay cash for as many as she could get, no strings attached. I looked for the catch but couldn't see one. No-one is required to send her money; there is no other use for gallstones that I am aware of; and cows are not an endangered species, unlike many other creatures put into Chinese medicine. Even so, I hesitate now to provide her contact details in case it's a rip-off ... but what the hell, if you want to give Josphine a run for her moo-cho bucks, try writing to her at PO Box 70947, Kowloon Central Post Office, Hong Kong. She will tell you how to dry, package and send the stones to Hong Kong, stressing rather firmly that she definitely does not want the gall bladder sent to her. The address is an old one that has been sitting in my files for ages and Josephine has probably long since retired in luxury to Majorca to live with lucky Raoul. Or she has bought a dairy farm on the Coast.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Published The Advocate, July 16, 2005
LIVING alone is risky if there are jobs to be done around the house. Not that I am accident prone but I wear safety goggles to do the vacuuming. My father was a great handyman. He would be lost for days in the hardware store, admiring the fine serrations of bandsaw blades or holding wingnuts up to the light as if they were pieces of religious art. A clever man, he never read an instruction manual. I inherited none of his smarts. Mind you, I am not alone. A colleague has been living in fear of his wife for weeks since he burnt out the element of the new stovetop while cooking sausages, and then covered up the evidence with a stockpot. As to whether he used a frypan or cooked the snags direct on the stovetop, I will give him the benefit of the doubt, which is asking a lot. He recently pruned his rose bushes to such an extent that no flowers will appear for 10 years. Also, having bought chooks for the first time and being asked by a mate if he was watering them, he was later seen spraying them with a hose and they all died. I cannot mention his name but hopefully by now the penny has dropped enough for his wife to identify him and she should be checking the ruined stovetop right about … now. I decided to clean the roof gutters. Beforehand I rang a friend in Adelaide to put her on standby in case I fell off the roof. Not that she could do much from that distance but she could call 000 for an ambulance if I did not rung her back within the hour. She understood. She had seen me turn the simple replacement of a tap washer into a DIY disaster that cost $3000 after the plumber and a tiler had to be called. She said to be careful because falling from a roof was one of the most common causes of household death, next to falling from a ladder. No worries, I said, I had no ladder. The roof is close to the cliff behind my place and the gap is narrow enough to step across rather than go to the expense of buying a ladder. Did I mention I suffer from vertigo? By the time I summoned up enough courage to take that one small step, the hour was almost up and I had to ring my friend again. Except there was no answer. She was swimming laps, she said afterwards, and forgot about me. Thanks. Anyway, the gutters were cleaned without mishap apart from the usual cuts from the corrugated iron and, feeling pleased, I decided to tackle another DIY project: stripping the wallpaper from my bedroom. Off I trotted to the hardware store to hire a wallpaper steamer. I also bought a ladder and got it home before noticing the sticker: "Danger. Failure to read and follow instructions may result in injury or death." Can you book ahead with 000?
LIVING alone is risky if there are jobs to be done around the house. Not that I am accident prone but I wear safety goggles to do the vacuuming. My father was a great handyman. He would be lost for days in the hardware store, admiring the fine serrations of bandsaw blades or holding wingnuts up to the light as if they were pieces of religious art. A clever man, he never read an instruction manual. I inherited none of his smarts. Mind you, I am not alone. A colleague has been living in fear of his wife for weeks since he burnt out the element of the new stovetop while cooking sausages, and then covered up the evidence with a stockpot. As to whether he used a frypan or cooked the snags direct on the stovetop, I will give him the benefit of the doubt, which is asking a lot. He recently pruned his rose bushes to such an extent that no flowers will appear for 10 years. Also, having bought chooks for the first time and being asked by a mate if he was watering them, he was later seen spraying them with a hose and they all died. I cannot mention his name but hopefully by now the penny has dropped enough for his wife to identify him and she should be checking the ruined stovetop right about … now. I decided to clean the roof gutters. Beforehand I rang a friend in Adelaide to put her on standby in case I fell off the roof. Not that she could do much from that distance but she could call 000 for an ambulance if I did not rung her back within the hour. She understood. She had seen me turn the simple replacement of a tap washer into a DIY disaster that cost $3000 after the plumber and a tiler had to be called. She said to be careful because falling from a roof was one of the most common causes of household death, next to falling from a ladder. No worries, I said, I had no ladder. The roof is close to the cliff behind my place and the gap is narrow enough to step across rather than go to the expense of buying a ladder. Did I mention I suffer from vertigo? By the time I summoned up enough courage to take that one small step, the hour was almost up and I had to ring my friend again. Except there was no answer. She was swimming laps, she said afterwards, and forgot about me. Thanks. Anyway, the gutters were cleaned without mishap apart from the usual cuts from the corrugated iron and, feeling pleased, I decided to tackle another DIY project: stripping the wallpaper from my bedroom. Off I trotted to the hardware store to hire a wallpaper steamer. I also bought a ladder and got it home before noticing the sticker: "Danger. Failure to read and follow instructions may result in injury or death." Can you book ahead with 000?
