An apology

I apologise to all readers and followers for my lack of attention to this blog for the past few weeks.

I’m involved in a new project that is taking up much of my thinking time and all my creative energy. I hope it will be completed by the end of July so that I will be able to return to blogging by early August.

Thank you all for following this blog. I hope you will understand why I’ve had to suspend it for a time.

Mike, the Malaria Mo-skeeter

During WW2 the Australian military published an annual book whose contents were contributed by the men fighting the war. I was only eight years old when the war ended so I didn't read all the content, though I certainly read some of it and, undoubtedly, looked at the pictures.

For the past few days I’ve had two lines of verse from one of those books running through my head—the final two lines of the poem below—and an Internet search found them in the Queensland RSL (Returned Servicemen’s League) News from Autumn 2011.

Mike the Malaria Mo-skeeter

In tropical regions, there’s “mozzies” in legions

But none cause havoc completer

Than one little devil who’s not on the level,

It’s Mike, the Malaria Mo-skeeter.

With no foe or ally is Mike ever pally,

His aim is to be a world beater;

For Tojo and Aussie’s the same to this mozzie,

To Mike, the Malaria Mo-skeeter.

The world’s aviation has yet no creation

Like Mike in his striped single-seater,

Bad trouble is comin’ when you hear the hummin’

Of Mike, the Malaria Mo-skeeter.

He sure is a glutton and he won’t eat mutton—

No sir, nor is mike a beef eater;

For Mike likes consumin’  the blood of a human,

Does Mike, the Malaria Mo-skeeter.

So please heed my warning, at sundown or dawning,

Altho’  you may dwell in a heater;

Just keep yourself covered, les you be discovered

By Mike, the Malaria Mo-skeeter.

In time’s smallest fraction you’ll be put out of action

If once he injects his saltpetre.

The world’s greatest vermin is not Jap or German—

It’s Mike, the Malaria Mo-skeeter.

                       —by NX116478

The name of the author is not known. We only know that he was an Australian soldier serving in New Guinea and that his regimental number was NX116478. (The RSL newsletter  in which this was published can be found at http://www.myvirtualpaper.com/doc/rsl-qld/rsl-news-autumn-2011/2011070401/50.html#50)

How are you?

I was once invited to sit in on a creative writing class conducted by a woman who writes children’s books. Everybody sat about chatting for a while until she was ready to start the class, when her opening remark was, “Let’s have a health bulletin first and get it out of the way.” Then, to my astonishment, she launched into a ten minute in-depth rant about her health problems, both real and imaginary. Even more astonishing was that the group seemed to think this was normal; apparently she made a practice of starting that way.

One of my own family members was such a person and would visit the doctor whenever she could find a pretext. To be fair, she didn’t have a very interesting life and this was her way of getting attention from a professional, no matter how cursory and superficial that might have been. She learned to maximise the exposure by arriving long before her appointment “so that she wouldn’t have to wait” and comparing notes with the other people in the waiting room. I imagine that she would have agreed that the definition of a boor is “somebody who wants to talk about their health when you want to talk about your health”.

One of my workmates was a Welshman who frequently became angry at the Australian attitude toward other people’s health. He simply didn’t understand the difference between a request for information and a rhetorical question. One of his favourite rants was, “Why do you Australians say, ‘How are you?’ when you obviously don’t want to know?” Perhaps it’s different in Wales—the land of my father—but it was probably just a personal quirk.

One of the poets—a very minor one, I’m sure—put it this way:

               Don’t tell your friends about your indigestion:

               “How are you?” is a greeting, not a question.

Catholic for a day

Hungarian Flag

Shakespeare had it right when he said that “one man in his life plays many parts”. With hindsight we can all see some of the roles in which we have been cast—and there are many: far more than those the Bard listed. In my own lifetime, perhaps the two least expected were the couple of years I was a Hungarian and the twenty-one hours I was a Catholic.

I learned to play chess when Bobby Fischer was carving up the opposition on his way to Reykjavik and the World Championship. I had a lot of help from a Hungarian friend who was happy to teach me what he knew. He had won his division of the City of Sydney Chess Championship, so I was in good hands. Once I started to get the hang of it he invited me to join the Maroczy Chess Club whose members, except for myself, were all Hungarians. Many of them had escaped from Hungary during the 1956 uprising and they brought a great deal of old-world charm to the rather brash new land beneath the Southern Cross.

I joined one of their teams for the inter-club competition and in my second year we found ourselves tied for first place, which forced a play-off against the strong St. George team. There were five players per team and, with the score at 2-2, only my game was still alive. My opponent had won our three previous encounters and, true to form, had the better of me in this one. So I tried a swindle.

In chess a swindle is usually an unsound sacrifice—and this one was certainly that. Had he ignored it he would have won the game but he grabbed the knight I offered and then realised, too late, that he couldn’t stop me from queening a pawn. After that it was easy-peasy and a lucky win to the Hungarians.

They declared me a blood brother, made me an honorary Hungarian for the remainder of my stay with the club, and gave me much Tokay to drink. They’re wonderful people and I hold them in great affection.

There’s a bitter-sweet ending to the story. My mentor—his name was Istvan (Steve) Kaiser—returned to Hungary for a holiday when he retired. Sadly he died there. But I dubbed it bitter-sweet because I knew how much he loved his country and I think he would have preferred to be laid to rest there.

 *             *             *

Becoming a Catholic was a different situation altogether.

During the 1970s my sons played soccer for the local club and, during that period, I held every position on the committee except for treasurer. Whenever somebody was needed to raise funds for the club I was usually co-opted and the year we held an auction I was nominated to be the auctioneer.

Another sporting club in the area had held an auction two weeks prior to ours and their result was so poor that most folk didn’t expect us to do any better.  Since I hadn’t done anything quite like that before I didn’t know what to expect but I thought that, with the right kind of patter and enough jokes to keep people from thinking too much, we might be successful. As a tactic, it worked just fine and we pulled in over $2000, which was pretty reasonable in 1977; in fact, it was almost eight times the amount of money raised by the other club’s auction.

A month later the local Catholic School also held an auction and I was asked if I’d do it.  We were to sell wine on Friday night and bric-a-brac on Saturday afternoon.  I agreed but when Father Fay learned that I was an agnostic, he declared me an honorary Catholic for the duration of the event.

We had a big crowd and lots of money changed hands but I have no idea how much we made. Honorary Catholics were obviously not privy to that kind of information.

I'm not a Catholic any more, of course. These days I'm a card-carrying Pastafarian.

*             *             *

Mr Shakespeare also said “to thine own self be true” and, with that in mind, I can’t help wondering whether I’ll get the opportunity to be an Irishman before I die. There seems to be a fair amount of blarney in my make-up … or perhaps it’s only bullshit.

Invisible links

In 1975 Daizy gave me a beautiful, hand-turned wooden chess set. It cost $15, and whenever I take it out to play I can’t help thinking about the craftsman who made it. By the time the exporter, importer and retailer all took their cuts, how much did this man (or woman) get for the many hours of painstaking work that went into it? It could only have been a pittance.

I realised that I have an emotional link to that craftsman and it made me think about other people who impact on my life from a distance—invisible people who, just by living out their own lives, make a difference.

Farmers are pretty obvious. We may buy our food from the supermarket but it doesn’t grow there. If I pay less than $3/kg for apples, how many trees does the orchardist have to tend before he makes a decent living?

Then, of course, there are all the frozen foods that are so convenient to store in a refrigerator. I wonder how many people know that Birds Eye takes its brand name from the real-life American inventor, Clarence Birdseye, who developed the refrigeration technology used to freeze crops? So when I cook frozen vegetables there’s a link back to this extraordinary man as well.

Hang on! Where would Birdseye have been without electricity? Now my links are reaching further back and begin to feel like a ball bouncing around a slot machine—Faraday, Edison, Tesla, Marconi and all the other greats had a hand in the lifestyle I take for granted.

When I was a child and learned of people like Pythagoras, Alexander, Napoleon and Socrates they were two dimensional—flat words on a flat page. In my ignorance they hadn’t really lived, had never experienced triumph or despair, knew nothing of love or anguish. Now I know better! They were real, and they were the giants of history.

So it is with those people who, however tenuously, are linked in some way to my life. I will never know anything of the person who carved my chess set but, wherever s/he lived, whoever s/he was, I hope their life was as happy as they helped to make mine.

Hugging—it’s a body-contact sport

Hugs, like huggers, come in different shapes and sizes.

The A-Frame Hug is for shy people. They stand well apart and lean forward so that they touch only at shoulder height before reaching gingerly around to put their hands lightly on the other’s scapulas—that’s what shy people call shoulder blades—before quickly stepping back. I’ve met a few A-Framers in my time and they’re no fun at all.

Then you have your full body hug which pays scant attention to decorum and enjoys sharing a little warmth with another person. Body huggers are usually outgoing, fun people.

But the best hug of all is the bare hug—sometimes spelt bear hug. While the other hugs are done with the clothes on, bare hugs dispense with such inconveniences. Bare huggers are my very favourite people.

Some years ago, when Daizy and I attended a weekend with a group who were about eighty per cent female, the organiser asked if I would look after the snack bar, which was located just inside the doorway. No problem! The result was that I got to know most of the people. On Sunday afternoon when the last workshop had finished, I stood behind my counter watching everyone leave. Realising that I was missing an opportunity I said to one woman, “Did you know that the last eight people to go through that door all gave me a hug?” She thought about it and said, “All right.” It was a great opportunity and I got fifteen hugs in a row before somebody called my bluff. Let me tell you, it ain’t easy hugging with a counter in between but it’s very chaste.

Then of course there’s the travelling hug. Some people call it dancing.

There were two French women at that function and, because they were flying to New Caledonia the next day, had asked to keep their room for an additional night. I was detailed to collect their money and found them, as well as several other people, on the dance floor. It was one of those odd situations where they were all just moving to the music rather than dancing as couples and, as I approached, one of them drew me into her arms and we spent ten magical minutes floating around the floor. And float I did! She was slender and lovely, and was so light on her feet that she made me feel like Fred Astaire. She knew what I wanted and, although I wasn’t about to break the spell, she finally asked, “How much is the room?” I said, “Well, it was $40 when we started dancing, but it’s getting less all the time.” Her eyes sparkled, and she said, “Ahh! You sound just like a Frenchman.”

There’s one thing to remember about hugging—one rule of etiquette that you must never break.  No matter what the style, it’s considered very bad manners to be the first person to let go.

Sharks? No problem. But jellyfish…

The Darth Vader of Jellyfish

Some years ago I was invited to a barbecue at Townsville in Australia’s tropical north. I arrived too early and my host suggested going for a walk along the beach. I didn't have my swim shorts but when I arrived back I said how much I’d enjoyed wading in the shallows. He looked horrified. “Did you forget the jellyfish?” he asked.

And I had! I certainly knew about them but, being thousands of kilometres from home and thinking more about the workshop I’d been attending at JCU, I had waded as though it was as safe as a southern beach. The problem is that, from November through April the seas are alive with deadly stingers. They used to be called sea wasps but are now known as box jellyfish (see picture above).

They are only a problem in the near coastal waters (the Great Barrier Reef is too far off-shore for them to reach). They breed in great numbers early in the season but their predators are many and their numbers decrease. As the season goes on, their poison increases and by the time I’d paddled among them in April they would have been at their deadliest.

I know that childbirth is reputed to be the most severe pain but I’m not certain of that. I’d rather give birth to a baby hippo than be stung to death by a sea wasp.

Although these jellyfish claim their share of victims each year they’re not as dangerous as they could be for two reasons—they inhabit only the tropical waters north of Bundaberg on the east coast and Exmouth in the west, so most of Australia is free of them; and the locals are acutely aware of the problem and don’t put themselves in harm’s way.

Of course, even in the south we have stinging jellyfish but their venom is painful but not lethal.

Bluebottle

During my triathlon days I did a great deal of deep-water swimming and while I was never bitten by a shark I had my share of bluebottle stings. Bluebottles, known elsewhere as the Portuguese Man of War, are a summertime scourge in Australia and have often cleared all but the hardiest from the water. They’re not the only offenders, of course—God was generous in providing Australians with a variety of stingers, and I’ve been stung by all manner of the things.

In 1985 Daizy and I competed in a triathlon in Lake Illawarra, just south of Sydney. The swim was 1600m (that’s a mile in old money) and that year the lake was full of stinging jellyfish. I hadn’t gone half way before both my legs cramped from an accumulation of poison but I wasn’t the only one. We tried to ignore the things as we swam on. Daizy was wearing a full triathlon suit so I thought she’d have reasonable protection but a section of tentacle found its way down her top and lodged between her breasts. She had a rash there for days. Some people had to had to be assisted from the water, half a dozen were taken to hospital for treatment, and one woman reacted so badly that she was kept there for four days. No prizes for guessing that I never competed in that triathlon again.

So there you have it from somebody who has been there and done that. Sharks are pussy-cats—it’s the jellyfish that are the problem.

And I haven’t even mentioned the blue-ringed octopus.