The next morning I set out to explore a bit more and feeling a little peckish again, I looked for a cafe or restaurant. I saw a few places but because of the lack of English signs, decided against them until I came across a place with little plaster-cast models of different dishes in the window. Steak, Crab, Noodles and Rice and suchlike.
My first thought was that this could not possibly be a Ladies Hairdressing Salon and so I entered the establishment and attempted to converse with the very attractive young waitress in English. To no avail, I took her to the window display and pointed out something that looked like bacon and eggs. She smiled and we went back to the menu and she pointed at something, I smiled and nodded agreement.
When it arrived on my table, it was not remotely bacon and eggs but some sort of a beef noodly dish, which was very tasty, so I made a mental note to remember where I had pointed on the menu and paid and left, giving the waitress what I thought was a reasonable tip.
I returned to the same restaurant the next day and pointed at the menu at the same place and a different waitress looked at me quizzically and brought me a sort of omelette dish, this was still quite tasty, so I paid up with a reasonable tip and left.
The third day I went back and did the same thing and ended up with a fish soup. To this day I have no idea what I was pointing at on that menu. It could have been “A service charge of 10% applies in this restaurant” or “ No shoes, No shirt, No service” or “Please do not bring pets in here as they may be served up to the next customer”. After that I stayed with the “Golden Arches”. It may be plastic on plastic with a serve of plastic fries, but at least you know what plastic you’re ordering.
I decided to go down the coastal road on the east side of the island by bus and ended up at a resort near the start of the ‘East-West Highway’. I was sitting in a cafe enjoying a beer, when I was approached by a middle-aged guy who asked me in English if he could join me.
By this stage I was delighted to even hear English, so of course I said yes. He also had a younger friend who joined us, they were both trying out their conversational English. The elder of the two was a bio-ceramacist (don’t ask me what they do, something about artificial bones) who had studied and taught in the US and the younger one (who didn’t speak very much) was one of his students.
This guy was incredible, his English was a tad rusty, but almost perfect (as was probably, his Japanese and no doubt his Mandarin and Cantonese) and he was extremely well read. I asked him why Taiwan, which is such a beautiful country didn’t try to attract more Western tourists and he said that it was far better to get the Japanese tourists. The Japanese were widely understood, spent more money and were far more generous than the Westerners, so what was the point.
I also asked him why there was not far more animosity against the Japanese for them invading Taiwan, he just shrugged and said why don’t the majority of Japanese hate the Americans? Good point! I also asked him if there were any physical differences between the two races and he said not really, some Chinese can pass for Japanese and vice versa, although he may have been polite and tactful in saying that.
I spent a great couple of hours with them and learned more about Taiwan in that time than the rest of my time over there. I should have stayed in touch, but unfortunately I lost his card. From there I took a coach over the East-West Highway and it is a very impressive piece of civil engineering, with some incredible tunnels through mountains and bridges over valleys.
It was originally built for the military to get men and materiel from one side of the island to the other, in case of an attack by the sneaky Red Devils from the mainland. I would also imagine that the mountains are riddled with tunnels and caves concealing all sorts of delightful weaponry, but this is pure conjecture. From a tourist point of view Taiwan is worth visiting for that journey alone.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
My own recollections of Taiwan in the '80's
To get back to Taiwan in the mid 80’s. I can’t quite remember why I decided to go there, it definitely wasn’t (and probably still isn’t) a popular tourist destination for Australians, Americans or Europeans. I think I was looking for a place a bit off the beaten track and I must have read something about it in the ‘Travel Section’ of one of the newspapers.
Whatever, I decided to go over there and have a quick shufty for myself, so I took off on an airline (I can’t remember which one, probably Cathay Pacific). After an uneventful flight, which was probably punctuated with a fair few alcoholic beverages, as was normal in those halcyon days of yore, I landed at the airport in Taipei.
I was transported to a hotel by a non-English speaking taxi driver and handed over a Taiwanese Shekel? or somesuch and he gave me a handful of different sized Taiwanese Centavos?. Being a very sceptical person regarding taxi-drivers in general and airport taxi-drivers in particular. I took him to the reception desk and asked the receptionist, if this lying bastard was trying to rip me off.
Unfortunately, the receptionist was equally as unreceptive as far as the English language went, but managed to convey the fact that they were in the process of changing from large coins to smaller coins and that some of the smaller coins were in fact worth more than the larger ones, even though they were made of the same stuff (In Australia most of the little ones are made of gold stuff and are worth more than bigger silvery ones).
As there were no Roman Numerals on the coins, this made life difficult during my time there and I had to rely upon the honesty of the good folks of Taiwan. Which is not a very reliable assumption of any nationality and I am not casting any aspersions on the Taiwanese.
After parking my bag and having a quick shower, I went back to the reception desk and managed to make it understood that I desired something to eat. She signalled that I could take a taxi, but once bitten, I decided to go out for a walk and check the place out, figuring that I could just do the usual and find a bar somewhere and have a packet of peanuts if necessary.
This proved easier said than done, this was early evening and already dark, so I approached the first place I came across with flashing neon lights and went in, to say that I was surprised to find that it was a ladies hairdressers would be an understatement. To find out that the next two places I approached turned out to be the same, was more than a trifle disconcerting. I appeared to have stumbled on the Ladies Hairdressing Centre of the Capital of Taiwan.
By this time, I had worked up a terrible thirst so I caught a taxi and indicated this in sign language. He took me to what may have been at that time the only street in Taipei that catered for western style drunks. I entered one such establishment and went to the bar, over which was a huge sign saying “IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT, YOU AIN’T SHIT”.
Being a bit of a grammatical pedant and not a pilot, I could only concur wholeheartedly with this sentiment. Seeing as the rest of the clientele appeared to consist of veterans of the ‘Flight over the Hump’ in the 1930’s. Or at the very least, from the Vietnam War, having ‘choppered’ innumerable Medevacs, I kept this observation to myself, (wisely, I thought at the time). Although I wasn’t totally accepted, I had a reasonable time and preferred it to being in a Ladies Hairdressing Salon.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Whatever, I decided to go over there and have a quick shufty for myself, so I took off on an airline (I can’t remember which one, probably Cathay Pacific). After an uneventful flight, which was probably punctuated with a fair few alcoholic beverages, as was normal in those halcyon days of yore, I landed at the airport in Taipei.
I was transported to a hotel by a non-English speaking taxi driver and handed over a Taiwanese Shekel? or somesuch and he gave me a handful of different sized Taiwanese Centavos?. Being a very sceptical person regarding taxi-drivers in general and airport taxi-drivers in particular. I took him to the reception desk and asked the receptionist, if this lying bastard was trying to rip me off.
Unfortunately, the receptionist was equally as unreceptive as far as the English language went, but managed to convey the fact that they were in the process of changing from large coins to smaller coins and that some of the smaller coins were in fact worth more than the larger ones, even though they were made of the same stuff (In Australia most of the little ones are made of gold stuff and are worth more than bigger silvery ones).
As there were no Roman Numerals on the coins, this made life difficult during my time there and I had to rely upon the honesty of the good folks of Taiwan. Which is not a very reliable assumption of any nationality and I am not casting any aspersions on the Taiwanese.
After parking my bag and having a quick shower, I went back to the reception desk and managed to make it understood that I desired something to eat. She signalled that I could take a taxi, but once bitten, I decided to go out for a walk and check the place out, figuring that I could just do the usual and find a bar somewhere and have a packet of peanuts if necessary.
This proved easier said than done, this was early evening and already dark, so I approached the first place I came across with flashing neon lights and went in, to say that I was surprised to find that it was a ladies hairdressers would be an understatement. To find out that the next two places I approached turned out to be the same, was more than a trifle disconcerting. I appeared to have stumbled on the Ladies Hairdressing Centre of the Capital of Taiwan.
By this time, I had worked up a terrible thirst so I caught a taxi and indicated this in sign language. He took me to what may have been at that time the only street in Taipei that catered for western style drunks. I entered one such establishment and went to the bar, over which was a huge sign saying “IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT, YOU AIN’T SHIT”.
Being a bit of a grammatical pedant and not a pilot, I could only concur wholeheartedly with this sentiment. Seeing as the rest of the clientele appeared to consist of veterans of the ‘Flight over the Hump’ in the 1930’s. Or at the very least, from the Vietnam War, having ‘choppered’ innumerable Medevacs, I kept this observation to myself, (wisely, I thought at the time). Although I wasn’t totally accepted, I had a reasonable time and preferred it to being in a Ladies Hairdressing Salon.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A very short, grossly inaccurate history of Taiwan
Taiwan
Just in case you’re unaware of it, (which is highly unlikely, or you wouldn't be perusing this) Taiwan is an island between 150-250kms (depending on which bit you look at) off the coast of mainland China that I visited in the mid- 1980’s. I went there for three weeks and had a stop over in Thailand for a bit of R and R for a week on the way back, for reasons which will become obvious if you carry on reading.
To give a little potted history of the Island, which may or may not be strictly accurate, on account of the fact that I’m relying on my memory and not looking it up on Google (which would be the obvious thing to do, but any silly bastard can do that).
Alright! Taiwan was originally populated by a mob of Chinese, they were invaded by the Japanese. They, the Japanese also invaded Manchuria, but they made a big mistake some time later, when they bombed the crap out of the American Fleet at Pearl Harbour.
This had the result of making the Americans very angry, which any idiot could have predicted. This resulted in the Yanks dropping a couple of atom bombs on Japan, which wasn’t particularly friendly, but did stop WWII which was good, unless you were Japanese. To the Taiwanese this meant the end of the Japanese occupation.
Meanwhile, on the Chinese Mainland, the Japanese had also returned home. This left the Communists under Mao Tse Tung and the Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek to resume hostilities over who should rule China. Well, depending upon which particular school of thought you were dragged up under, for better or worse Mao beat the bejasus out of Chiang.
Chiang, spat the dummy and along with his supporters (The Kuomintang) grabbed as much gold and priceless relics as he could get his sticky fingers on and took off for Taiwan in 1949. I am unaware what the locals thought of this, they may have been overjoyed, or they may well have thought “What the fuck is going on here? I don’t like the look of this new mob!”
However, it was a ‘fait accompli’ as we intellectuals say and the locals were stuck with them. Between them they started copying things from the West in much the same way as the Hong Kongers (another mob of ex-patriate Chinese) so that ‘Made in Taiwan’ and ‘Made in Hong Kong’ and ‘Made in Japan’ became synonymous in the West as ‘A bunch of el-cheapo crap’ in the 50’s and 60’s.
Of course the Orientals were far too inscrutable and hard-working to let that continue and those labels are now badges of pride. All you have to do to confirm this, is to visit any Department Store or Car Yard and check out the electronic goods and cars and shake your head in wonder.
That ends the history lesson.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Just in case you’re unaware of it, (which is highly unlikely, or you wouldn't be perusing this) Taiwan is an island between 150-250kms (depending on which bit you look at) off the coast of mainland China that I visited in the mid- 1980’s. I went there for three weeks and had a stop over in Thailand for a bit of R and R for a week on the way back, for reasons which will become obvious if you carry on reading.
To give a little potted history of the Island, which may or may not be strictly accurate, on account of the fact that I’m relying on my memory and not looking it up on Google (which would be the obvious thing to do, but any silly bastard can do that).
Alright! Taiwan was originally populated by a mob of Chinese, they were invaded by the Japanese. They, the Japanese also invaded Manchuria, but they made a big mistake some time later, when they bombed the crap out of the American Fleet at Pearl Harbour.
This had the result of making the Americans very angry, which any idiot could have predicted. This resulted in the Yanks dropping a couple of atom bombs on Japan, which wasn’t particularly friendly, but did stop WWII which was good, unless you were Japanese. To the Taiwanese this meant the end of the Japanese occupation.
Meanwhile, on the Chinese Mainland, the Japanese had also returned home. This left the Communists under Mao Tse Tung and the Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek to resume hostilities over who should rule China. Well, depending upon which particular school of thought you were dragged up under, for better or worse Mao beat the bejasus out of Chiang.
Chiang, spat the dummy and along with his supporters (The Kuomintang) grabbed as much gold and priceless relics as he could get his sticky fingers on and took off for Taiwan in 1949. I am unaware what the locals thought of this, they may have been overjoyed, or they may well have thought “What the fuck is going on here? I don’t like the look of this new mob!”
However, it was a ‘fait accompli’ as we intellectuals say and the locals were stuck with them. Between them they started copying things from the West in much the same way as the Hong Kongers (another mob of ex-patriate Chinese) so that ‘Made in Taiwan’ and ‘Made in Hong Kong’ and ‘Made in Japan’ became synonymous in the West as ‘A bunch of el-cheapo crap’ in the 50’s and 60’s.
Of course the Orientals were far too inscrutable and hard-working to let that continue and those labels are now badges of pride. All you have to do to confirm this, is to visit any Department Store or Car Yard and check out the electronic goods and cars and shake your head in wonder.
That ends the history lesson.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Atheism! Who wants to be a Theist anyway?.
If you haven’t already guessed, or maybe I’ve mentioned it before, I am an atheist. If I was American, that confession would be like a Gay coming out of the closet, but I’m not and I probably never will be, either American or Gay, nor emerging from any closets in the foreseeable future.
Having said that, I’m not one of those ‘Hip New Atheists’, I don’t really give a raggedy dog’s arse whether you’re a ‘believer’ or not, that is entirely your decision. I realise that whatever I write is not going to change your mind one iota. As far as I’m concerned there are enough religions to go around for everybody, from Agnosticism to Zoroastrianism, choose one to suit yourself, but please refrain from trying to thrust it down other people’s throats.
Like I said at the start, I’m an atheist, which is the same as saying I’m not a ‘Theist’, defined as a person who believes in the existence of Gods or a God. Using this logic, an agnostic is a person who is not a Gnostic defined as a person usu. a Christian heretic claiming esoteric, mystical knowledge. But an agnostic is defined as (1) someone who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or (2) a person who is uncertain or non-committal about a certain thing.
Being a non-proselytising atheist can get a bit boring at times, so I wake up some mornings, feeling uncertain and a tad non-committal and decide that I’m going to be an Agnostic for the day. Most Fridays, I decide to be an a-Islamist, Saturdays an a-Judaist and Sundays an a-Christian.
Most of the time though, I’m an a-Pantheist, a Pantheist is defined as (1) a person who identifies God with the forces of nature or (2) someone who admits or tolerates all Gods. As an a-Pantheist, I don’t admit, but do tolerate any and all Gods. You could say that I’m apathetic towards the whole pantheon of them, but that would make me an apathetic a-pantheist.
If two negatives make a positive, as is widely accepted, that would make me a Pathetic Pantheist. I’m fairly certain that I don’t like that very much, but it is Sunday, so I might just partake of a few bottles of Altar Cider and think about it.
I invented my own irreligion once and called it Fosterarianism, but it has never caught on. It was quite a neat irreligion, advocating an end to Poverty, War, Global Warming and banning cars/aircraft and lots of other nasties.
I named myself the Messiah and my one and only convert was promised leadership upon my demise and descent into the Kingdom of the Worms. We were both expecting a bevy of beautiful young maidens to beat a path to the Temple/Garage door, but it didn’t eventuate.
I think the biggest problem was a lack of charisma on my part. Any Messiah worth his salt has to ooze charisma or chutzpah and I have to be honest here, a boiled turnip oozes more than I do. However, if you’re a fair young maiden at a loose end, with a fondness for boiled turnips, don’t hesitate to call.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Having said that, I’m not one of those ‘Hip New Atheists’, I don’t really give a raggedy dog’s arse whether you’re a ‘believer’ or not, that is entirely your decision. I realise that whatever I write is not going to change your mind one iota. As far as I’m concerned there are enough religions to go around for everybody, from Agnosticism to Zoroastrianism, choose one to suit yourself, but please refrain from trying to thrust it down other people’s throats.
Like I said at the start, I’m an atheist, which is the same as saying I’m not a ‘Theist’, defined as a person who believes in the existence of Gods or a God. Using this logic, an agnostic is a person who is not a Gnostic defined as a person usu. a Christian heretic claiming esoteric, mystical knowledge. But an agnostic is defined as (1) someone who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or (2) a person who is uncertain or non-committal about a certain thing.
Being a non-proselytising atheist can get a bit boring at times, so I wake up some mornings, feeling uncertain and a tad non-committal and decide that I’m going to be an Agnostic for the day. Most Fridays, I decide to be an a-Islamist, Saturdays an a-Judaist and Sundays an a-Christian.
Most of the time though, I’m an a-Pantheist, a Pantheist is defined as (1) a person who identifies God with the forces of nature or (2) someone who admits or tolerates all Gods. As an a-Pantheist, I don’t admit, but do tolerate any and all Gods. You could say that I’m apathetic towards the whole pantheon of them, but that would make me an apathetic a-pantheist.
If two negatives make a positive, as is widely accepted, that would make me a Pathetic Pantheist. I’m fairly certain that I don’t like that very much, but it is Sunday, so I might just partake of a few bottles of Altar Cider and think about it.
I invented my own irreligion once and called it Fosterarianism, but it has never caught on. It was quite a neat irreligion, advocating an end to Poverty, War, Global Warming and banning cars/aircraft and lots of other nasties.
I named myself the Messiah and my one and only convert was promised leadership upon my demise and descent into the Kingdom of the Worms. We were both expecting a bevy of beautiful young maidens to beat a path to the Temple/Garage door, but it didn’t eventuate.
I think the biggest problem was a lack of charisma on my part. Any Messiah worth his salt has to ooze charisma or chutzpah and I have to be honest here, a boiled turnip oozes more than I do. However, if you’re a fair young maiden at a loose end, with a fondness for boiled turnips, don’t hesitate to call.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Friday, May 22, 2009
Tasty and English Food, not an oxymoron
Contrary to popular Aussie belief that the Poms only eat fish and chips, roast beef and over-boiled vegetables, curry and chips. In fact, chips with everything including bacon, egg, spam and chips for breakfast. English cuisine has evolved just as much as the Aussie variety over the last twenty or so years. Having said that, I will start this ramble with a discussion about English Fish and Chip shops or ‘Chippy’s’, which are, after all a national institution and as such deserve a good review.
I have to say that I was very disappointed with the chips in general anyway, I think that the Poms have lost the ability to cook a decent chip. It could of course be that they just didn’t live up to the the exaggerated expectations of my memory. The fish was excellent as were the steak puddings and I fell in love with a couple of faggots.
This is not to say that my sexual orientation has changed, the faggots I ate were in Swadlincote, at the chippy in the main street. If I ever found out what they were made of, I probably wouldn’t touch them with a well greased High Peak Canal barge pole, but ignorance is bliss and what you don’t know can’t hurt you. So cliches apart, they were delicious, which is more than can be said for’mushy peas’.
I persuaded my daughter to try them, this could have been a big mistake, it took me ten years to get her to eat ‘frozen peas’. She took one fork-full of mushies and as I was sitting opposite her, it was only her genteel upbringing that prevented me from wearing them. It could take another ten years to get her to look a pea in the face again. I mentioned this to my Yorkshire friend DeeDee today and she loves them, she gave some to her kids and they asked her why the mashed spuds were green.
She also mentioned ‘Pease Pudding’, which I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting. Although I do remember the old English rhyme.
Pease Pudding hot
Pease Pudding cold
Pease Pudding in a pot
Five days old.
Which apparently refers to them throwing peas into a pot and keeping it on and off the boil, don’t ask me who ‘them’ were, look it up on Google, I’m too idle.
We then got on to discussing other offal things like ‘kidneys’, ‘brains’, ‘hearts’ and ‘tripe’, but I don’t want you to lose your last meal, so I’ll leave it there.
I ate a portion of cod and chips from ‘Andy’s Chippy’ in Swadlincote, which got an award for being the 2nd best chippy in the UK. The fish was superb but the chips were ordinary at best.
To get away from Chippies, I mostly ate at Pubs and Pub food these days is a revelation. It used to be pies and pasties, pickled eggs and peanuts. If you were really lucky you might have scored a dried-up sausage roll.
These days you can get everything from Thai food (which seems to be a bit of a favourite) through Chinese, Indian (of course) and the Olde English favourites. Roast Beef, Steak and Kidney Puddings, Gammon Steak, Ploughman’s Lunch with Pork Pies and cheeses, Liver/Bacon/onions. Not to mention various Continental dishes.
They varied in quality but were mostly very good, they have to be, because that’s how the Pubs make their money nowadays, since smoking was banned.
I was also lucky enough to stumble on a cafeteria at Morrison’s Supermarket in Swadlincote. Now, I’m not saying that the food served up there was exactly gourmet stuff, but when you’re like me and ‘eat to live’ rather than ‘live to eat’, their food is excellent value for money.
I normally only eat two meals a day, one at around 11:00am and the other at 7:00pm. A ‘Quick Start’ (I think that’s what it was called) brunch of ‘Egg, bacon, sausage, tomato and fried bread’ for two pounds seventy pee, was a great ‘start’ to the day, I wasn’t too impressed with the bread, it was too greasy and always a crust.
I did sample their excellent roast beef sandwiches on occasion, with a bit of salad, which was great with a cup of capuccino (no baristas there, out of a machine!). I once had the braised-liver, onions, mash and peas. O.K. but I can think of better brunches. (I am however in the process of cooking some up, with bacon for the family dinner tonight).
Overall, I liked English food and as an average shit-kicker, rather than an epicurean, I was more than happy with the grub served up.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
I have to say that I was very disappointed with the chips in general anyway, I think that the Poms have lost the ability to cook a decent chip. It could of course be that they just didn’t live up to the the exaggerated expectations of my memory. The fish was excellent as were the steak puddings and I fell in love with a couple of faggots.
This is not to say that my sexual orientation has changed, the faggots I ate were in Swadlincote, at the chippy in the main street. If I ever found out what they were made of, I probably wouldn’t touch them with a well greased High Peak Canal barge pole, but ignorance is bliss and what you don’t know can’t hurt you. So cliches apart, they were delicious, which is more than can be said for’mushy peas’.
I persuaded my daughter to try them, this could have been a big mistake, it took me ten years to get her to eat ‘frozen peas’. She took one fork-full of mushies and as I was sitting opposite her, it was only her genteel upbringing that prevented me from wearing them. It could take another ten years to get her to look a pea in the face again. I mentioned this to my Yorkshire friend DeeDee today and she loves them, she gave some to her kids and they asked her why the mashed spuds were green.
She also mentioned ‘Pease Pudding’, which I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting. Although I do remember the old English rhyme.
Pease Pudding hot
Pease Pudding cold
Pease Pudding in a pot
Five days old.
Which apparently refers to them throwing peas into a pot and keeping it on and off the boil, don’t ask me who ‘them’ were, look it up on Google, I’m too idle.
We then got on to discussing other offal things like ‘kidneys’, ‘brains’, ‘hearts’ and ‘tripe’, but I don’t want you to lose your last meal, so I’ll leave it there.
I ate a portion of cod and chips from ‘Andy’s Chippy’ in Swadlincote, which got an award for being the 2nd best chippy in the UK. The fish was superb but the chips were ordinary at best.
To get away from Chippies, I mostly ate at Pubs and Pub food these days is a revelation. It used to be pies and pasties, pickled eggs and peanuts. If you were really lucky you might have scored a dried-up sausage roll.
These days you can get everything from Thai food (which seems to be a bit of a favourite) through Chinese, Indian (of course) and the Olde English favourites. Roast Beef, Steak and Kidney Puddings, Gammon Steak, Ploughman’s Lunch with Pork Pies and cheeses, Liver/Bacon/onions. Not to mention various Continental dishes.
They varied in quality but were mostly very good, they have to be, because that’s how the Pubs make their money nowadays, since smoking was banned.
I was also lucky enough to stumble on a cafeteria at Morrison’s Supermarket in Swadlincote. Now, I’m not saying that the food served up there was exactly gourmet stuff, but when you’re like me and ‘eat to live’ rather than ‘live to eat’, their food is excellent value for money.
I normally only eat two meals a day, one at around 11:00am and the other at 7:00pm. A ‘Quick Start’ (I think that’s what it was called) brunch of ‘Egg, bacon, sausage, tomato and fried bread’ for two pounds seventy pee, was a great ‘start’ to the day, I wasn’t too impressed with the bread, it was too greasy and always a crust.
I did sample their excellent roast beef sandwiches on occasion, with a bit of salad, which was great with a cup of capuccino (no baristas there, out of a machine!). I once had the braised-liver, onions, mash and peas. O.K. but I can think of better brunches. (I am however in the process of cooking some up, with bacon for the family dinner tonight).
Overall, I liked English food and as an average shit-kicker, rather than an epicurean, I was more than happy with the grub served up.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Thursday, May 21, 2009
English Weather in November
ENGLAND
I recently returned back to England for the first time in twenty years, mainly because my Dad sent the family some money and the family decided that it would be a good idea for me to go back and see him before one or both of us croaked-it.
As I am one of the most invalid (as in not valid) Invalid Pensioners in existence (In my opinion, anyway!) It was decided that I should go over there with my 14 year old daughter Ness, as a Carer, Hmmh!
I didn’t particularly want to go over there as a tourist and only wanted to go and see my old hunting grounds (walking, pubs and chip-shops) and my Old Man and do boring old-farty things. My sister, in England agreed with this and said that she would pay for Nessie’s airfare and look after her over there while I did my own thing.
I arranged to stay in a cottage in Little Hayfield for the first and last weeks and stay with my sister in Swadlincote for the middle two weeks. This is an an edited account of our trip. Ness can give her own version. We left at the beginning of November, which was not an ideal time from her school’s point of view, but they reckon that travel broadens the mind and I thought that a month in England would be a better education, than a month doing trig and Religious Education in North Melbourne.
ENGLISH WEATHER
As an expatriate Pom I was a tad disappointed in the weather, November is supposed to be cold, wet and miserable. I was expecting snow, hail, frost and gale force winds. I was expecting to get chilblains on my extremities fingers, toes and possibly testicles (maybe not!). I was expecting to be slipping and sliding on icy pavements.
My Good Lady Wife (GLW) had bought me a padded jacket (parka, not strait-jacket) that would have kept Oates warm and saved him from farewelling Scott and staggering to his demise in the Antarctic wastes. I had to carry it through Changi Airport in Singapore (which boasts of being 3 degrees north of the equator and is consequently bloody hot) because it was too bulky to fit in my suitcase. My daughter said it looked like I was carrying a very large baby or a very small midget, so we called it ‘Midge’ and took a photo of it sitting in a seat with it’s arm around my shoulders.
I wore it once at Manchester Airport when my nephew picked us up, but I had to take it off to get into the car to fasten the seat belt. After that, I never wore it again and gave it away to my 87 year old dad. While he thought I wasn’t watching, he gave it away to my brother-in-law and that was the last I saw of dear ‘Midge’.
To get back to the point, ‘English Weather’, it was either exceptionally mild or maybe with ‘global warming’ that sort of weather has become the norm. It was quite cold on our first day there on 30th October and as I was staying up near the Peak District, we did experience snow when we drove a little higher. This was promising, not exactly ‘Midge’ weather, but getting close.
I spent a week up in the hills and got wet once, but apart from that, nothing. I then spent two weeks in Swadlincote, where it was even milder before returning back to Little Hayfield in the Peak for another week. I did get a little flurry of snow while I was there, it lasted for about five minutes.
After we returned to Aus (26C) I checked the weather in the UK the next day and it was a min -6C, max 3C in Stockport and would have been even colder in the Peak. I thought, bugger this, I’ll go in February next time.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
I recently returned back to England for the first time in twenty years, mainly because my Dad sent the family some money and the family decided that it would be a good idea for me to go back and see him before one or both of us croaked-it.
As I am one of the most invalid (as in not valid) Invalid Pensioners in existence (In my opinion, anyway!) It was decided that I should go over there with my 14 year old daughter Ness, as a Carer, Hmmh!
I didn’t particularly want to go over there as a tourist and only wanted to go and see my old hunting grounds (walking, pubs and chip-shops) and my Old Man and do boring old-farty things. My sister, in England agreed with this and said that she would pay for Nessie’s airfare and look after her over there while I did my own thing.
I arranged to stay in a cottage in Little Hayfield for the first and last weeks and stay with my sister in Swadlincote for the middle two weeks. This is an an edited account of our trip. Ness can give her own version. We left at the beginning of November, which was not an ideal time from her school’s point of view, but they reckon that travel broadens the mind and I thought that a month in England would be a better education, than a month doing trig and Religious Education in North Melbourne.
ENGLISH WEATHER
As an expatriate Pom I was a tad disappointed in the weather, November is supposed to be cold, wet and miserable. I was expecting snow, hail, frost and gale force winds. I was expecting to get chilblains on my extremities fingers, toes and possibly testicles (maybe not!). I was expecting to be slipping and sliding on icy pavements.
My Good Lady Wife (GLW) had bought me a padded jacket (parka, not strait-jacket) that would have kept Oates warm and saved him from farewelling Scott and staggering to his demise in the Antarctic wastes. I had to carry it through Changi Airport in Singapore (which boasts of being 3 degrees north of the equator and is consequently bloody hot) because it was too bulky to fit in my suitcase. My daughter said it looked like I was carrying a very large baby or a very small midget, so we called it ‘Midge’ and took a photo of it sitting in a seat with it’s arm around my shoulders.
I wore it once at Manchester Airport when my nephew picked us up, but I had to take it off to get into the car to fasten the seat belt. After that, I never wore it again and gave it away to my 87 year old dad. While he thought I wasn’t watching, he gave it away to my brother-in-law and that was the last I saw of dear ‘Midge’.
To get back to the point, ‘English Weather’, it was either exceptionally mild or maybe with ‘global warming’ that sort of weather has become the norm. It was quite cold on our first day there on 30th October and as I was staying up near the Peak District, we did experience snow when we drove a little higher. This was promising, not exactly ‘Midge’ weather, but getting close.
I spent a week up in the hills and got wet once, but apart from that, nothing. I then spent two weeks in Swadlincote, where it was even milder before returning back to Little Hayfield in the Peak for another week. I did get a little flurry of snow while I was there, it lasted for about five minutes.
After we returned to Aus (26C) I checked the weather in the UK the next day and it was a min -6C, max 3C in Stockport and would have been even colder in the Peak. I thought, bugger this, I’ll go in February next time.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
A sceptical view of Noah and his Ark
I was just thinking about Noah’s Ark, idly wondering how he managed to fit all those animals on a wooden boat. I thought I’d better find out a bit more, before shooting my mouth off and I stumbled on an article written by a Christian author.
According to the bible; (make that The Bible, I don’t wish to be overly offensive), the Ark when converted from cubits, was approximately 450ft long x 75ft wide and 45ft high. That is a pretty large boat in anybody’s language, and would fit a shit load of animals on it, but there are a heap of different critters wandering around out there.
This article said that the average size of an animal is about the same size as a sheep, according to some experts, or a rabbit according to others. I guess if you take into account Elephants, Camels, Rhinoceroses, Hippopotami (interesting plurals those two!) as the biggies and mice, shrews, hamsters and rats as the smallies, this could be an acceptable assumption.
It also said that The Bible, didn’t actually stipulate different ‘Types’ of animals, it could be taken as ‘Families’ or ‘Genera’ (plural of Genus, neat eh?). In other words ‘Cats’ would include Pussies, Lions, Leopards, Cheetah (no ‘s') and other assorted purring beasts, but only two generic felines would have been required. The same with Chihuahua, Siberian-Moosehounds, Wolverines and Hyena, just two canines needed?
A bit of a conundrum here with Avians though, if there were Ravens and Doves, what about Ostriches, Dodo and Rhea? Albatrosses and other Sea-birds would have been sweet, but I doubt if an Emu could have dog-paddled around the Ark for a year or so.
Which brings us to another conundrum. Marsupials! did Noah send one of his sons out in a smaller boat to round up a few Wallabies and Koala from Australia? and a couple of Penguins from Antarctica while he was down in that neck of the Antipodes? I guess another one must have taken a trip to the Americas, both North and South, there are a lot of unique beasties over there. Not to mention Africa and Asia, don't ask me why I don't mention them, because I already have, all the 'biggies' were from there.
Going by all the begatting that was going on at the time, Biblical Scholars have calculated that God created everything around 4,000BC and that the Flood occurred around 2,300BC. I’m not real sure how they arrived at these figures as Noah was supposed to be 600 years old when he entered the Ark and he was considered a mere stripling. I think that they may have underestimated by a millennium or two.
Even so, if there were only one of each genera, how did they evolve into the plethora of creatures that exist today? and while we’re about it; if you’re a Creationist and believe in Noah and his Ark, you don’t believe in evolution anyway, do you?
Finally, according to some sources, the Ark came to rest high on Mt Ararat in Turkey. Mt Ararat is 5,165m above sea-level (that’s about 16,000ft in the old money), did it only rain for 40 days and 40 nights? or is that my faulty memory? That’s about 400 feet every 24 hours over the whole wide world, where did all that water come from? Where did it all go?
Mind you, if you’re Omnipotent and have the whole Universe at your fingertips, what’s a few zillion megalitres of water? A mere drop in the ocean! or should that read a mere rise in the ocean?
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
According to the bible; (make that The Bible, I don’t wish to be overly offensive), the Ark when converted from cubits, was approximately 450ft long x 75ft wide and 45ft high. That is a pretty large boat in anybody’s language, and would fit a shit load of animals on it, but there are a heap of different critters wandering around out there.
This article said that the average size of an animal is about the same size as a sheep, according to some experts, or a rabbit according to others. I guess if you take into account Elephants, Camels, Rhinoceroses, Hippopotami (interesting plurals those two!) as the biggies and mice, shrews, hamsters and rats as the smallies, this could be an acceptable assumption.
It also said that The Bible, didn’t actually stipulate different ‘Types’ of animals, it could be taken as ‘Families’ or ‘Genera’ (plural of Genus, neat eh?). In other words ‘Cats’ would include Pussies, Lions, Leopards, Cheetah (no ‘s') and other assorted purring beasts, but only two generic felines would have been required. The same with Chihuahua, Siberian-Moosehounds, Wolverines and Hyena, just two canines needed?
A bit of a conundrum here with Avians though, if there were Ravens and Doves, what about Ostriches, Dodo and Rhea? Albatrosses and other Sea-birds would have been sweet, but I doubt if an Emu could have dog-paddled around the Ark for a year or so.
Which brings us to another conundrum. Marsupials! did Noah send one of his sons out in a smaller boat to round up a few Wallabies and Koala from Australia? and a couple of Penguins from Antarctica while he was down in that neck of the Antipodes? I guess another one must have taken a trip to the Americas, both North and South, there are a lot of unique beasties over there. Not to mention Africa and Asia, don't ask me why I don't mention them, because I already have, all the 'biggies' were from there.
Going by all the begatting that was going on at the time, Biblical Scholars have calculated that God created everything around 4,000BC and that the Flood occurred around 2,300BC. I’m not real sure how they arrived at these figures as Noah was supposed to be 600 years old when he entered the Ark and he was considered a mere stripling. I think that they may have underestimated by a millennium or two.
Even so, if there were only one of each genera, how did they evolve into the plethora of creatures that exist today? and while we’re about it; if you’re a Creationist and believe in Noah and his Ark, you don’t believe in evolution anyway, do you?
Finally, according to some sources, the Ark came to rest high on Mt Ararat in Turkey. Mt Ararat is 5,165m above sea-level (that’s about 16,000ft in the old money), did it only rain for 40 days and 40 nights? or is that my faulty memory? That’s about 400 feet every 24 hours over the whole wide world, where did all that water come from? Where did it all go?
Mind you, if you’re Omnipotent and have the whole Universe at your fingertips, what’s a few zillion megalitres of water? A mere drop in the ocean! or should that read a mere rise in the ocean?
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Polymaths and Jack’s of all trades
I consider myself to be a bit of a Polymath, the dictionary definition is “A person of much or varied learning”. If this seems a bit presumptuous of me, I hasten to add that I’m not comparing myself with Da Vinci, who was the Great Grand Daddy of all Polymaths. That guy was a genius, not only a great painter and sculptor but also an inventor of helicopters and codes (Read Dan Brown if you don’t believe me, 2nd thoughts don’t bother, it’s a load of crud).
I don't consider myself an equal of Galileo, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Carl Sagan or a host of others too numerous to mention, including Arthur V. Throgmorton.
No! I’m a fourth rate Polymath, which really means that my brain flutters all over the place like a butterfly with A.D.D. I am totally incapable of retaining vast amounts of knowledge on a particular subject in my memory. I can read heaps about something and retain it for about 24 hours and then it all disappears, leaving only a residue, which can be dredged up at odd times, usually inappropriately.
Some people are capable of storing an incredible amount of data on a subject that really interests them. For instance, I have met people who can recite the names of all the race horses that have won the major races all over the world since 1909. Of course, they do this to the exclusion of virtually everything else and nobody can ever contradict them, actually people actively ignore them and who wouldn’t?
This also applies to various professionals, including Medical Specialists, who is ever going to question a Proctologist over his knowledge of bums and bowels, apart from another Proctologist? Even General Practitioners have to know so much about all the different ailments, that they forget how to change a light bulb and sometimes put their Y-fronts on the wrong way round.
What about Lawyers, what is the difference between slander and libel? (I used to know, but I’ve forgotten) and who won that case back in 1959, Throgmorton v The Crown and Anchor? The world today is a specialists oyster, you’ve got Criminal Lawyers, Bankruptcy Lawyers, Taxation Lawyers and even Lawyers who specialise exclusively in contracts for Unsynchronised Swimmers and Dipsomaniac Darts Players.
We Polymaths are no longer relevant to society, anachronisms is what we are! We can no longer use bullshit to baffle the brains of the best in barroom arguments, because some smart-arse will pull out a Mobile Phone with an Internet connection to prove us wrong.
So what has all this got to do with Jack’s of all Trades? you might ask. Well, nothing really I suppose, handymen will always be just that, men who are handy with their hands. Although I would have to say that GP’s are the ‘Jacks’ of the medical profession.
We’re never likely to see the day where a mobile phone can change a tyre, but even handymen have trouble tuning up the computers hidden under the bonnets of cars or importing photos onto blog sites and sometimes put their Y-fronts on the wrong way round. Which can be seen by the general public, when they bend down and show their bum-cleavage.
Just in case you’re interested, I wouldn’t qualify as a handyman’s left boot and I wear ‘Jocks’ and sometimes have them inside out and upside down.
Cheers for now.
SkyBlueSkull.
I don't consider myself an equal of Galileo, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Carl Sagan or a host of others too numerous to mention, including Arthur V. Throgmorton.
No! I’m a fourth rate Polymath, which really means that my brain flutters all over the place like a butterfly with A.D.D. I am totally incapable of retaining vast amounts of knowledge on a particular subject in my memory. I can read heaps about something and retain it for about 24 hours and then it all disappears, leaving only a residue, which can be dredged up at odd times, usually inappropriately.
Some people are capable of storing an incredible amount of data on a subject that really interests them. For instance, I have met people who can recite the names of all the race horses that have won the major races all over the world since 1909. Of course, they do this to the exclusion of virtually everything else and nobody can ever contradict them, actually people actively ignore them and who wouldn’t?
This also applies to various professionals, including Medical Specialists, who is ever going to question a Proctologist over his knowledge of bums and bowels, apart from another Proctologist? Even General Practitioners have to know so much about all the different ailments, that they forget how to change a light bulb and sometimes put their Y-fronts on the wrong way round.
What about Lawyers, what is the difference between slander and libel? (I used to know, but I’ve forgotten) and who won that case back in 1959, Throgmorton v The Crown and Anchor? The world today is a specialists oyster, you’ve got Criminal Lawyers, Bankruptcy Lawyers, Taxation Lawyers and even Lawyers who specialise exclusively in contracts for Unsynchronised Swimmers and Dipsomaniac Darts Players.
We Polymaths are no longer relevant to society, anachronisms is what we are! We can no longer use bullshit to baffle the brains of the best in barroom arguments, because some smart-arse will pull out a Mobile Phone with an Internet connection to prove us wrong.
So what has all this got to do with Jack’s of all Trades? you might ask. Well, nothing really I suppose, handymen will always be just that, men who are handy with their hands. Although I would have to say that GP’s are the ‘Jacks’ of the medical profession.
We’re never likely to see the day where a mobile phone can change a tyre, but even handymen have trouble tuning up the computers hidden under the bonnets of cars or importing photos onto blog sites and sometimes put their Y-fronts on the wrong way round. Which can be seen by the general public, when they bend down and show their bum-cleavage.
Just in case you’re interested, I wouldn’t qualify as a handyman’s left boot and I wear ‘Jocks’ and sometimes have them inside out and upside down.
Cheers for now.
SkyBlueSkull.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Ships of the Desert / Stallions designed by Committees
This is apropos of Sweet Fanny Adams, as they say where I come from, which is a polite way of saying Sweet F.A. which is a polite way of saying. Well, I’m sure you’re not totally as dim as ditch-water. I have no idea why Camels suddenly sprang to my mind, I haven’t seen any since the Circus came to town about a year or more ago and I haven’t read anything memorable about them recently.
Although, speaking of the Circus, I seem to recall that they had ‘Trained Cows’ as a major attraction, ‘The Only Ones in the Whole Wide World’. I didn’t unfortunately get around to seeing them, so I can’t comment further.
To get back to camels, without going into Wikipedia and relying solely on my memory. There are two types, the one humped variety called Dromedaries and the two-humped ones called Bactrians. I’m not real sure which of them are known as ‘Ships of the Desert’, as both of them live in deserts. Dromedaries on the fringes of the Sahara in North Africa and Bactrians live happily up around the Gobi in Mongolia.
Dromedaries are the sleek beauties of the Camel world, not only are they bred as beasts of burden. Some are selected for their racing prowess, in much the same way as Arabian Racehorses. To the untrained eye, they may look like cumbersome beasts (the Camels not the Horses), but to a Sheik with a wad of Riyals burning a hole in his pocket, they are a thing of beauty.
I read somewhere that the ‘Jockeys’ were originally young lads, but this was frowned upon, in much the same way as sending young lads up chimneys in Dickensian England. I think they tried replacing them with monkeys, which wasn’t too successful so eventually they stuck robots up on the hump. I have my doubts about this and think that could be the ‘Wicked Western Media’ taking the Mick!
The Bactrians are another kettle of fish, or if you prefer, a different cup of tea (one hump or two?). Sorry about that! I guess it had to rear it’s ugly head somewhere!
Speaking of ugly heads. If, as sometimes stated “a camel is a racehorse designed by a committee,” then they were obviously referring to the Bactrian. Not even it’s mother could love one of these critters. Although, I have to confess that I have never seen a baby in the flesh or even a photo of one. For all I know, they could be as cute as kittens and puppies.
I do not have a photograph of a fully grown camel handy and even if I did, I’m too stupid as to know how to post it on here, so you’ll have to Google it for yourself.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
P.S. I’ve just remembered now, where I recently saw a camel. My son was watching a DVD of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ a few days ago. As I was walking past, I saw a scene where an urchin stuck a stick up a camel’s bum’ole, causing the camel to take off at speed with ‘Jenkins’ temporarily on board.
P.P.S. If you want to know the joke about bricking camels, you’ll have to email me on kskel5@hotmail.com
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Horology, me and Alby Einstein
I got to thinking about time this morning at about 5:00am, not because it was earlier than usual for me to wake up, as I can be visiting the bathroom at all hours of the night and day, but I won’t go into that. That’s something that I shall have to discuss with my Urologist, who’s only connection with a Horologist is her wristwatch/calendar.
No! this morning the Good Lady Wife (GLW) woke me to tell me that she was going on to the Net to chat with her friend in the Philippines and her friend’s sister in California. In order to do this, they had to take various time zones and work commitments into consideration.
I must admit that I wasn’t really interested and turned over to get back to an interesting and convoluted dream. Sleep eluded me as did the dream and I started thinking about time zones in general and ‘daylight saving’ in particular.
If my memory serves me correctly, which would be a bit of an aberration, ‘daylight saving’ was introduced into Britain in WWII during one of their infrequent summers. This setting the clock back an hour served two purposes, waking them up an hour earlier, even though they were knackered, meant that they got an extra hour of sunshine at the end of the day. During which they could ‘do war-like things’ and as an added bonus it also brought them into line with continental Europe.
It’s a bit awkward if you’re waging a war and one side gets there an hour early and packs up and goes home an hour before the other mob are ready to call it a day. Of course ‘daylight saving’ was only possible during summer, because it gets dark in Britain, in winter, at about 4:00pm and it doesn’t get light again until 8:00am.
This is due to the fact that Britain lies between 50 and 60 degrees north of the equator, which puts it at the same level as Southern Canada. As every schoolgirl can attest the Earth’s axis is on a bit of a lean and rotates around the Sun every 365 days, thus giving rise to ‘The Seasons’ and endless conversations about ’The Weather’.
Except at the Equator, where they get 12 hour days and 12 hour nights every day of the year and it’s so hot that nobody has any energy to discuss the weather, or anything else really! This means that the closer you get to the Equator, the less is the probability of the Government introducing ‘Daylight Saving’.
Unless there is electricity in those countries, they have an excess of energy left over from their siestas and if you can’t work it off at a disco, or nightclub when it cools off a tad at night. What are they going to do?? Bonk of course, nowt else to do is there really?
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost the whole point of this Blog at this stage. What the hell has any of this got to with Horology, Einstein or me for that matter. I shall have to go to bed and sleep on it .
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
No! this morning the Good Lady Wife (GLW) woke me to tell me that she was going on to the Net to chat with her friend in the Philippines and her friend’s sister in California. In order to do this, they had to take various time zones and work commitments into consideration.
I must admit that I wasn’t really interested and turned over to get back to an interesting and convoluted dream. Sleep eluded me as did the dream and I started thinking about time zones in general and ‘daylight saving’ in particular.
If my memory serves me correctly, which would be a bit of an aberration, ‘daylight saving’ was introduced into Britain in WWII during one of their infrequent summers. This setting the clock back an hour served two purposes, waking them up an hour earlier, even though they were knackered, meant that they got an extra hour of sunshine at the end of the day. During which they could ‘do war-like things’ and as an added bonus it also brought them into line with continental Europe.
It’s a bit awkward if you’re waging a war and one side gets there an hour early and packs up and goes home an hour before the other mob are ready to call it a day. Of course ‘daylight saving’ was only possible during summer, because it gets dark in Britain, in winter, at about 4:00pm and it doesn’t get light again until 8:00am.
This is due to the fact that Britain lies between 50 and 60 degrees north of the equator, which puts it at the same level as Southern Canada. As every schoolgirl can attest the Earth’s axis is on a bit of a lean and rotates around the Sun every 365 days, thus giving rise to ‘The Seasons’ and endless conversations about ’The Weather’.
Except at the Equator, where they get 12 hour days and 12 hour nights every day of the year and it’s so hot that nobody has any energy to discuss the weather, or anything else really! This means that the closer you get to the Equator, the less is the probability of the Government introducing ‘Daylight Saving’.
Unless there is electricity in those countries, they have an excess of energy left over from their siestas and if you can’t work it off at a disco, or nightclub when it cools off a tad at night. What are they going to do?? Bonk of course, nowt else to do is there really?
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost the whole point of this Blog at this stage. What the hell has any of this got to with Horology, Einstein or me for that matter. I shall have to go to bed and sleep on it .
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
How not to covet your neighbours assai. (Trees).
When we moved into ‘Chateau Skull’ fifteen years ago after buying it on the spur of the moment. It was an ‘impulse buy’, so impulsive that I only had fifteen dollars in my wallet when I put in the winning bid at the auction. I was a little taken aback when the auctioneer asked me for a deposit. He was, however, a very trusting person and arranged for me to get the money on the Monday, that being a Saturday.
I suppose that I should have noticed at the time, that the Chateau was situated next to a two storey block of twenty four flats. However, caught up in the euphoria of the moment and overwhelmed by my own audacity, I think at the time I was the only bidder and bidded myself up another couple of thou.
When we bought the place there were quite a few trees around the place which hid us from the neighbours. There was an old Sycamore tree and another type of English style deciduous tree and two Cherry Trees in the front and a Peach, Plum, Apple, Fig and a Lemon tree in the back with some assorted Australian Evergreens scattered along the border.
At first we had a few problems with the neighbours, because some of the flats were government owned and let out to an assortment of what can best be described as misfits and loonies. Eventually though, the government decided to sell them off to private owners, who mainly bought them for their own use or as investment properties.
For a few years everything went swimmingly, the trees grew taller blocking out the flats completely from our view, the neighbours were happy picking the overgrowing fruit and having greenery to look out on. We were happy with the fruit and the privacy to sunbathe in the warmer months and dine al fresco.
Then along came the dreaded ‘Global Warming’, which has resulted in a drought lasting for over a decade, this area is mainly clay and basalt rock and the drying out has resulted in the buildings foundations moving. The flats next door were built on shonky foundations and had inadequate drainage in my humble opinion. This has resulted in large cracks, so large in fact that herds of Wildebeest could charge through, if they so desired. Luckily for the flat dwellers, such herds do not exist in Albion.
Armed with an engineers report, representatives of the body-corporate arrived, stating that the cracks in the flats were caused by the roots of the trees sucking up all the moisture and demanding their removal. I considered fighting this, but it would have cost thousands, getting alternative reports and court costs etc. So we decided to allow their removal, provided they paid for it and replaced the trees with others with less intrusive roots.
Looking on the bright side of things, some of the trees were forty foot weeds, the figs, pomegranates and lemons were inedible, the apples weren’t much better and I was sick of plum jam. The leaves were blocking the gutters and we have got a new landscaped garden with Acacias, Japanese Maples, Magnolias and other such exotica and I’m too old to worry about getting a suntan anyway. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been getting fit working my mattocks off weeding and barrowing cubic metres of mulch.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com/neighboursparttwo
I suppose that I should have noticed at the time, that the Chateau was situated next to a two storey block of twenty four flats. However, caught up in the euphoria of the moment and overwhelmed by my own audacity, I think at the time I was the only bidder and bidded myself up another couple of thou.
When we bought the place there were quite a few trees around the place which hid us from the neighbours. There was an old Sycamore tree and another type of English style deciduous tree and two Cherry Trees in the front and a Peach, Plum, Apple, Fig and a Lemon tree in the back with some assorted Australian Evergreens scattered along the border.
At first we had a few problems with the neighbours, because some of the flats were government owned and let out to an assortment of what can best be described as misfits and loonies. Eventually though, the government decided to sell them off to private owners, who mainly bought them for their own use or as investment properties.
For a few years everything went swimmingly, the trees grew taller blocking out the flats completely from our view, the neighbours were happy picking the overgrowing fruit and having greenery to look out on. We were happy with the fruit and the privacy to sunbathe in the warmer months and dine al fresco.
Then along came the dreaded ‘Global Warming’, which has resulted in a drought lasting for over a decade, this area is mainly clay and basalt rock and the drying out has resulted in the buildings foundations moving. The flats next door were built on shonky foundations and had inadequate drainage in my humble opinion. This has resulted in large cracks, so large in fact that herds of Wildebeest could charge through, if they so desired. Luckily for the flat dwellers, such herds do not exist in Albion.
Armed with an engineers report, representatives of the body-corporate arrived, stating that the cracks in the flats were caused by the roots of the trees sucking up all the moisture and demanding their removal. I considered fighting this, but it would have cost thousands, getting alternative reports and court costs etc. So we decided to allow their removal, provided they paid for it and replaced the trees with others with less intrusive roots.
Looking on the bright side of things, some of the trees were forty foot weeds, the figs, pomegranates and lemons were inedible, the apples weren’t much better and I was sick of plum jam. The leaves were blocking the gutters and we have got a new landscaped garden with Acacias, Japanese Maples, Magnolias and other such exotica and I’m too old to worry about getting a suntan anyway. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been getting fit working my mattocks off weeding and barrowing cubic metres of mulch.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com/neighboursparttwo
Monday, May 4, 2009
Neighbours and Trees (Part One)
This has absolutely nothing to do with the TV Soap Opera that brought you Kylie Minogue and is apparently watched by millions of British viewers everyday. Although, it is set in a street in Melbourne and I have lived here on and off for most of the last 37 years, I must admit that I don’t know which suburb it is supposedly in. In fact I have never watched a single episode or even a few fleeting moments.
In years gone by, my Mum used to watch ‘Coronation Street’ regularly and I caught my Dad watching it on occasions and I can still remember Ena Sharples and her fellow hags Minnie and Martha drinking glasses of Milk Stout in the Snug in the Rover’s Return along with Albert Tatlock and Ken Barlow. I put this down to the fact that the TV was a recent addition to the household and I could be found in moments of idleness, staring transfixed at ‘The test pattern’ and even the little white dot when that had disappeared.
These days I don’t watch it at all, at the last count we had about five of them, with various attachments such as VCR’s and CD players and games type things. They are now so complicated that I never even attempt to turn four of them on. The fifth one is in my shed a little itty bitty one, that sits next to my printer and doesn’t even have a remote. I bought it from a place like that one in ‘Steptoe and Son’ (Now, that was a good programme) for about ten quid and the only time it ever gets turned on is for Test Matches and the recent Olympics.
So, having said that this is nothing to do with TV programmes, I’ve spent the last twenty minutes rambling on about them. This is actually about ‘Neighbours’, the people who live next to you. Which I will explain in my next post.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
In years gone by, my Mum used to watch ‘Coronation Street’ regularly and I caught my Dad watching it on occasions and I can still remember Ena Sharples and her fellow hags Minnie and Martha drinking glasses of Milk Stout in the Snug in the Rover’s Return along with Albert Tatlock and Ken Barlow. I put this down to the fact that the TV was a recent addition to the household and I could be found in moments of idleness, staring transfixed at ‘The test pattern’ and even the little white dot when that had disappeared.
These days I don’t watch it at all, at the last count we had about five of them, with various attachments such as VCR’s and CD players and games type things. They are now so complicated that I never even attempt to turn four of them on. The fifth one is in my shed a little itty bitty one, that sits next to my printer and doesn’t even have a remote. I bought it from a place like that one in ‘Steptoe and Son’ (Now, that was a good programme) for about ten quid and the only time it ever gets turned on is for Test Matches and the recent Olympics.
So, having said that this is nothing to do with TV programmes, I’ve spent the last twenty minutes rambling on about them. This is actually about ‘Neighbours’, the people who live next to you. Which I will explain in my next post.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Me and Sir Richard Branson
There was an article in the ‘Good Weekend’ Magazine in the Melbourne Age recently, with a photograph of Richard in 1969, this was so similar to a photo of yours truly in the same year, that it was pointed out to me by my heiry son. This in itself was a bit of a surprise, as he normally treats me with the disrespect that is customary for teenagers to afford to their elders and betters.
I don't seem to be able to get the photograph of R.B. so you will have to take my word for it. So, use your imagination and try to picture R.B. as clean shaven, younger, with a pair of thick-rimmed specs, a tad more tousled than me and with the same gormless look and there you have it. No! your imagination can’t stretch that far?
Whatever, R.B. and myself looked like identical twins in 1969, perhaps we were separated at birth, there are a couple of small problems with this theory though. I was born in New Mills, Derbyshire and R.B. was born in “the unlikely setting of Shamley Green, a small village in Surrey”, to quote the ‘Age’ article. His father was a lawyer and his grandfather was a judge and mine weren’t.
These are only minor differences in my opinion. The major difference seems to me to be that R.B. is currently the 236th richest man in the world according to ‘Forbes Magazine’ and I am unsure of my own ranking, as it doesn’t appear in that particular magazine, for reasons known only to themselves. I very much doubt that I would make 2,360,000th, but could possibly be the 23,600,000th, I don’t really want to go much lower than that. I don’t think my self esteem could handle it.So what went wrong? He finished school after publishing a successful magazine while studying for his ‘O’ levels, I was still delivering successful newspapers (such as the ‘Daily Mirror’) while studying for my ‘A’ levels. I think that must have been where we started drifting apart.
He was arrested in 1971, for selling records in the UK that he had pretended to export to Europe, thus avoiding paying purchase tax, he spent one night in a cell, before his dear old Mum put up the family home as surety to bail him out. I once spent a couple of hours in a cell in the Philippines, I bribed a cop about A$100 to get out, but that’s another story. I only mentioned that to highlight the similarities.
I can only conclude that it all boils down to Richies’ sheer ruthlessness and naked ambition to succeed. In my case, I’ve never really had any ambition, naked, or fully clothed, including thermal underwear and I didn’t have any ruth to start off with either, so I couldn’t lose it. Not to mention the fact that I reckon the best thing to succeed is a parrot. So, there’s a lesson to be learned in there somewhere, but don’t ask me what it is. Maybe, I’m just a late developer and my best is yet to come.
Next time you’re in Melbourne, Rich, just look me up and we can compare notes about life in the UK in the sixties, I may be able to give you a few tips on how to chill out. It must be a bit stressful being a billionaire and perhaps you could slip me a few bundles of folding stuff as ‘seed capital’. Although you seem to be doing a pretty good job of chilling out by yourself, with all those nubile young lasses. If you bring your photo album, we could still have a bit of a giggle together, don’t forget the folding stuff though.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
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