I was having a bath last night on our deck overlooking the sea and a big old moon tilted up out of the pohutukawas to have a look at me. I couldn't tell if he was disappointed.
I wish the moon could shine on all the people of the world
And if he can't do that I wish he could shine on most of them
And if that's impossible, shine on many of them
And if that's a no no, shine on a few of them
And if all else fails let him shine on me.
News and views on art, music, food and life 'Down Under' (or 'On Top' depending on your perspective)
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Yes Dear
"Yes Dear I am building your house".....
" I don't know about three bedrooms, two bathrooms and open plan living although I do have an open plan".....
"Yes I think it is good for entertaining if you are talking two people round a campfire".....
"No it's not well secured but the beauty of that is, I can turn it around so the door faces the sun and allows it to illuminate your perfect face"......
"No I'm not. Flattery is for people who want something"......
"Well yes I would like you to approve my house"......
"I'm calling it a treepee"......
"Resale value? I guess it depends how many Indians there are out there"......
"I know it has no windows but it's a big saving and you hate cleaning them anyway"......
"TV sucks"......
"I'm not going to wear clothes"......
"I'll leave a spade outside"......
"Well your face is not so perfect anyway!"......
Friday, October 10, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Sorry it's so long
The hippopotamus was asleep at the bottom of the garden. Well I'm not sure it was a hippo but it was big and round and it smelt like one. Though I've never smelt one and so it must have been the big boulders my mother directed my father to set in the fern garden. He grumbled the whole time for he hated gardening, not because he didn't like growing things, but because my mother never left him alone and was always telling him the roses wouldn't do well there or it's no use putting in broad beans this late.
No doubt she was right but I remember in the corner where the grass clippings were tipped, all kinds of odd vegetables and flowers grew in utter profusion. A carrot picked from there was always the sweetest and a potato root the most prolific. My mother never knew because that was our secret and I think it kept my father sane to know that Good can come from Chaos.
I was too young then to understand the wildness in him. He was a big man but stooped as if apologetic to smaller people. He loved walking and as soon as he left the ordered streets, his shoulders would straighten as if to encompass the breadth of the countryside and he would stride along pointing to birds or trees with little stories to go with each. It became ingrained in me to look beyond an object to find it's place in relation to its surroundings.
But part of me was also my mothers. I resented his scruffiness. Whenever we went visiting, no matter how my mother told him to dress, he would always look down at heel, like an old sheep dog, his clothes never sitting well on him because he had no time for them except to keep him warm and a place to keep his hands.
I've digressed from hippos to sheep dogs but I think animals have a lot to answer for in my young life. Whenever the dark conjured up frightful things it was never ogres or giants, but prowling black panthers with drooling jowls and wicked yellow teeth or a baboon from the zoo whose eyes told me he was going to get out of there and get me as soon as he got a chance. On bright sunny days too, you could always find a great elephant or charging steed to mow you down if you ever got your feet off the ground. It was no wonder I always made sure there was a fence between me and the quietest doe-eyed cow.
There was one lion, however, that made up a lot of the ground the other animals had lost. He sat high above the bush on the way to the Coromandel as if on a woolly throne, his great rocky impassive head never moving an inch and seeming so aloof and disinterested that he would think it beneath him to come down and chase a humble little boy like me. He really was an inspiration to all those lower order animals.
Another lord of the forest I remember on the way to Coromandel over the narrow winding hill road was a big kauri tree, so big it took twenty minutes to walk around. OK it was perched on the side of a twelve metre cliff and by the time you fell down that and climbed up the other side your twenty minutes were up. At least that's what my father said, my mother would never let us get anywhere near the edge except when she was busy with my car sick sister and I managed a peek over the edge to make sure my father wasn't pulling my leg. He was when he told me about the rock off Whitianga where you could catch smoked snapper. I believed that for a long time.
You may well ask what I'm getting at. But does it matter? Like you I had a few minutes to spare and what better way to use them than to dangle a line into the past hoping to bring to the surface a nice, fat reason for my behavioural patterns of today. Not that I have any real problems with myself, but that's reason enough to worry in a world where everybody seems to have a problem from some distortion of their childhood. I mean, 'behavioural patterns', I must have picked that up from some expert trying to justify his job by adding to the already long list of worries to worry about.
There were hardly any experts in those days. If you smacked your kids it was reckoned they deserved it and no hands were held up in protest. The strap was pretty much in evidence in primary school too and I never dared tell my father how many I received for fear I would get more from him for being a nuisance to the teachers. They were held in very high respect then. But where did they hide all the young ones you see today? Perhaps the training was longer and they were all fifty before they were allowed to plough the fields of our young minds. It was all very traditional and not very uplifting. It's no wonder we are so sports conscious in New Zealand. It's all we went to school for . That and to taunt the girls. I would like to say at this point to Elizabeth that I really was only tickling you, nothing else, I was too naive, although I would have liked to think otherwise at the time.. I remember when you were obviously growing faster than me you said that you felt like doing something daring and all I could think of was doing a death defying dive off the rocks into the sea.
It seems my life is made up of quite a few lost opportunities. Not that I'm complaining, I'm a firm believer of the 'lying in your own bed' proverb except other people have the habit of apple-pieing it or putting a hedgehog between the sheets.
My childhood was certainly built on solid foundatins. Sure most bricks had a flaw but collectively they ushered me into the sixties as a stable and happy teenager ready to please and reasonably sure of myself. But treachery was afoot. A subtle change had taken root, 'times were achanging', the nasal voice of protest was wafting in under the bouganvillia, bouncing against the gold brocade wallpaper and striking a receptive chord in our young minds. But what had we to complain about? Our parents, after the defeat of Hitler, had looked towards a golden age of peace, prosperity and above all security and who could blame them after looking over the edge of insanity. But by the sixties this had soured as they came to realise that war was an inevitable fact and they had no control over their sons being sent to steamy jungles to fight in a struggle everyone would lose. I don't think this was necessarily a conscious thought because above all else the sense of security and the belief governments were for the people had to be maintained or be seen to be maintained, but the underlying futility was passed on to us and we responded like a plant to water, believing the opposition to authority was all our idea.
So we grew our hair and marched up and down with youths confidence that the world was at our feet, ready for change but not realising the real vehicle for change was in the hands of a select few whose main interest was to maintain the status quo. We won a few victories but as time wore on a division appeared between us. Some carrying on the fight wore a look of sullen resignation and the others, by far the majority, had a bright dollar look in their eyes, neither of whom were going to do anybody any good.
And me? I've realisd long since that hippopotamii don't wander into gardens and the only thing we have to worry about concerning animals is their common sense, but being an optimist I feel there are some people left who came of age in the sixties who are now building powerful positions. Not for their own sake but to further the aims we pledged in our youth of honesty, fairness and peace. But isn't that what our parents and their parents before them wanted also?
No doubt she was right but I remember in the corner where the grass clippings were tipped, all kinds of odd vegetables and flowers grew in utter profusion. A carrot picked from there was always the sweetest and a potato root the most prolific. My mother never knew because that was our secret and I think it kept my father sane to know that Good can come from Chaos.
I was too young then to understand the wildness in him. He was a big man but stooped as if apologetic to smaller people. He loved walking and as soon as he left the ordered streets, his shoulders would straighten as if to encompass the breadth of the countryside and he would stride along pointing to birds or trees with little stories to go with each. It became ingrained in me to look beyond an object to find it's place in relation to its surroundings.
But part of me was also my mothers. I resented his scruffiness. Whenever we went visiting, no matter how my mother told him to dress, he would always look down at heel, like an old sheep dog, his clothes never sitting well on him because he had no time for them except to keep him warm and a place to keep his hands.
I've digressed from hippos to sheep dogs but I think animals have a lot to answer for in my young life. Whenever the dark conjured up frightful things it was never ogres or giants, but prowling black panthers with drooling jowls and wicked yellow teeth or a baboon from the zoo whose eyes told me he was going to get out of there and get me as soon as he got a chance. On bright sunny days too, you could always find a great elephant or charging steed to mow you down if you ever got your feet off the ground. It was no wonder I always made sure there was a fence between me and the quietest doe-eyed cow.
There was one lion, however, that made up a lot of the ground the other animals had lost. He sat high above the bush on the way to the Coromandel as if on a woolly throne, his great rocky impassive head never moving an inch and seeming so aloof and disinterested that he would think it beneath him to come down and chase a humble little boy like me. He really was an inspiration to all those lower order animals.
Another lord of the forest I remember on the way to Coromandel over the narrow winding hill road was a big kauri tree, so big it took twenty minutes to walk around. OK it was perched on the side of a twelve metre cliff and by the time you fell down that and climbed up the other side your twenty minutes were up. At least that's what my father said, my mother would never let us get anywhere near the edge except when she was busy with my car sick sister and I managed a peek over the edge to make sure my father wasn't pulling my leg. He was when he told me about the rock off Whitianga where you could catch smoked snapper. I believed that for a long time.
You may well ask what I'm getting at. But does it matter? Like you I had a few minutes to spare and what better way to use them than to dangle a line into the past hoping to bring to the surface a nice, fat reason for my behavioural patterns of today. Not that I have any real problems with myself, but that's reason enough to worry in a world where everybody seems to have a problem from some distortion of their childhood. I mean, 'behavioural patterns', I must have picked that up from some expert trying to justify his job by adding to the already long list of worries to worry about.
There were hardly any experts in those days. If you smacked your kids it was reckoned they deserved it and no hands were held up in protest. The strap was pretty much in evidence in primary school too and I never dared tell my father how many I received for fear I would get more from him for being a nuisance to the teachers. They were held in very high respect then. But where did they hide all the young ones you see today? Perhaps the training was longer and they were all fifty before they were allowed to plough the fields of our young minds. It was all very traditional and not very uplifting. It's no wonder we are so sports conscious in New Zealand. It's all we went to school for . That and to taunt the girls. I would like to say at this point to Elizabeth that I really was only tickling you, nothing else, I was too naive, although I would have liked to think otherwise at the time.. I remember when you were obviously growing faster than me you said that you felt like doing something daring and all I could think of was doing a death defying dive off the rocks into the sea.
It seems my life is made up of quite a few lost opportunities. Not that I'm complaining, I'm a firm believer of the 'lying in your own bed' proverb except other people have the habit of apple-pieing it or putting a hedgehog between the sheets.
My childhood was certainly built on solid foundatins. Sure most bricks had a flaw but collectively they ushered me into the sixties as a stable and happy teenager ready to please and reasonably sure of myself. But treachery was afoot. A subtle change had taken root, 'times were achanging', the nasal voice of protest was wafting in under the bouganvillia, bouncing against the gold brocade wallpaper and striking a receptive chord in our young minds. But what had we to complain about? Our parents, after the defeat of Hitler, had looked towards a golden age of peace, prosperity and above all security and who could blame them after looking over the edge of insanity. But by the sixties this had soured as they came to realise that war was an inevitable fact and they had no control over their sons being sent to steamy jungles to fight in a struggle everyone would lose. I don't think this was necessarily a conscious thought because above all else the sense of security and the belief governments were for the people had to be maintained or be seen to be maintained, but the underlying futility was passed on to us and we responded like a plant to water, believing the opposition to authority was all our idea.
So we grew our hair and marched up and down with youths confidence that the world was at our feet, ready for change but not realising the real vehicle for change was in the hands of a select few whose main interest was to maintain the status quo. We won a few victories but as time wore on a division appeared between us. Some carrying on the fight wore a look of sullen resignation and the others, by far the majority, had a bright dollar look in their eyes, neither of whom were going to do anybody any good.
And me? I've realisd long since that hippopotamii don't wander into gardens and the only thing we have to worry about concerning animals is their common sense, but being an optimist I feel there are some people left who came of age in the sixties who are now building powerful positions. Not for their own sake but to further the aims we pledged in our youth of honesty, fairness and peace. But isn't that what our parents and their parents before them wanted also?
Monday, October 6, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Lemon Risotto Cake
In response to the huge demand, here is the lemon risotto cake recipe I use at the Egg.
100gms butter
1 white onion chopped
1 cup aborio rice
4 cups water or a good chicken stock
Rind of 1 lemon zested
1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan
2 free range eggs
Salt and fresh ground pepper
Melt the butter in a heavy pan and sweat the onion till translucent. Add the rice and stir until coated. Turn up the heat and add the stock 1/2 a cup at a time letting it absorb before adding the next. Takes about 20 minutes or until the rice still has a little bite to it. Take it off the heat and add the zest, the parmesan and the seasoning. Cool for a few minutes and stir in the eggs. Pour onto a tray and set in the fridge. When ready to use for a meal, cut into squares and grill in the frypan until golden. Keeps well for up to 5 days. It tastes better with chicken stock but I use water so I can add it to my vegetarian meal.
Bon Appa Teat
100gms butter
1 white onion chopped
1 cup aborio rice
4 cups water or a good chicken stock
Rind of 1 lemon zested
1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan
2 free range eggs
Salt and fresh ground pepper
Melt the butter in a heavy pan and sweat the onion till translucent. Add the rice and stir until coated. Turn up the heat and add the stock 1/2 a cup at a time letting it absorb before adding the next. Takes about 20 minutes or until the rice still has a little bite to it. Take it off the heat and add the zest, the parmesan and the seasoning. Cool for a few minutes and stir in the eggs. Pour onto a tray and set in the fridge. When ready to use for a meal, cut into squares and grill in the frypan until golden. Keeps well for up to 5 days. It tastes better with chicken stock but I use water so I can add it to my vegetarian meal.
Bon Appa Teat
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Running scared
Do you want me (a warning)
Do you want to come
To the broken rhythms
Of my heart
I love you more than
Life itself
More than I can bear
To be apart
Yet I'm afraid
I'm running scared
Of losing you to me
Do you want to come
To the broken rhythms
Of my heart
I love you more than
Life itself
More than I can bear
To be apart
Yet I'm afraid
I'm running scared
Of losing you to me
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Restaurant opening
My 5 months of FREEDOM are almost up. We open the restaurant again for the new season on Saturday and because it is school holidays it will be busy. The scallops are fat, the crayfish plentiful and because it's too early for kingfish I'll put a crispy skin salmon dish on the menu. Probably with lemon rissotto cake and I'll smoke the frames for stock and reduce it down with veges, port, balsamic and brown sugar to make a black treakle sauce. My son and his partner are excited as two year olds to be taking over, with a little mix of trepidation because they have never been in the business before. It's nice to have their vision and energy around.
Monday, September 29, 2008
In case I fail
In case I fail. Fail to scale the granite cliffs of success where I think I will find peace of mind, where all my accomplishments end. Other people expect it of me - why? - Why do they think my mind is different when all it craves is a cemetry full of flowers - dahlias, daisies and dead dandelions that float off to a Shang-ri-la carrying all that matters as lightly as an angels fingertips until I can lie in peace and dissolve in the hell that is solitude. The people, those uncountable multitudes that we belong, and use, and are used, set barriers here, false trails, booby traps, blind alleys, and yet are only imagination turned back on itself and eating it's tail until the head is regurgitated and purged like a new skin snake. Each an individual themselves misguided like a half feathered arrow never reaching the target set so high but pretending all the same they wanted to quiver in the mud and slime of times vomited past.
To be raw young and twenty with a heart full of change and pockets empty, to stand and believe you are counted and will be numbered along with those that know it only takes a single breath to live or die, be right or wrong, sane or insane. And yet the insanity of age tempers and distorts until with platitudes and condescending smiles we look at youth and say - dreams? - you cannot eat dreams - ideals? - you'll see the snakepit is really a bed of nails and when you lie upon it the silver bubble will burst and the muck and slush will petrify the green countyside hopes of any village idiot. It is with so-called progress we nullify the hopes of the young, spreading thick marmite on fresh new bread so the yardstick which used to be freedom, happiness and above all change can only be measured with success, money and a new car, never mind the bile like taste making the gut turn over, we close our eyes and wash it down with great drafts of ale-brown regret.
To be raw young and twenty with a heart full of change and pockets empty, to stand and believe you are counted and will be numbered along with those that know it only takes a single breath to live or die, be right or wrong, sane or insane. And yet the insanity of age tempers and distorts until with platitudes and condescending smiles we look at youth and say - dreams? - you cannot eat dreams - ideals? - you'll see the snakepit is really a bed of nails and when you lie upon it the silver bubble will burst and the muck and slush will petrify the green countyside hopes of any village idiot. It is with so-called progress we nullify the hopes of the young, spreading thick marmite on fresh new bread so the yardstick which used to be freedom, happiness and above all change can only be measured with success, money and a new car, never mind the bile like taste making the gut turn over, we close our eyes and wash it down with great drafts of ale-brown regret.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
We have an election too
Hey, we've got an election too. Don't hog all the limelight. We have had a labour (left leaning) government for 9 years and national (right leaning) (yes they hold each other up!) is well ahead in the polls. We have an MMP (?) system which means if a party doesn't get enough votes to govern alone they have to get into bed with a minor party. No, no sex and usually the large one is so heavy the small one keeps rolling into the centre. The green partys' leader comes from our area and I voted for them but they were shafted in negotiations after the last election. I was not happy. But I don't vote for me. I live my life no matter what government is in. I vote for Joe (Joel) Bloggs who earns $650 ($US400) a week, pays half of that in rent and is trying to feed 6 kids.
I would vote for me if my government was going to war. I'm a pacifist and a coward.
I would vote for me if my government was going to war. I'm a pacifist and a coward.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Believe in who?
Sure son he said the earth goes down on that sexy sun. Every day. They tell you it’s risen but it’s all bullshit. His voice grated like it was coming out of a hole in the ground and he flipped the skinned rabbit and spilled it’s guts, blue and steaming onto the grass. They also say no is an answer but it ‘s never satisfied me. Can I take the shotgun into town tonight. He smiles and puts his foot on it. Wrinkled old fart.
Fresh fish for dinner
Hey the weather was good tonight so took my sons' partner Paul out fishing. Young son Sam and his mates had been out skurfing ie. towing each other behind the boat on a surfboard - skiing/surfing. I watched them from our little house with binoculars. So close it felt like I was there with them. She's a small boat with a 40 hp motor so blats along free as a bird. Rough around the edges but that's how we like it. She appears to like us too.
Anyway we caught enough fish for our dinner. A leatherjacket, a gurnard, a snapper and a few bait fish. Cold when we got home after dark I cooked them in butter with a squeeze of lemon, sea salt and fresh ground pepper. What more can a man want.
Anyway we caught enough fish for our dinner. A leatherjacket, a gurnard, a snapper and a few bait fish. Cold when we got home after dark I cooked them in butter with a squeeze of lemon, sea salt and fresh ground pepper. What more can a man want.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
95% of money is created by private banks
Have a look at this excellent article on american hillbillys' site about the creation of money and how it's fueling the collapse in financial systems. Such as : "Moreover, inflation also serves to close the circle as it means that money only has one place in which it can easily seek refuge from its loss of value, and that place is a bank. Thus people, and especially those who are savers, are forced to protect themselves from the reduction in the value of money by looking for the shelter of a bank, which with this new deposit will be able to create yet more money and produce more inflation so that the wheel never stops turning. Inflation traps our money in the banking system and is the finest incentive that the system has for attracting deposits."
Written so even I can understand it! It gives no answers but I guess we are the silly poobums who want everything now and take 100% loans to buy 'the thing no one can do without'
Written so even I can understand it! It gives no answers but I guess we are the silly poobums who want everything now and take 100% loans to buy 'the thing no one can do without'
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Apart
I saw you last night
Down by the sand and rocks
Where whirling tresses
Danced a faceless waltz
You cupped a cupid shell
To your mother
But not to me
But not to me
Down by the sand and rocks
Where whirling tresses
Danced a faceless waltz
You cupped a cupid shell
To your mother
But not to me
But not to me
Friday, September 19, 2008
xplydre
Does anyone else have a morbid fear of the hieroglyphic (I did not use the dictionary!) word verification system on some bloggers comment columns. I mean pxllgt, I have never seen a proper word yet. I look at it long and hard before I type it. What if I get it wrong. Is it an intelligence test and will the award 'dunce of the year' start flashing. Is it some secret blogger code and everyone is laughing at me when I use it?
Maybe I'm paranoid, even an easy word like metempsychosis makes me imagine souls passing in the night.
Maybe I'm paranoid, even an easy word like metempsychosis makes me imagine souls passing in the night.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Why do I blog to an audience of 1.5 people
Aw come on, you're not the .5 person you are number 1. It's just a statistic. I polled the world wide audience and divided it by only the bloggers that say something important. It's not like he/her is 1/2 a person, it's just he/her (sounds like a donkey, perhaps I should poll the animal kingdom, do bats tune into broadband?) only views sometimes and I'm working hard to bring hehaw up to .75.
I know you think I'm perfect but I do have addictions. There is the world before my morning coffee (I hate it) and the world after the strong drug (it hates me). I have an addiction to being right even when I'm completely wrong. I can't believe I admitted that, perhaps the rehab is working. I am a normal sociable person drinking gin/vodka/cactus juice/meths but start me on whisky and you've got a raving lunatic on your hands.
So is blogging an addiction? Do I wake at 4 am thinking about what I'm going to write. Yes...Do I high five the cat when I get a comment. Yes... Do I actually believe it's worth reading. Yes.. (delusional as well). Do I enjoy it. No... But feel I have to = addiction.
So, dear 1.75 readers (stop press he/her has just gone up to visiting once a month) I hope my imperfections haven't put you off. My counter only goes up. If you are wavering I have a once in a life time offer... keep logging in and learn whether I wear underwear or not!!!
I know you think I'm perfect but I do have addictions. There is the world before my morning coffee (I hate it) and the world after the strong drug (it hates me). I have an addiction to being right even when I'm completely wrong. I can't believe I admitted that, perhaps the rehab is working. I am a normal sociable person drinking gin/vodka/cactus juice/meths but start me on whisky and you've got a raving lunatic on your hands.
So is blogging an addiction? Do I wake at 4 am thinking about what I'm going to write. Yes...Do I high five the cat when I get a comment. Yes... Do I actually believe it's worth reading. Yes.. (delusional as well). Do I enjoy it. No... But feel I have to = addiction.
So, dear 1.75 readers (stop press he/her has just gone up to visiting once a month) I hope my imperfections haven't put you off. My counter only goes up. If you are wavering I have a once in a life time offer... keep logging in and learn whether I wear underwear or not!!!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
American aggression
They are at it again. This time bombing in Pakistan and incubating more terrorist cells.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Haircuts
Son Sam told me to get a haircut and look at his record, nice boy to monster! Now I don't know if he was serious or just trying to deflect the fact that the dishes weren't done and his room is a pigsty (sorry pigs I luv ya). I mean it's not that bad (said hair). A bit fluffy at times when I use the new fangled shampoo and conditioner I find in the shower. Daughter works for Swartzkopf? so we have lots of product! I've been through shaven and mohawk. He's been through skullet and mullet (I feel a poem coming on). Perhaps I'm taking away his rebellion and he wants a nice neat father he can ridicule.
Bugger him, I'll grow it while I can.
Bugger him, I'll grow it while I can.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Dreamtime
Your eyes shadow hollow closed
I kissed
Lips sweet memory pained
And wept
Coddled as we were in dreamtime
Far from Maughm St
In the wake sleep time of
Closeness
I didn't know you
But I know you
Now
I kissed
Lips sweet memory pained
And wept
Coddled as we were in dreamtime
Far from Maughm St
In the wake sleep time of
Closeness
I didn't know you
But I know you
Now
Friday, September 12, 2008
Summer house
Our wooffer friends will be pleased to know. The bach lives on!
A bach is a summer house in NZ and ours was due for demolition but has a reprieve for a year because we can't find anywhere else to live. With a view as above it's going to be difficult to be motivated. It will be like being on holiday all the time. What's that you say? Seems like I'm on holiday all the time anyway! I'll have you know I've been overseas on business. Checking restaurants and researching live music and talking to artists about exhibitions at the Egg. It's been a hard few months.... I think I need a holiday!
Denise is off to Australia to see her Dad today and there is a bach list on the fridge.
Shore up the foundations so it doesn't shake in the wind
Paint inside and out
Lay carpet
Install a ranchslider
Change the stove
And that's only the first day. I think I'll demolish it and live in a tent!
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