Thinking twice – about everything

Any sensible person might think twice about travelling overseas at the moment, given that the US has been bombing Iran. However, I realised that there has never been a moment in living memory since the 1953 coup in Iran where the US hasn’t been bombing or invading someone, hasn’t recently bombed or invaded someone or isn’t planning to bomb or invade someone. Though, as one commentator pointed out, the last war they won was World War 2, and that was with the help of others. Maybe it’s best to treat it as situation normal, simply ignore it and get on with your life.

It would be nice to think that America was bombing the terrible Iranian regime to help rebelling Iranians, but I’m sure it’s only because of the oil. After all in 1953, Britain with the aid of America, overthrew a democratically-elected government there to keep control of the oil, thereby setting in train the long string of events that led to what’s happening today.

To our glorious dead - the collateral damage from an earlier war that was just as pointless. This monument is in the glorious historic port town of Oamaru on the East Coast of the New Zealand South Island. I was in one of the sandstone buildings that had been converted to an arts and craft centre when I realised that long after all the warehouses and wharves in these old towns have closed, there will always be the art centres and the breweries.

Cooling seasons and war in the air

The cool of the changing seasons is in the air and apples are on the table. For me the months of stone fruit are like Christmas – well they are Christmas, along with fruit mince tarts of course – but nothing lasts for ever. Luckily, though, it comes back again a year later. Right now what’s come back are apples. All the apples at the Farmers Market early this morning were new season. That’s good because war is in the air and we seem to be surrounded by things falling apart, so ongoing certainties are reassuring.

Apples are on the table – but not peace
I was reflecting the other day that the village I grew up in – and a village is unusual in Australia – is long gone, the chalet at it’s centre burned down and the rest merely a cluster of fishing huts just off the road from Lake St Clair. Those kind of changes are more gradual and accidental than in war-torn regions, even if disappointing, more able to be accommodated and accepted.

Apples are on the table – but not peace.

Rehabilitating casualties of war
It’s ironic that as the Gulf War drags on, we’ve joined the local Kieser gym. The Kieser method seems to be a broader version of Pilates, and I keep reflecting that Pilates was established in Germany after World War 1 to help rehabilitate the enormous numbers of war casualties, repurposing hospital beds to make gym equipment. I am impressed by its scientific, remedial approach, very useful for its ageing and decrepit market.

‘I wondered if we could make them an offer they can’t refuse – take on the throne here and have Australia become part of Scandinavia….If we can be part of Eurovision, we should be able to join the European Union!’

The physio there told me how physiotherapy itself was invented – for treatment of ballet dancers in Sweden. This impressed me because it wasn’t for football players, as you might expect, and it was a product of the Scandinavians, who have become my favourites after the French. I’m not surprised since dancers’ injuries can be serious ones, even though all we hear about are the football ones.

Stumbling over ghosts in an art gallery

We seem to be creeping towards the colder weather. Still with the daily news full of America revisiting its 1953 coup in Iran who has time to think about the weather? In between catching up with old friends, we’d just driven back from one of my favourite spots in Australia – the Thredbo Valley – and now it was time to return to furnishing our home. Someone once commented that inhabiting a modernist house would be like living in an art gallery and I thought I’d like to live in an art gallery. For many decades I carted around some old silk screen prints from my time in Adelaide. We finally decided to get one of them framed after all those decades and cities

We seem to be creeping towards the colder weather – though not creeping fast enough to my mind. Still, with the daily news full of America revisiting its 1953 coup in Iran (with the Israelis rather than the Brits this time) – that reinstalled the Shah and then, through action and reaction, led to the situation we have today – who has time to think about the weather?

Pulling the trigger or dropping the ball
I am fascinated by how the everyday expressions of a country reflect it’s most important interests – in the US pulling the trigger on a decision, in Australia, dropping the ball.

I'm never leaving home again – well, except to travel

I’ve made a couple of big decisions. I’ve decided that it’s better to be a Chardonnay socialist than a Riesling reactionary. I’ve also decided that given the state of the world – despite all the good things going on that we never hear about, it seems to be balancing between mediocrity, incompetence and plain greed and lust for power – I’m never leaving home again…well, except to travel.

Picking up and going travelling when and where it suits. All you need are some helpful neighbours and a watering system.

One of the great advantages of living in an apartment is that you can very easily not live there – picking up and going travelling when and where it suits, with little inconvenience. All you need are some helpful neighbours and a watering system.

Guides to a fiery future – it was only a matter of time

It was only a matter of time. It seems such a long time ago that we moved from bushfires to pandemic and watched as a wave of disease and stupidity swept the world and the country. Now the bushfires are back – the stupidity as well. Did we ever think they wouldn’t be?

Fires and floods and wars (luckily the last haven’t reached Australia – yet) and other disasters inevitably make you think what should I keep, what should I take? Amongst such disaster I include the death of loved ones and the culling of loved things, like libraries. Sorting the belongings of those who have gone, the only criterion can be ‘does it mean something?’ With belongings, once you bravely discard an item of a certain level of significance, it’s open slather on all other items of that level – that way went many of my books.

Crowds at Coogee Beach indulging in one of the most popular Australian outdoor activities – contracting skin cancer.

‘It was only a matter of time. It seems such a long time ago that we moved from bushfires to pandemic and watched as a wave of disease and stupidity swept the world and the country. Now the bushfires are back – the stupidity as well.’

Sheep graziers warning replaced by heat wave alert – reading books, drinking tea and reading tea leaves

Yesterday I popped out to get coffee and to visit the library, which just reopened after the break. They are the only things that would tempt me out of the apartment in this weather. Instead of the normal sheep graziers alert we get in Canberra, this week we have a heat wave alert. Yesterday was 33 degrees, then today is 35 degrees, the next three days will each reach 38 degrees. Originally there were going to be three days in a row where the temperatures reached 39, so I’m thankful that’s changed. I feel as though I am living in Adelaide again, but it’s probably even hotter there.

It’s quite clear that our overlapping layers of weather protection – curtains, blinds, tinting, heavy duty insect screens and plants – have substantially reduced the heat that gets into our apartment. The other day, sliding the windows in my study along to fertilise the window boxes, I saw how dark the overlapping tinted glass is.

It’s a pleasure to have a terrace that is as expansive as a courtyard, our very own garden of Eden, like the fabled Islamic paradise gardens Monty Don talks about, or as I sometimes refer to it - the hanging gardens of babble on.

To date, while we have had a few scattered hot days, we’ve not really had either very hot days or a continuous stretch of them. While I’m not looking forward to a string of hot days finally appearing, I am looking forward to seeing how the apartment will respond. We will add the two remaining defensive components we have – fans and air-conditioning – and see how we fare.

Lurching to a halt at the end of the year

For some reason Christmas reminds me of a play by Jean-Paul Sartre called ‘Huis Clos’, named after the French equivalent of an in camera trial or closed courtroom. It’s about three people who have died, locked together awaiting judgement in a crowded room for eternity. It’s the origin of Sartre’s famous line ‘hell is other people’.

The world suddenly lurches to a halt
But it’s not the idea of hell that Christmas reminds me of (though possibly I could say that about a few distant Christmases in my past – it’s true that Christmas can be one of the most stressful times of the year). It’s the fact that at Christmas, especially on Boxing Day, the world suddenly lurches to a halt and stops still at the doorway of the approaching year. 

Let's make the world great again.