This session was designed and hosted by co-convenor Neville Gibb to explore a question he often asks ‘Where is the Art?’ Benalla Art Gallery staff responded to Neville’s request for works by two well-known Australian painters to be exhibited before our group, setting the scene for a talk about two greats of Australian Art Neville describes as ‘both arguably geniuses’, Albert Namatjira and Hans Heysen. Neville began the session with a thoughtfully prepared response to the paintings. His premise was that we can tell where the art is when we look at both men's work. “Both were able to produce works that are close to perfection in their capturing the spirit of the land. Not an easy thing to do”. Neville contended that there would not be an Australian anywhere in the world who would not feel identification with the work of both men. Namatjira and Heysen were contemporaries and it is not known if they ever met but it is known that Heysen admired Namatjira's work. Namatjira came to painting in his 30s. Heysen was recognised from a young age as someone within immense talent. Both had good and bad times. Namatjira suffered mightily the slings and arrows of being an Aborigine and Heysen had to lay low during WW1. Namatjira's intention was to record the land - painting came into it but getting the essence of the land into a painting was his intention. It is an easy argument to make that this was Heyson's intention also. Neville considers both men to have produced work of great worth and feels proud that we have examples of their work in the Gallery. As he sees them standing head and shoulders above most other Australian Artists, Neville hopes we see more of their work on display. Neville then invited local painter Mervyn Beamish to give his opinion. Merv made several comments where he clearly differed from Neville. Merv said that in his view, art is determined to be art by the beholder, not by someone telling them it is art, because it hangs on a gallery wall or because someone is willing to pay a large amount of money for it. ‘Your two year old grandchild's sketch stuck on the refrigerator door triggers an emotion; a memory, that, to you, is a work of art. A crack in the footpath can be a wonderful work of art and be quite fascinating because it stimulates senses, emotions even a memory.’…’If the item stimulates you senses; disgust and fascination ... the colours, the pattern, the situation, the swirl, there is something about it that takes you beyond the moment’. Merv was able to explain where he felt the strength of both painters lay and made several valuable explanations, warming to his task as the morning went on. Merv's work is on display at NEA. Merv is a well known and respected artist in the area. He will shortly have an exhibition in Krakow Poland. Neville and Merv’s follow up discussion, together with contributions from the floor by Val Dunin; Carol Perry; visitors Reuben and Hazel Frankland; Bev Lee and others concluded an absorbing and lively session. Neville Gibb
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What follows is not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. In the early 50’s an itinerant family moved to Meadow Creek. Father Mother Daughter and Son. Where they came from or what their background was I don’t know. Father was what was called a seasonal worker. This meant he found part time work on local farms depending on the time of year. They moved into a house not far from the school that had been deserted since the war. It had no electricity or running water. They had no car. Neither the father nor the mother drove. The overwhelming impression their appearance gave was that the whole family were poor. They certainly looked it. Both parents had prominent teeth missing. The father was skinny and the mother was stout. She always wore socks instead of stockings. Their clothes were unfashionable and looked like hand me downs. They had that second hand look. The children’s clothes looked handmade if that. What they were made of was previously used or previously discarded. They were torn and tattered. Their shoes were always scuffed and falling apart. The girl was in grade 3 and the boy was in grade 2. The boy was white skinned with red blotches and he had large freckles all over his face. He had frizzy red hair. The girl was grey skinned and also very freckled but her freckles were black. She had grey frizzy hair. Neither child was muscular. The girl was shy and introverted. Silent. The boy was more open. He always wanted to be friendly but no one wanted to be friendly with him. Society at that time was structured in a strictly rigid form. Graziers were at the top of the ladder and seasonal labourers were at the bottom. Society was ruled by a strict class and caste system although no one admitted it. The children at my school followed this class hierarchy with great determination. The two children came to the school in the middle of the term and on their first few days had to stand out the front because there were not spare desks or chairs for them. When the furniture came the teacher gave definite instructions as to how each should carry and take care of their chairs. This was a sore point with him. Chairs and desks were scarce. He had a thing about furniture being broken. It was a punishable offense. It meant the strap for anyone who broke anything. These two children were never accepted and they were mercilessly treated by the rest of the school from the start. It was said that their parents were not married. It was also said that the father had a touch of the tar and both these rumours were often expressed by the older pupils as having great importance. Children obviously got these beliefs from their parents and elders. I didn’t really understand what they meant but I did not question it. The statements concerning the two children were made with such authority. What was said seemed very important. It was not uncommon to see a group of girls half chasing the girl around and calling in unison tar baby because of her dark skin. The girl would be in tears but no one cared. This was fun. They knew they would never be stopped doing it because the girl was not liked and she was both unattractive and poor. The result was the girl spent a lot of time by herself crying and sobbing. Her body would heave with sobs and this only made the mob happier. She was an outsider and was not liked. She was not an attractive girl. She could not defend herself. She had no dignity. It was as if she deserved it. I cared but of course I said nothing. I did care. I felt sorry for her. My heart went out to this poor girl. I wanted to go and put my arm around her but I didn’t dare. I did not want to be seen as the odd man out. I did not want to be thought of as being sympathetic with this undesirable person. I did not want to be thought as being the same as her. I was frightened I would be treated the same way. No one would talk to me. I hated being teased. I always felt so humiliated when I was teased and was always struck dumb. It was the worst thing that could ever happen. I was terrified of it happening. I could never go against public opinion. So I stood silent. I did nothing. I was frightened. I did not know what to do. I wanted to be part of the mob. I wanted to be accepted. I felt I could do nothing. A few weeks after their arrival there was a reorganization at the school. Desks and chairs had to be moved around. Children had to pick up their chairs while the grade 6 boys moved the desks. All the young children were standing holding their chairs. One of the popular boys lifted his chair above his head and attempted to hold it like a circus performer would. He said look at me and tried to swivel it around. He quickly lost control of it. It fell to the floor with great noise. A leg was broken off. The whole school looked to see who it was. It was the son of a prominent farmer who was on the school committee so we all relaxed. He would not be punished. The teacher never punished some pupils and he was one of them. But for some reason the red haired boy spoke out – “look Mr S – he’s dropped his chair – are you going to give him the strap? Look at me. I’m holding my chair properly”. The room of students found this funny and laughed out loud but the teacher found it infuriating and he ran at the boy shaking his fist as if to hit him. The laugh was caught in everyone’s throat. What would happen? The teacher did not hit the boy but went up to his face and screamed at him. Imbecile. Stupid. Idiot. Shut up. Get out of the room. The boy wilted visibly and stepped backwards. He started to cry silently. The rest of the children started laughing again. His sister came to his aid to comfort him. She put her arm around him. Some pupils even jeered at her. The teacher turned around still fuming and strode away. I did not laugh. I stayed silent. I knew a great injustice was occurring. I knew something terrible was happening but I was powerless to do anything. I could do nothing. I felt sorry for both of them. I wanted to go and stand with them. But of course I did not. I did not know what to do. I stayed in the background. I was one of the crowd. I did not want to be noticed. I did not want to be seen to be connected with their lower class. I did not want to be disliked. I did not want to be associated with these two undesirable children. I did not want to be thought of as being the same as them. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be popular. I did not want to be thought of as being different. I did not want to be the odd man out. Has the world changed? This is me pretending I am someone else.
The man is Peter Norman. An Australian hero for everyone except the Australian Olympic Committee. Judy Patching hang your head in shame. My career went bung the day I had my biggest triumph. I did not know it at the time but then no one knew. My career going bung was decided by morally corrupt men thinking about what I had done and making decisions which they then kept to themselves until they could do something about it. I had come second in a 200 metre sprint. A special athlete is required to run 200 metres. You have to have enough energy to push yourself through the pain barrier and sustain your speed for perhaps 50 metres more than normal athletes can. You start the race and try to get settled as quickly as possible. You try and increase your pace as you go past 100 metres and then you stretch out as much as you can and after 150 metres you push for the finish. A good 200 metre runner can make up a lot of ground over the last 50 metres. This is virtually how my greatest triumph occurred. As we went through 100 metres the two fastest runners had been about 2 metres clear and the favourite was able to even increase his speed for 10 metres or so. But then I was able to use my latent strength and started to make up ground on them both. I made up a lot of ground the last 50 metres and I was able to pass one but not the other. I came second. I wasn’t displeased. I was happy. My mistake was that I liked the other two place getters and made a pact with them that from then on we would always be friends. I would stand with them no matter what. They wanted to stand together at the prize giving ceremony to make a statement and I said I would stand with them. The showed me respect by actually telling me what they planned to do. I said we would all stand together. And I did stand with them. I supported their stand. I didn’t exactly say this to anyone else but I did to them. I had made a pact with them. This was a personal thing but somehow the people in authority took offense at this. Not that they said anything threatening to me at the time. But it was reported in the press that they were ashamed of my actions. Four years later I was excluded from the team. I was considered to be in the top five runners for the 200 metres but I was not picked. When I objected and pointed out the lack of logic in not picking someone who was ranked in the top five they responded by saying OK we will not pick anyone who is ranked below fourth in the world. And they did this. The team was greatly reduced by this action but they did it. They made no explanation for their actions. But they were not questioned by anyone who should have questioned them. Why they treated me like this has never been explained. When I heard that I was definitely not in the team I retired. I turned my back completely. I had had enough. I was being punished for acting morally by people whom were immoral. I didn’t mind saying this. In my private life I had an obligation to act morally at all times and I tried my best to live up to this creed. I often wondered if me being a Salvationist might have influenced their behavior but it is probably because I said I opposed the White Australia policy. This is not logical but again there is nothing logical in the sequence of events and there is nothing logical in the deep seated racism that exists in conservative mainstream Australia. Forty years later when there were big celebrations concerning the Sydney Olympics lots of people were asked to perform special tasks. That is all except me. Lots of celebrities were invited to take part – even the children of celebrities were asked to perform. People who had power pulled strings so members of their families could take part in proceedings. Celebrations were the order of the day. But not for me. I could not understand but I didn’t complain. My way of doing things was to say nothing and put my faith in a higher authority. I was punished for treating people with dark coloured skin with respect. I treated them as human beings. As I would have treated myself. I believed in their cause. The world is racist and no one should be punished for pointing this out. I think it can be proved that I was. I WAS THERE. I was there the day the world changed. Because there once was a day when the world changed. This day actually occurred. It really did. We live in a world that appears to be fixed. And in most ways it is. Our world does not often change and sometimes no matter how much we want it to change it never does. In many ways we don’t want the world to change and go to great lengths to prevent change. If you go through life expecting that the world will never change when the momentous change occurs it is hard to know what to make of it. In my case the world did change and would never be the same again. I found it both exhilarating and a letdown. Pleasing and disappointing. Both traumatic and healing. Soothing and disquieting. All of these and more. The day itself was almost perfect weather wise. The first week in October. Not a cloud in the sky. A cool fine day. There was a slight breeze. If you stood still you could feel the cool breeze across your face. I have always found this pleasurable and remember it to this day. I am reminded always when I experience this sensation. Tom and I left home early. I was fulfilling a long held promise to him. It had been touch and go whether I could keep my promise to Tom but after a lot of stress and effort I was able to arrange it. This day became one of the great joys of being a father. Only fathers and sons can experience what happened and the pleasure that resulted. We took the normal route to our destination and had no traffic problems. Neither of us are superstitious so we did not see this as portentous. But in hindsight you could read something into it. On arrival I fulfilled another long held promise in that I allowed Tom to buy a magazine that I had always denied him previously because I considered its purchase a waste of money. But I was pleased to see him read the magazine and get a lot of enjoyment from doing this. I had never seen my son take so much interest and concentration as he did in carefully reading every word in this magazine. We sometimes get pleasure in ways we never expect and I remember the pleasure I experienced in watching him added to the enjoyment of the day. He was ten years old and just learning the joys of reading. We had to wait a long time for the ceremonies to begin. We were in the standing room only section. But we waited patiently. Finally proceedings started. The world actually changed over the course of the next two and a half hours. This sounds trite but at the end of proceedings the world had changed forever. The actual event still seems like a dream. And like all dreams I only remember fragments. Some things have been indelibly imprinted on my brain and others have been wiped forever from my memory. I remember small unimportant things and I do not remember other things that have later been deemed important. In reality I only have vague memories of most of the day. I have no sense that two and a half momentous hours passed. I cannot remember either Tom or myself uttering a sound. Certainly neither of us can remember any involvement or reaction to what was happening. That is until the end. Towards the end I wanted the last 5 minutes to go on forever but of course it seemed to go in seconds. I did not dare make a sound until the actual end. Then I made my feelings known to everyone. Or tried to. I actually shouted. YES. YES. YES. People around me were dancing. The world had changed. I was there when it happened. And I was with my son. We will always have this to share. The date was the 6th of October 1990 COLLINGWOOD 13.11 (89) Defeated ESSENDON 5.11 (41) The Death of the Colliwobbles was announced in all the daily papers on the following Monday. GRANDPARENTS I know almost nothing about my grandparents. I have little in common with them. If they were to come back to life I doubt if I could have an adult conversation with them. When I was young I had two grandmothers. Both my grandfathers died before I was born. They are both mysterious shadowy people. I have no concept of them apart from what people have told me in passing. My maternal grandfather was a musician of sorts. He was of Irish decent and played the violin. Quite well as far as I can make out. He had a family band that played at dances in the district. Him and three of his children. An uncle who was from my father’s side of the family told me he once saw him setting out to ride home after playing at a dance. It was a very dark cold night and he would have had a long way to ride his horse in order to get home. When he died the family band stopped performing – although they did still play at family gatherings and all the members still had their party tricks. They did not require much persuasion to get them to perform. But he must have been the driving force. His youngest son carried on the tradition the most and performed in public more than the others. He played several instruments. I discussed this with him in his old age. Why did he do it I asked? I said I believed he loved playing music rather than actually loving music itself. I tested him by playing him extracts of Mozart. I asked why he didn’t progress into classical music. Why did he stop with popular Irish Music? He listened to the Mozart I played him but he did not comment. My paternal grandfather is even more of a shadow. He died in mysterious circumstances. Two people have told me that he committed suicide. I asked his son who I became close to towards the end of his life if this was true and he said no – his father came home one night on his horse in a dreadful state and died soon after. Other people have said he was found dead at the Wangaratta Saleyards. The grandparent I was most close to was my paternal grandmother. I know she loved me and I loved her. When her husband died she had one child who was 14 and one who was 9. She never lived with either of her children again until they were adults and had established their own households. Both children were farmed out to various relatives of her husband and she went to live with various relatives of hers. She was an example of what was then quite common. A widow of no means. Her husband had died when the mortgage barely covered the value of the farm. The farm was sold and she was left with no income or assets whatever. Towards the end of her life she was allocated a housing commission house which she shared with another elderly relative. This was the only house she had after her husband died. Of course I knew her well. Before she got her house she would stay with us from time to time. She had several idiosyncrasies. She would make sure all the blinds in the house were pulled down early every morning on hot days. She followed a ritual when brewing tea. She had trouble sleeping at night. She kept an enamel chamber pot under her bed. My mother never liked her and there was always tension when she lived with us. So she could only stay with us for a short while and then would have to go and live with others. My mother always insisted that her own mother would then come to live with us for the same amount of time. But this only happened once as I remember. When she got her housing commission house I once stayed with her for a week over the Christmas holidays. I remember this as a week of bliss. Absolute bliss. Except for the rough housing commission children who lived in the neighborhood and who all tried to fight me. She got ill and went to hospital seemingly shortly after I stayed with her. She had high blood pressure. Once when we were alone she showed me how to treat high blood pressure. She had a cut on her wrist which was exuding blood. She kept forcing as much blood to come out of the cut as she could. She kept rubbing her hand continuously down her arm to her wrist. This was the way to lessen blood pressure she said. I was the only person she showed this. Then suddenly she was dead. I never saw her again. I once saw an elderly woman coming towards me from up the street and for one wonderful second I thought my grandmother had come back from the dead. I almost ran towards her. The sun was coming through a cloud and shining directly behind this woman as she walked towards me and she did look like my grandmother. Perhaps Jesus did come back from the dead I thought. I thought this for only one second. But my heart did pound. And then went back to disappointment. My maternal grandmother I had less to do with. I was always being warned by my mother not to upset her. I had to behave myself when we visited her. I was surprised if she spoke to me. I can only recall her speaking to me once. She had long hair which she let down at night. She spoke to me as she let down her hair. She suddenly got old and lost weight to the point where she resembled a bird. The last time she visited us she was brought in a car by one of her children. It was a sunny day and the car was parked under a tree in the shade away from the house. Her son got out of the car and came inside. She sat in the car by herself for a while. She was tired. She was not to be disturbed. Maybe she had a short nap. I watched from a distance. She only came inside for a short while. She died soon after. She went into hospital and died within days. When we look at the gravestones of both women we see that both died in their mid 60’s. This is disconcerting. Why did they die so young? Neither seemed to have an official illness. They just got sick and died. My mother always said my fathers mother just gave up but I didn't see this. But would she have been intimate with me if she had? Did they both want to die? Did they will themselves to die? To the Editor It is 10 years since the Sorry Statement was made in Parliament. It is worth reflecting on what progress is occurring in the reconciliation process. The Rural City of Benalla takes part in this reconciliation process and has a statement that is read out before all council functions. This is the statement:- "We acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land and pay respects to their elders and the elders from other communities who may be here today. We also acknowledge all other peoples who have contributed to the rich diversity of this Country.” I feel this acknowledgement could be improved. I find it vague and confusing. Just what are we saying here? Are we acknowledging the Aboriginal traditional owners of the land? Are we acknowledging that we exist on Aboriginal land? The first sentence refers partially to Aboriginal people but then refers to other communities. Are these communities other aboriginal communities? Are we likely to have other aboriginal communities present? Just what does this phrase mean? Who are these other peoples? Are they meant to be aboriginal? Is it not odd that this sentence does not even mention the word Aboriginal? The second sentence does not refer to aboriginals but other peoples. Who are these other peoples? Is this referring to white pioneers of this region? It seems to me that this sentence can only refer to non-aboriginal people. Should not the acknowledgement statement simply refer to Aboriginal Elders and their traditional ownership of the land? The current acknowledgement is a grudging statement. It is read as if the reader does not really want to read it out but is being forced to. It is as if the reader is saying I don’t want to read this but if I do I want to mention white people also. The reconciliation process needs to have meaningful symbolic gestures that in time will affect the way people feel. We should have rituals that have meaning. Yours Faithfully Neville Gibb Dear Mr Swindoll
You are on the radio 5 days a week at 6 O’clock every morning in rural Victoria. I like to keep regular hours and have my alarm set at 6AM every morning. Consequently I am awake when you are on the radio. I have to admit that I do not always listen to you every morning but I occasionally enjoy listening to your explanations of the letters of St Paul. I recently heard you say something that has disturbed me and I feel I have to bring this to your attention and ask what your true feelings are. You recently praised Billy Graham in glowing terms and described him as one of the great men of American Christianity. This disturbs me. I wonder if you have listened to the recordings of him and Richard Nixon that were recorded in the Whitehouse. In these recordings Billy Graham proved that he was a racist and a bigot and anyone who heard his statements has to realise this. His statements should remove any credibility he had as a Christian Minister with all decent men. I presume that you would have listened to these recordings and cannot understand why you would still refer to him in such glowing terms. This has prompted me to ask some questions of you on important issues that you never mention in your broadcasts.
Segregation. I wonder what your true feelings on so called racial issues are. Do you consider light skinned people to be different to dark skinned people? Looking at the utube films of your sermons it is obvious that you only preach to light skinned people. There are only light skinned people in your congregation and there are certainly only light skinned people in your organization. Why is this? Do you consider dark skinned people to be intrinsically different to light skinned people? It is true that until recently America had official policies to segregate people according to the colour of their skin. Probably still do on an unofficial basis. I would like to know if you agreed with this policy. If you did not agree why do you still have segregated services? If you do not agree with segregation why don’t you speak out against it? Why don’t you preach to dark skinned people? Why are you not preaching in favour of the black lives matter movement? Surely this is one of the most important issues in American society. Gun Control. America claims to lead the world in many areas. Unfortunately gun control is not one of them. The 2nd amendment says - A well regulated militia being necessary to the well being of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. I wonder how many people who bear arms belong to a well regulated militia? Until people like you speak out against the indiscriminate use of firearms no gun control will occur. Innocent people will continue to be shot. Why are you not preaching in favour of gun control? Surely this is one of the most important issues in American society. Friday 12th January 2018 Last day in Venice. We leave for home today. Jenny says Hooray. Probably 6 weeks is too long for a person my age. We were talking to a German and I told him where we had been for the past 6 weeks. And he said – well at least you certainly haven’t seen 15 countries in 10 days. I took it as a compliment. Blood Pressure 129/85. Pulse 77. My body is all geared up for the trip home and making sure blood pressure and pulse are in the proper range. We are taking the boat to the airport. We have our boarding passes already on our phones. We left at 10.30 and took the whole day to get home. Went by boat from Venice to Marco Polo Airport. Airport is close to mountains with a picturesque covering of snow. Quite close. Very sunny day. Venice was bathed in sunshine. Sorry in a way to go but glad to be going home. Venice was interesting. I’m glad we spent a week there. It was much as I anticipated. Except maybe the streets were much narrower than you could imagine. I don’t know how it has survived for 1500 years or more as a single entity without changing much at all. But it has. Venice existed to make money. Money can buy a lot of things. Including security. Marco Polo probably the quickest through security of all airports we have passed through. Bought a Guardian in the airport newsagents. We had a roll for lunch. On the plane and off the ground quickly. I felt like taking a nap early on but thought I should wait a while. This proved to be a mistake. I didn’t sleep much if at all for all the trip. I started watching The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and I must have fallen asleep for the whole film because I opened my eyes just as the film was finishing. I didn’t think I had even been asleep. But I must have. This was the only time I slept for all of the trip home. Spent about half an hour on a bus getting from the airplane to the Dubai terminal and then spent another 45 minutes walking to our gate. Jenny panics and rushes because she thinks we might miss our connecting flight. On edge the whole time. Dubai has some reclining chairs on which you can sleep but they were all taken up. I didn’t feel like sleeping anyway. I believe Emirates Airline food is substandard but they do give you a little more legroom than other airlines. One cancels the other. I watched the 3 Godfather movies. I also watched The Letters from Iwo Jima. The trip home was uneventful except for not being able to sleep. We have never encountered turbulence. Arrived home late at night. James met us. It was a cold night. Needed to have our jackets on. I had jet lag for about a week. Thursday 11th January 2018 Woke up at 6AM. Listened to a podcast about dying. How to die. How doctors die better than civilians. When do you even see a Doctor in intensive care? Or in a hospital having radiation or chemo therapy treatment. Food for thought. Should people put these desires in writing? And if you did would anyone take notice? Doctors know these things and arrange their affairs secretly. Apparently you never see a Doctor in intensive care with tubes coming out of every orifice. They arrange it so they die before they get there. Some people want the Insurance Companies to pay out a lump sum when someone has a fatal diagnosis and then let the patient spend it as they want. Rather than have the Insurance Companies paying hospitals to prolong life. Make up your own mind how you are going to spend the last period of your life alive. Not as tired as last night. Still slept well. Blood Pressure 111/70. Pulse 76. We walked to San Marco. Quite close to us really. We then walked behind San Marco where we haven’t been before and found the Jewish Ghetto. A small memorial to the Jews of Venice who were removed on 2 different days. Some in 1943 and some in 1944. But all of the Jews of Venice were removed. Every one of them. The synagogue is still there. Presumably it is still used. A kosher hotel in the same square. A kosher restaurant on the entrance to the square. We had a Venetian Roll for lunch. We then took the waterbus which went around Venice and back up the Grand Canal. By that time I wanted to go to the toilet again so we got off at Rialto and came home. What do the workmen do when they want to go to the toilet? There is plenty of workmen out today. Delivering parcels in boats. Doing maintenance on streets. Going up and down in boats. Gondoliers standing around. Where and when do they all go to the toilet? Even Police walking about. Do they have to pay to go to the toilet? The sun came out as we went around the island. Lots of tourists on the Waterbus. Most of them appear to be Italian. Lots of photos being taken. You would think that by now all Italians have been to Venice previously. But apparently not. It is obvious that a lot of the tourists are Italians. And having the same problems understanding the boat time tables. We sailed up The Grand Canal in sunshine again. Took lots of photos. I have to hand it to Venice. It doesn’t matter what the weather or time of day. Venice always looks pretty good. It takes great photos. We ended our stay on a sour note. Some days ago we had read the menu on a Chinese/Japanese/Italian Restaurant and of course a girl comes out and talks to us about how good her restaurant is and invites us in. They have a special deal. All you can eat for 12 Euros from the buffet. We question her. You have to come at a certain time. Between 4 and 6PM. So we keep it in mind and last night we take her up on it. When we get there and ask for the deal they aren’t so enthusiastic but they say yes and we are seated. It turns out the buffet is virtually empty – well the Chinese and Italian part is – and almost cold - plenty of food in the Japanese part – but this is cold also. However I accept this and make the most of it. Try a little bit of everything. Notice however that the Maître D is giving directions about us and telling the girl not to talk to us. When I come to pay the price is higher and there is a seating charge. When I query the Maître D comes rushing over to argue with me. Seating charge correct and pointed to our seat. This seating charge is for all of Venice and the higher charge is on the menu. Lower charge for outside. I asked if that meant we could stand when we ate so we wouldn’t get charged a seating charge. And we did not even have a drink of water. The Maître D shouts at everyone in a foreign language - Italian I guess - and everyone is silent. Of course no answer to my question – suddenly no one speaks English. The Maître D gesticulates as if to say stupid cheap foreigner and stomps away. I am going to put this on twitter feed or Trivago or some such site. I know I have been cheated. I have the receipt. Italian TV is interesting. A number of talk show channels. Some verging on the hysterical. Typically Italian I suppose. A number of BBC shows dubbed into Italian but you can still vaguely hear the original English person – the overdubbing is over the English voice which has the volume turned down. Benny Hill from 1980 dubbed into Italian. A classical music and Opera channel operates but not every day. Two channels showing unwatchable Hollywood sitcoms in English. A permanent CSR channel. A 24 hour news channel. Our TV kept fading every 90 seconds or so. Bad reception. The Landlord claimed all Venice is like this so he couldn’t fix it when I complained. But I know this cannot be true. He doesn’t want to install a proper aerial. Wednesday Jan 10th 2018 Slept through to 7.30AM. Blood Pressure 123/63. Pulse 49. Didn’t leave until 10.30. Came across a group led by an English speaker. Listened for a while but he didn’t say anything I didn’t already know. That’s my problem with guides – I want to correct them all the time. Or add to what they are saying. Say what they have left out. Etc. We took the water bus to Muremo. Sat next to an older Italian man who by gestures told us he had been to both Australia and New Zealand. Finished up by saying Paul Hogan Ha Ha Ha. We walked the length of Muremo. Did not go into any glass blowing place though. Lots of little shops. Most of them closed. Mostly selling Muremo glass. Most of it in bad taste. Only some shops with attempts at new artwork. Extremely bad taste glass sculpture in the main square. I think it was supposed to be a star. We had a hamburger and coffee. Jenny had tea. I asked for white coffee and got one of those very small cups of black. Which I drank. I know that Americano is a large black coffee. I know what Cappuccino is – a medium cup with a lot of froth in it. I thought I was getting a coffee latte. But no. Still I am learning as we go. As usual we both needed to go to the toilet. This is why we ate in a restaurant. So we could go to the toilet. Took the long way home and again busting by the time we got off the water bus. My body is a urine producing machine. More Australians on view. In the street. On the water bus. Walking around Muremo. This time I actually spoke to one. He has relatives in Whitfield. He and his wife are here with his mother in law who is Italian. I think that there is a lot of this going on. A woman on the ferry was directing her mother where to sit. Sit there Mum was what she said. Obviously Australian. Speaking to her in English and the mother complaining back in Italian. Apparently still not knowing what to do. Having to be directed by the daughter. Very Australian behavior. Lots of Australians of Italian descent must be visiting Venice. We ate at the restaurant that backs on to our little piazza at our front door. The food was OK. I had fish spaghetti. Jenny had vegetarian pizza. After that we had a little walk and had an ice cream. An Australian woman in the queue in front of us asked for il splendido dodge. Spelt Doge. But pronounced dodge in Australian. Impossible to mistake the accent. Fog for most of the day. Could not see Venice from Muremo. We are in Venice under the influence of Turner rather than Canaletto. Fog out tonight. Some people taking atmospheric extended shutter photos off The Rialto Bridge. Home at 8PM. Waldo – the art critic of whom I am a big fan – is talking about art in antiquity but impossible to know what he is talking about. An Italian voice over dubbed. Tuesday 9th January 2018 Slept until 7.30AM. Blood Pressure 132/64. Pulse 53 An overcast day. Cold early. Some rain. We took the water bus to Biennale to have a look but it was closed. Still we had a walk around. There is a park there. Completely different type of buildings to Venice proper. Some no trespassing signs. Got the bus back to Rialto and walked over the bridge and eventually found our way to Roma. A bit of the other side of the tracks. Definitely down market to our side of the canal. Came across the wholesale market. Just closing up as we arrived. Birds eating fish scraps abandoned by the wholesale fish market. It’s next door to the fruit and vegetable market. Just like Vic Market really but on a smaller scale. Still don’t know what type of bird the big brown speckled seagull is. Came across a big bunch of schoolchildren. Interesting to look at them. What is their schooling like? Do they have a playground? Do they kick the football at playtime? Do they ever play sport? They were all making a lot of noise talking. Not one black face amongst them though. Not many shops open. Jenny says they are priced the same as our side of the canal but I’m not sure. Had lunch at a café in Ferravio. You have to decide what you want and go and pay for it first quoting the number of the product. Then you take your voucher to the counter and present it to collect your purchase. In the afternoon we walked north to Fondamento Nove and then got the bus back. Coming the other way which we had not done before. Both morning and afternoon was spent walking except when we had to come home to go to the toilet. You start out with the intention of getting lost and finding something spectacular but you need to go to the toilet so you have to quickly find an arrow that says Rialto or San Marco and follow it in order to go home. Went into a glass shop over the other side of the canal and bought a Rialto Bridge inside a glass ball. The sales assistant was from Bangladesh. Didn’t ask him how he got here. Lots of Bangladesh shop assistants. The barrow salesmen selling fruit and vegetables appear to be from North Africa. There are Africans selling leather bags in the streets. But not a lot of black people here. Where are the refugees? When you walk about aimlessly you go down a number of narrow alleyways and suddenly you come across a large church. And I mean a large church. How they built them is a bit of a mystery. Where did they get the bricks? Where did they get the money? How did they get the land? I know Venice existed to make money but there must have been enormous costs involved in building these large churches. And it’s unusual for people who have made big money to spend it recklessly on some public building over which they have no control. Perhaps they were promised easy entry into heaven. The powerful families normally spent their money where people could see it. San Marco Square for a start. The Tower as well. And they made sure they hired the great architects and artisans to ensure the public would be impressed. Which is a good thing for us who follow on later. We had vegetarian pizza for tea to honour James. It wasn’t the best pizza I have had. We then did a bit of walking and got on another Waterbus that went the long way home. We then took the number 2 up the Grand Canal. We were asked to give directions to 2 Japanese girls. I have noticed a number of pairs of Chinese girls on this trip. I have been asked directions several times. More evidence today of Australians present. In fact I have seen Australians every day. Accents stand out. Men my age tend to refer to themselves in the third person. Heard one man say to no one in particular but could have been talking to me - “Uncle Neville is going to be in trouble if he loses anyone here”. He had several young teenagers with him. I didn’t let on I understood him. I have heard women with children who are obviously Australian looking at boat time tables. They must be children or grandchildren of migrants from the 50’s. I don’t ask. Monday 8th January 2018. Blood Pressure 119/75. Pulse 73 Up at 7.30. Slept well. Feel rested this morning. There is an arts channel on Italian TV and Simon Schama is telling us about Picasso. Dubbed into Italian which is a little disconcerting. Concentrating on Guernica. How many individual images are there in the painting? Quite a lot apparently. The Barber of Seville was on yesterday morning. I found it hard to follow the plot. Jenny is doing some washing this morning. We started by walking around trying to more or less to get lost. Lots of narrow streets. Lots of shops. We kept walking until we found a Chinese café. They have variances of spaghetti done the Chinese way. Or so I presume. There were ethnic Chinese eating in the restaurant. The menu did say spaghetti. And it had pictures of it. I had soup. Jenny had fried rice. We both had Chinese tea. All very good. We then walked on until we came to a Waterbus stop. We took the ferry to Murano and back again. This meant going through the industrial area. We then went up and down more or less the full length of the Grand Canal. Quite long. And quite interesting. It got colder as the day wore on. In the afternoon we walked to St Mark’s Square. Not as many people as yesterday. Had a bad argument over what we were going to eat. We are both tired. I insisted we eat at the pasta place near our house. It is very popular. But it doesn’t taste as good as our Albanian girls place. As usual Jenny was right. The place is always packed with young people. Lots of Chinese girls there yesterday. I thought if we changed what we ate from the night before last the food might be different. But it wasn’t. Went to bed at 10PM and slept. Sunday 7th January 2018. Slept in until 8.30AM. It’s Sunday so we can call it a day of rest. Haven’t heard any church bells though. Used the attachment to have a hand held shower. Nature show about insect’s in English on TV. Jenny says there is a fire at Lurg. Face timed James. He was watering the plants due to time difference. Blood Pressure 112/63. Pulse 71. We didn’t leave until 12 Noon and then just walked around. Just followed people. Did a big circle and arrived a water bus site that said it was going to Lido. So we went also. Once there we did a bit of walking. It’s a bit like surfers paradise. There are cars and the streets are normal sized. Finally got to the beach. I imagine everything is crowded in summer. Most of the houses appear to be shut for the winter. And there are some wide roads. Some large very Italian looking houses. Hollywood influenced I would say. More in the Mussolini style than Roman though. Some are much neglected and obviously have a demolishment order on them. Overgrown gardens. Again very Italian looking. Would make very good movie sets. Lots of Italian atmosphere. Came back and got off at St Marks and walked home because we both wanted to go to the toilet. I think Benalla has more public toilets than Venice. Even if you are willing to pay the 1.50 Euros it’s impossible to find one. It’s true though what Airbnb says. We are only 5 minutes’ walk from St Mark’s. If that. Less people in the street today. Lots of tourists and lots of shops open but not much money changing hands. In fact not much money changes hands in all of Venice as far as I can see. How some of the shops make a living is hard to see. Some carry a lot of stock. Not many have customers in them. Owners and assistants sit for hours in empty shops. Every restaurant sends someone out to talk to you if you stop and look at a menu. Not a lot of restaurants are well patronized. Some beggars in the streets. One woman who we saw yesterday appears to be in a trance. How she stays still in a begging position for hours on end I don’t know. However she did move when a group of soldiers and police came along. Things much the same as yesterday even though it’s a Sunday. But maybe more gondoliers active today. We can actually get a gondolier to our street. One of the ways of getting home. Their price is 80 Euros for 30 minutes. I prefer to walk. We left again at 4PM to walk to a water boat station and have another ride on a ferry. Had a long walk and did not get to a boat station. Stayed on a wide street we had not been on before. When it got dark we decided to turn around and go back towards San Marco. Went to the same restaurant as the night before last. I don’t think our Albanian girl was as friendly as 2 nights ago. Maybe she doesn’t want to get too friendly. Jenny had soup. I had spaghetti. Saturday 6th January 2018 Up at 6AM. Listened to a lecture by Stephen Hawking and went into a dream where I dreamed I was actually in the lecture hall and he was not as disabled as he really is. He smiled a lot. Made jokes. Talked a bit about simultaneous black holes/concurrent realities/parallel universes/worm holes which I did not really understand. Extremely smart man. Question: How big is a Black Hole? If a Black Hole pulls everything in through massive amounts of gravity shouldn’t it only be the size of a pinprick? Blood Pressure 159/79. Pulse 58 No shower here. Had a bath and would have died if I was by myself. No disabled bars to help you lift yourself out. I could not raise myself up off my back. I was trapped. Jenny had to help me. We went for a walk and found the ocean side of Venice. Discovered a bulging secondhand book shop. Some water damaged books from the 1966 flood still for sale. Some fog in the air. Passed the hospital with its water ambulances outside. We took a water bus that circumnavigated pretty well all of Venice. It’s bigger than I thought. Saw all the sights. Mud flats. Old docks. Separate Island part. Amazingly large pleasure liner pulled up to small wharf. Biggest boat I have ever seen. Dwarfs the ocean liners Uncle Jack and Auntie Doris went on. Probably dwarfs the Titanic even. Came back to Piazza Roma. We then had a look at the Railway station. Saw that you can get a boat to the airport. We then got a water bus to St Mark’s Square. Lots of tourists there. Saw the water line from 1966 flood. Long queue to get into San Marco Basilica. Evidence of lots of Australians in attendance. On the way home bought some tickets to a concert tonight. Got more or less lost after that. Venice is a labyrinth. We will have to find our way back to the church to where the concert is held. Venice definitely is a labyrinth and this is its charm. We got take away pasta from a place very close to our house. Recommended by previous guests but was not as good as last night. We then went to the concert. Jenny worried that we might not be able to find the venue so insisted on following Apple Maps. Wasn’t as bad as google maps but did take us down back alleys and not the most direct route. We arrived early but because the seating was open we had reasonable seats. Very enjoyable. Just songs and music from popular operas. Enthusiastic audience. Two songs of Mozart’s in the repertoire. Orchestra and singers very good. Lots of personality. All were wearing authentic 18th Century Costume. Tried to imagine the 18th Century. The building was a pre 18th Century concert hall. Audiences then only had one opportunity of hearing music and that was to listen to it live. Must have made it more gob smacking when you heard a new work of genius. Finished the night by having a beer in a bar in our street and watched a Soccer game with the other people in the bar - Juventus playing someone. Juventus got a lucky goal near the end – could have been offside. Still the other side appeared to have a handball that wasn’t seen by the Ref so they were lucky it wasn’t 2-0. When I say our street - it’s about 40 metres long and about 1 metre wide. A number of shops and a bar. Friday 29th December. We leave for Berlin. First we take Heathrow – then we take Berlin. Slept well.
Blood Pressure 137/88. Pulse 77 We left home at 8.30 and made our way to Heathrow via the Victoria and Piccadilly lines. When we got to Heathrow we found our flight had been cancelled but we had been re scheduled onto a later one with no stop off in Dusseldorf. Rain and bad weather the culprit. As it was we left 1 hour later than we were supposed to but left in perfect weather. Sunshine. Not a cloud in the sky. Lots of planes lined up to take off. Just like cars on a road. Perfect flying conditions. No turbulence. Flight seemed over in an hour or so and finished off with a perfect landing. I was reminded that 70 years ago lots of similar flights took place – all around the same time of day - all carrying bombs. If you read Leonard Cheshire’s book he explains how relaxing some flights were. The rhythm of the engines were reassuring. They just kept going no matter what. They inspired confidence. Cool clear nights. He never seemed to have any trouble with flack. He just kept on. He almost seems to have enjoyed it. He explains it rather well. In 1971 when I left Heathrow I believe there was only one terminal. I have to admit this was the saddest day of my life. I haven’t had much sadness in my life but this was a perfect example of sadness. My memory is that it was full of Indians in native dress waiting for their relatives to arrive. Beards. Turbans. Long shirts. Etc. Lots of old people. The Government had just bought in legislation restricting entry to nonwhite people and everyone who could get on a plane was coming before it came into effect. People were at the airport hoping their relatives would be on the next plane. Or that is what seemed to me to be the case. Maybe they had already arrived and were waiting for someone to come and pick them up. Just the opposite to me. Now there are 5 terminals. All very busy. All separate from each other. We had not been in terminal 2 before. This one is for Europe and North America. When we got to Tegal we bought 7 day public transport passes. We took the bus and S Bahn. And after some adventures where I again took out my frustrations on Jenny we gained entry to our little flat which looks authentically East Berlin. Big heavy doors. Five stories high with no lift. We are on the ground floor fortunately. Thick walls. Very basic materials and furniture. Leftover floorboards. Socialist facilities. No hint of any privilege although this must have been in effect a sought after area.. We walked back up the street and had a very filling Lebanese meal after buying provisions in a supermarket. Lots of young people about. Seems to be a suburb for young people. Interesting going through immigration at Tegel. Two areas. One EU and one non EU. Of course we were in the non EU. An English woman just ahead of me in the queue was asked why she was in this queue as she was English and she replied - I thought we voted to leave. She then explained – we aren’t in the EU any more. The official just shrugged his shoulders and waved her through. Which brings up a fine point. What do ratbags like Rees Mogg do when they travel to Europe? Do they insist on going through the non EU queue? We got talking to a young German girl on the bus and when we got to Beusselstratz station I asked her if this was in East Berlin. She seemed taken aback at the question and said she did not know. The station had the look of East German austerity about it. I’m sure she did not know and hadn’t been asked the question before. It’s amazing how quickly history moves on. Thursday 28th December Last day in UK. Blood Pressure 120/69. Pulse 71 Slept well during the night. Still nothing on TV. Watched It’s Me or My Dog. A large boxer’s behavior was modified. Of course we only see the successes. I feel a bit better than yesterday. We left home around 10.45. Initially intended to go to Epping Forrest but on the way decided to go to Richmond. This was a partial mistake as when we got to Gloucester Road we were told this was the end of the line as The District Line was closed for further repairs. We had to change to the Piccadilly Line and then get a bus from Hammersmith. I went to Richmond several times in 1970. Even impressed other Australians by taking them to Richmond Park and showing them a farm the Queen owned where you could actually watch people milking cows. There were also lots of Deer in the Park. I was there the Saturday morning that Abbey Road was released. I just happened to be in a newsagents when I heard it being played over the loudspeaker. They had the BBC Saturday morning show on. Kenny Everett. Normally he would take the mickey out of any and all groups when he played new releases but on this occasion he was almost reduced to silence. He wasn’t going to make fun of The Beatles. He actually said “These Guys are geniuses”. More than once. He only spoke seriously which I had never heard him do before. He had always been funny and silly before. Always making fun of people. I stood and listened to the whole of side 2 in silence. Spellbound. I was impressed but I already knew they were geniuses. My memory of Richmond is that it was a little town at the end of the line and it had a big Park next to it which had Deer in it and at the end of the Park there was the Queens Dairy Farm. Of course it’s nothing like that now if it ever was as I remember. I didn’t mind walking then so distances mustn’t have bothered me. It’s a quite big town now. Authentic looking. Nothing looking very new. Lots of people in the street and in the Park. Lots of cars on the roads. Lots of expensive looking flats. We walked back along the river and had lunch in a Pret. Cars drive through the Park. No sign of Deer. In 1970 I’m sure I was the only person in the Park. There seemed to be lots of Deer. Not that there were many people in the village. Before I came to England I had watched The Forsyth Saga on TV and part of it was set in Richmond. I thought I had actually found where they filmed the outdoor shots. I have the slide to prove it. Or think I have. My memory is so strong yet its obvious that I don't remember everything. Richmond is much larger than I remember it. And the park is quite a way from the town. I cannot remember getting tired of walking like I did today. We got a bus from Richmond to Ealing Broadway. An interesting drive. Dark by the time we got to Ealing Broadway. Then on to Oxford Circus. Oxford Street was even more crowded than usual. Watched a TV presentation about Francis Bacon 9-10.30. Illuminating. People speaking about him in human terms. Did he like gambling or painting? Both - and probably painting more than gambling even though he claimed he didn’t. Was he a masochist? Yes. Was he the best painter of the 20th Century? Close to it. Probably was not as good as Picasso but came close. Was not as prolific as Picasso but then again destroyed a lot of his paintings. A neighbor was interviewed and said it was his job to see that paintings Francis thought were unsuitable were destroyed. They had to be cut up and burned. Photographs were taken of some of them. The neighbor says he was tempted to keep pieces of the paintings but he didn’t keep even one. He could have had a painting worth millions. He swears he didn’t anyway. I saw a lot of paintings I had not seen before. Towards the end he introduced brighter more benign colours into his work and he experimented with landscapes. The same effect as his portraits. A powerful fragment capturing the spirit of the image. I think history will judge him to be an even better painter than was thought to be when he was alive. My impression is that he is throwing back into our faces all our prejudices. Plus he could unmistakably capture the power of the person. I also think that all his so called violent figures only show peace and tranquility. Summing up our stay in London I would say I didn’t enjoy it as much as the last 2 times. Although it was interesting living in Oxford Street. We probably know as much about London now as we can. I don’t have the same feeling about London as I did 50 years ago. Things have changed. I came to London an unhappy person. I had an unhappy childhood. I was an unhappy adolescent. I was an unhappy young person. I had talked myself out of 3 jobs and I had destroyed my private life. I felt Australia was morally corrupt because of its enthusiastic involvement in the Vietnam War. I considered Australia to be monstrous even. Its actions were unforgivable. Everyone was tainted. And I didnt fit in anywhere. People considered me a freak. I was called unpatriotic. All adults looked on me with suspicion. I had no friends. I was in effect an outcast and I felt like one. I felt I had no life. So I did what young people could do in those days. I went to London. I was lucky. I went and immediately became happy. I made friends. I felt I was not considered freakish or weird. I was not an outcast. I felt London was a happy friendly place. I became a happy friendly person overnight. I felt very much at home in London. London was my town. I would have been happy if I could have lived there for the rest of my life. Now I don’t feel as if I belong there. It has changed. It’s just another place in the world. An interesting place no doubt, But it’s not mine any more. The people don’t see me as their friend. Young people are concerned with their own lives. And their lives appear to be harder than mine was when I was their age. I have got too old to be able to make friends as easily as I did in 1969. I think the Brexit vote has changed things completely. It has focused attitudes. The sad fact is British people don’t like foreigners. And foreigners who work behind counters know this. They have hardened their own attitudes somewhat – they know that they aren’t wanted. They have changed their behavior. They are not as outgoing as they were on the last 2 visits. They are hesitant. They are more suspicious. Not as friendly or happy as they used to be. London is not as happy as it used to be. Wednesday 27th December Up at 6AM. Not a lot on TV. Reduced to watching Mr. Bean and Homes Under the Hammer. Blood Pressure 140/71. Pulse 58. Raining outside. I woke up in pain during the night but I lay very still and went back to sleep. A cold takes all the energy out of your body. I worked out I would be 1 or 2 blood thinning tablets short so we had to go to the NHS. A building off Soho Square. No problems. Everyone very congenial. Got 7 tablets to tide me over. Thanks to the wonderful NHS. Lots of people in Oxford Street. There must have been a fair amount of rain early morning because there were lots of puddles in the street and I had the wrong shoes on. I didn’t exactly get wet feet but close to it. So we had to come home in order for me to change my shoes. We took the Central Line to Bank and walked to The Borough Market. Fair crowd. I had a rice Paella. Jenny had a vegetable falafel. We then walked back to The Bank of England Museum. The same as last time. I don’t believe there are any changes except for the new notes. We came home early because I was tired. I am being persuaded that 4 weeks in London is perhaps too long for someone my age. Tuesday 26th December – Boxing Day Up at 6.30 AM. Despite all the promises nothing on TV. The only thing worth watching is an ABC production Life at the Zoo. Tigers and Chimps. Depressing watching the European Parliament debate Brexit progress. Donald Trump has twittered that he has saved Christmas. Unfortunately what we have in this world is a lot of genuine idiots who voted for him. Blood Pressure 131/73. Pulse 59 I progressively got symptoms of a cold as the night went on. But I don’t feel too bad this morning. Just exhausted I guess. I should spend the day in bed. But we have Dick Whittington to go to. Emailed our landlord in Berlin. Checked out how to get from Tegel to Schonhauser Allee by public transport. We walked around a bit learning the lay of the land. Had lunch at Le Pain Quotidian. Which means The Daily Bread. It was quite good. We might go there again. It is a Belgian franchise. A step up from Pret. I think the food is better than good. Jenny has a better sense of direction than I do. Went into the Liberty Store. Very expensive. Didn’t move far from Oxford Street/Regents Street but I would have got lost if I was on my own because we came out a different door and my sense of direction had got mixed up. When we finally got to the Palladium there was a large crowd outside wanting to get in. Old Theatre. Only one gent’s toilet as far as I could see. They appear to have converted some gents into ladies. Every seat in the house taken. The show wasn’t too bad. Lots of children laughing. Julian appears to have had a recent encounter with Botox and it is fair to say he has put on some weight. Nearly falls into imitating Frankie Howard at times. Lots of people in the cast. Very elaborate costumes. Elaine Paige still has a wonderful voice. Very good ventriloquist in the cast. Tough looking athletic dancers. Nigel Havers playing himself and is made fun of by everyone. The Dame sang a song that mentions every tube station using the Can Can melody. Even Preston Road. The audience loved it. A number of audience participations. Middle aged men calling out. Lots of songs from other shows. Lloyd Weber high on the list. Some members of the audience extremely willing to take part in proceedings. Oh No You Don’t. Etc being called out. Children on stage from the audience to finish the show. One child said I saw your lips move to the ventriloquist. Only one of the chorus girls was trying to be sexy. I wont say how I know this but I am old fashioned in these matters. Believe me I notice these things. Dark when the show ended. It had been raining during the show. We watched Travel Man in Hong Kong. Actor out of Madmen was the guest. Well informed for an American. Interesting place Hong Kong – wonderful place for a holiday - but extremely expensive. But we know Hong Kong does have the highest salaries of anywhere in the world so you better be rich when you go there. We watched a quiz called Big Fat Quiz of the year. Lots of extreme swearing. Could not understand a word one of the comedians said. He won the quiz. Monday 25th December – Christmas Day. Up at 6AM. Despite being promised lots of good shows over Christmas nothing on TV. I reset the heater so it was not baking hot during the night. I can hear the rubbish men outside. Nothing stops for rubbish. They still have street sweepers here. Both men and machines. No wheely bins in this area. So you have both trucks manually emptying bins and you also have mechanical sweepers cleaning the streets. And you also have individual men sweeping the old fashioned way. Blood Pressure 127/72. Pulse 87 Talked to both James and Alex on Facetime. Very enjoyable. Alex was able to talk to James via our link. James was in Canberra and Alex was in Prahran. Jenny also talked to Pat. We walked to Oxford Street. Surprisingly there were some people in the street. I would say they are all foreign tourists. No public transport of any kind today. We walked down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus then through Horse Guards Parade to Westminster. Lots more safety railings and bollards where people have recently been killed. I don’t think anyone could drive a car into people now on Westminster Bridge or Westminster Square. We heard Big Ben strike 12. They are allowing it to strike between Christmas and New Year. Lots of people in Whitehall. Lots of people around the Houses of Parliament. Nearly as many as what normally are. We crossed the bridge and started to walk along Southbank towards Tower Bridge. Big crowds of people. The Eye not working today. On Westminster bridge a number of groups gambling on which mug has the ball under it. The ringmaster moves the ball and 3 mugs around and you have to put your foot on which mug you think the ball is under and put up your money. A surprising number of Middle Eastern women in attendance. Eastern European or Middle Eastern men running the games. The same game used to be played outside Finsbury Park Railway Station 50 years ago. This time it’s right in the centre of tourist activity. A Pret next to the MI5 building was open. Or is it the MI6 building? Lots of tourists walking up and down Southbank. A number of eating places open and well patronized. We only got as far as Waterloo Bridge. We left home too late to walk the whole way to Tower Bridge. We had to come home for Christmas Lunch. Walked back over Waterloo Bridge. One minus about the increase in security is that you cannot pass from one side of the bridge to the other in the middle of the bridge. If you want to pass to the other side because it offers a better photo opportunity you cannot. You have to stay on one side all the way across. We walked back through Soho. Covent Garden. Shaftsbury Avenue. I admit it would be hard to learn the knowledge if you wanted to become a taxi driver. So many small streets. Nowadays however we see what appear to be Uber drivers driving around and looking at their iphones. Jenny says she has even seen a man driving looking at an ipad. We had a large Christmas lunch. I had a post lunch sleep. Missed the Queens speech on TV. Watched it on youtube. I don’t think she said as much as was speculated about. After dark I went for a walk by myself. I proved how easy it is to get lost in London. Ended up in Regents Street when I didn’t mean to. Starbucks open. Reasonable number of people in the street. Sunday 24th December Up at 6.45. Slept reasonably well. Flat is heated to excess and we cannot manipulate the heater properly. It is either hot or cold. Blood Pressure 123/72. Pulse 76 I walked up to Tesco to buy the Sunday newspapers. Not many people in the street. Pretty well all the coffee houses and restaurants are closed. Later on we walked along Oxford Street to do some shopping. Much less people in the street than normal. Found out an anomaly in the retail traders act. You can go into shops and pick out your purchases but you cannot pay for them until 11AM. We came home for lunch and then went to see Paddington 2 at the Odeon in Charing Cross Road. It was where we walked yesterday. Quite a good film but I had trouble staying awake. Charming film set in places where we have walked. Very well acted by Hugh Grant. We walked to Piccadilly Circus after the film. Lots of people in the streets. We walked home via Regent Street. I am getting to know London better than I did when I lived here. When you mostly travel by the tube you don’t know the layout of the land except for a small area around each tube station. Plus you never know north south east or west. You don’t know the distances above ground between places. Getting ready for Christmas Day. Watched a bit of the Carol Singers from Kings College Cambridge. They sang a carol we first heard in Benalla last Christmas. They sang the same carol in The Albert Hall. Neither place said what it was. We don’t know what it is called. I thought it was Australian but maybe it’s not. Also heard it being played in one of the souvenir shops. Dads Army on TV. Hadn’t seen it before. Lots of silly slapstick. Inspector Maigret on TV. High production values but very slim plot. Saturday 23rd December Up at 6AM. Absolutely nothing on TV. Problem is it takes an hour to work this out. Caught up on my emails. Blood Pressure 105/64. Pulse 75 Jenny took me for coffee at the Urinal just down the street. An underground lavatory that was closed probably in the 70’s has been converted into a coffee house. We spoke to an Australian Chef who lives in London. The restaurant where he works is just around the corner. He says as a chef he can easily go anywhere in the world and find employment. Comes from Sydney and goes home with his wife and children every year but has been working abroad for about 10 years. Checked out Brian and Gills Hotel. It is off Park Lane. Their nearest tube station is either Green Park or Hyde Park Corner. Came home and took the portrait of Regents Park to the nearest framer to be fixed. He and she were quite nice. Have a business in the middle of London. Have been there for a number of years. Know the local history. Had lunch at a Pret. We then checked out 84 Charing Cross Road and by a happy fluke found the plaque telling the story. Took Photos. Lots of people in the street. We then went to The Tate Britain. A bit better than last time. Still too many old paintings. Lots of Turners but remember you can overdose on Turner. Found one Lowry. Only one Francis Bacon. Could not find a Lucian Freud. One Hockney. I took some photos. An exhibition of Impressionist Painters who came and painted in London but I feel 19 pounds is too much to pay. Jenny says this is equivalent to what it costs in Melbourne to see special exhibitions. Afternoon tea at the Gallery Café. We got the bus back to Trafalgar Square. Was very tired by this time. Very large numbers milling around Oxford Circus. Dads Army on TV. Friday 22nd December. Woke up at 6 with my alarm but lay down again and slept till 6.50. Very sore back. Boris is in Moscow. Relations are supposed to be at the lowest ebb ever. Watched a bit of The House of Lords. Youngish woman Minister. Surprisingly young compared to other members. Her answer followed by some sort of ritual. Mace was carried out without explanation. Jenny was ill last night but is recovering. Blood Pressure 123/55. Pulse 54. We attended the Carol Singing at The Royal Albert Hall. Enjoyable. Full House. The announcer/conductor was very good. I believe he was from the Old Fashioned Music Hall show from the 70’s. Whatever he made the show. Everyone enjoyed themselves. Sang along with gusto. We had a very good voice singing behind us. Could not make out which woman it was just by looking. I don’t think I have been so close to a good voice before. One jarring point. After my comment that I thought black people especially black woman had integrated themselves into mainstream society there was not one black face in the audience. Not one. At one point two little girls danced in the front row. Everyone went ooh and aah. I could not help asking myself that if the little girls had had black skin and African hair would the audience have reacted in the same way. After that we retraced a walk I did one Friday night before Christmas 50 years ago. I will explain. On the Friday before Christmas in 1969 I left work at 5.20PM and walked to Trafalgar Square. Just on a whim. I cannot recall any particular reason. I turned right out of the front doors of Australia House and set off down the Strand. It was a memorable walk. It was cool verging on cold. Everyone was in a festive mood. Trafalgar Square already had its Christmas tree. I took note that there was a group of women singing next to the tree. When I got to Trafalgar Square I walked to the singing group and joined in with them singing Carols. Four woman in their 30’s. I just joined in. One handed me the words. Absolutely no embarrassment. I sang along with gusto. From the heart. It was magic. Innocent and pure. It summed up London for me. I could not help reflect that there was no way this could happen in Australia. We took the train to Temple and reconstructed the walk of 50 years ago. This time there were less people in the street. But they seemed more boisterous. There are more bright lights. Lots of new buildings. Not to the point where it bears no relation to 50 years ago but heading that way. The Savoy and Somerset House are still there. I’m sure there were no Theatres in the street 50 years ago. There were less people in Trafalgar Square 50 years ago. Instead of my amateur singing group there was a group of woman singing and collecting money for charity. They had some help from technology whereas my group from 50 years ago were singing solo. And they weren’t asking for money. This group had a backing tape and a conductor. But their singing wasn’t as good as the group was 50 years ago. I bumped into Mark Kermode in The Strand – literally – and he ran his case over my foot. I tried to talk to him but he wasn’t interested. He virtually ran off after apologizing. I told him I listened to him every week. He wasn’t impressed. It had no effect on him. Maybe I should write and point out how he should treat his fans. Thursday 21st December. Woke up about 7.00. Slept OK. Had a good look out the windows. Garden all around the house. Well cared for. Very English. Summer house/greenhouse. Separate garden shed. The garden has evolved to its present condition over several hundred years. Same for the house. Garden is on at least 3 levels. Is indeed in a village or hamlet. Breakfast with Chris. He had been into Petworth to pick up the newspapers. Guardian and a local paper. It’s hard to adequately explain how welcome they make you feel and the feeling of generosity that they exhibit. They are both very kind generous people. Margaret especially. This has been an amazing trip. I contact 2 people who I haven’t seen in 50 years and they both show me interest and generosity. It’s like 50 years did not exist. We are all still the same people. I am eternally grateful that we have had this experience. It is both enjoyable and good for the soul. Lots of talk about both the past and the present. Margaret explained that she is now much older than her mother was when she died. This shocks me. Margaret seems so much younger than her mother was when I knew her 50 years ago. I still feel the same as what I did when I was 24 and I presume I act the same also. But there must be some differences. I admit I look older and this will influence how people perceive me. The same with Margaret’s mother. Margaret is very much like her mother in both looks and ways. She is almost identical. Very nice breakfast. Lots of options. We could virtually have whatever we want. Very modern kitchen which they had installed when they moved in. They actually bought the house from an Australian mining magnate of some wealth. Very well appointed kitchen. Dual purpose micro wave. After a relaxing breakfast they took us on a walk to look at the village. We walked to the highest hill to get a look at the view. Could see the South Downs. The Downs are a series of unbroken hills that stretch for a substantial length. The joke is you go up the Downs. I was the slowest walker. Some things have changed in 50 years. I used to be a strong walker. I could do it all day. Age must be catching up. My lungs are not processing enough oxygen to produce the required energy for me to keep up. I also experience some pain in buttocks and hips. Too much lying about and watching TV is extracting its revenge. Chris is a keen walker. Says he walked 60 miles for his 60th birthday and 70 miles for his 70th birthday. Is planning 80 miles for his 80th birthday. I don’t doubt he will do it. We saw where they have replanted heather. There is a problem with bracken. Chris showed us the site for the proposed new Community Store. We walked round most of the village. Some large attractive houses. Quite a large school as children come from other villages. Farms abut the village. Saw a cow which appeared to be dead. I thought about climbing across the fence to check but the barbed wire was too uninviting. Chris and Margaret delivered some Christmas Cards as we walked. One pub in the village but quite a substantial size. Some impressive houses. Chris is the local Parish Chairman. This is an important post and involves a lot of work. There is a river on the edge of town with a Millhouse. We saw them both. We returned to their house for lunch prior to our leaving. They drove up to Petworth to allow us to have a good look before we got the train back to London. Petworth has a lot of Antique shops. It is known for them. All are pretty flash. We had tea and coffee at a teahouse. Had a look at Petworth Castle. A previous Lord was a patron of artists including Turner. Part of the recent Turner film was filmed there because Turner spent time there as the guest of the Lord. The current Lord is a writer. The castle is run by the National Trust. A large house. Must have cost big money to build it. I was lucky in 1969. I saw a card in the notice board next to Earls Court tube and answered it. Before I was accepted into the flat at 75 Eardley Crescent I was subjected to an interview of sorts. We all sat round the small table in the lounge/dining room. When it was coming to the end Chris advised that they were all leftists living there. I replied that I was a leftist too. Didn’t really know what it meant except I knew I was one. I was prepared to say I supported East Germany over West Germany and considered East Germany to be the home of truth and justice. But I didn’t say this. Probably just as well. I also did not say in effect I was a political refugee from Australia. Probably just as well also. In 1969 Chris was going to Imperial College. I once asked him what he was studying at that particular moment. He said he was measuring the electrical curve in kerosene. I asked him what was the material benefit of this. He told me but I cannot remember his exact words. I think he said in effect he said that all liquids have a different electrical curve so you can quickly identify what the liquid or substance is by testing its electrical curve. Or you can compare curves. Or at least I think this is what he said. Maybe he mentioned aviation fuel. They took us to Pulborough Station where we got the train back to London. What an amazing 4 days. Split equally between Denis and Chris and their wives. Wednesday December 20th. Up at 6AM. Slept all through the night without having to go to the toilet. What makes my body go from 5 times a night to not once? Watched a bit of the House of Lords debate on how they should select their members. Impressive but didn’t seem to come to any conclusion. Could not work out Tory from Labour or Lib Dem by just looking at them. The class difference has disappeared. At least in The House of Lords. Slater and Gordon have ads here on commercial TV. What a comedown. Blood Pressure 117/60. Pulse 52. We went to Carnaby Street. It has changed beyond recognition in 50 years. Gone amazingly upmarket. Part of its charm 50 years ago was its make do attitude. The shops were small but had good clothes. Modern. It had style and substance. You could safely buy stuff there. It wasn’t tacky. It was trendy in the best sense. Kevin’s friend’s record shop was very narrow and long. No longer there. Now the shops are large and clothes expensive. Only one blue plaque that I could see. The Small Faces and their Manager had an office there in the 70’s. I know that at least 3 of them are now dead. Their Manager had the reputation of being ruthless. We then went to Denmark Street. Looked in the music shops. Did not buy any sheet music although there were lots of temptations. Everything is so expensive. My natural inclination is to not spend money. Took some photos. A number of guitar shops with very expensive guitars on sale. We then went to the National Gallery. A better sampling of 19th and 20th Century paintings than last time. Still too many old paintings. Most of these paintings were produced by factory like studios. These studios could crank out paintings by the hundreds and did. If you got taken on as an apprentice you were taught to paint in a specific way. Sometimes these studios did throw up individual geniuses which produced masterpieces. I admit it. And they are easy to spot but the galleries think that because a painting is old and it is of an aristocrat then it is worth exhibiting. But it wasn’t until the 19th Century that people started to paint in order to produce real art. Things of beauty. Paintings that they individually wanted to paint and only please themselves. The number of old paintings should be culled substantially. I took lots of photos. We came home at about 4PM. At 5.30 we left and went to visit Chris and Margaret. We left Victoria for Nunhead at 6.15. Met Chris and Margaret at the station. They took us by car to their cottage at Fittleworth. Took a long time to get out of London. South London goes on forever. Traffic was not too bad and finally we got on the freeway. We had to call and drop something at a friend’s house and we more or less drove past where their children live. They have 2 children both married with 2 children each. Much enjoyable talk in the car to catch up. Chris is Chairman of his local Parish Council. They have a flat in South London as well as the cottage in Fittleworth. They look after their grandchildren at least one day a week. They come to London regularly. Chris and Denis have had parallel lives to an extent. Same kind of job. Same success. Both retired early. Both live in villages in the general area where they came from. Both have taken on public responsibilities in the village. Same kind of houses. Same number of children. Same kind of life. They took us to a local pub for tea. I had fish chowder and helped Margaret finish her pheasant. Very pleasant atmosphere. A dog in the bar. Very well dressed people drinking and socialising. Life is obviously different in England and different again in the countryside. More relaxed and I would say more respectful than Australia. No comparison to Australian Pubs. If modern day English people came to Australia they would be shocked by some Australian Pubs. If Chris and Margaret ever came to Benalla I would take them to The Farmers Arms just to see how surprised they were. Tuesday 19th December Up at 6AM. Nothing on TV except 3rd Rock from the Sun. This takes an hour to check out. But unfortunately nothing. I don’t like Pierce whatever his name is. Steve told us his grandchildren’s voices are in Hey Duggie. We will have to watch for it. One year until Crossrail opens. Blood Pressure118/71. Pulse 72. We went to Nottinghill Gate and walked to Portobello Road. It bears no relation to how I remember it 50 years ago. Back then there were second hand clothes being sold in stalls that stood in the middle of the road. We walked the length of it. Not all shops open. Could not find the shop I was looking for. Mostly tourists in the street. Not much money changing hands. Saw a blue plaque advising George Orwell lived there. We then walked Kensington Palace. Did not spot William or Harry. But the part of the Palace open to the public is quite historic. Interesting also. The guides doing the explaining are good. Queen Victoria, William and Mary and Queen Anne. The 2 Georges. All lived in Kensington Palace. Saw the room where Victoria was born. Lots of the mundane details of Royal Family life explained. All very interesting. Some certainly had their problems. One or 2 questions – what did the 2 Georges get out of the over the top ritual that had to be followed in order to come into contact with them? Clothes and cosmetics for instance? And what did the participants get out of following the procedures in order to meet the Royal Family? It’s a mystery. We saw the exhibition of Diana’s clothes. Lots of photographs. You can judge her development from her looks as to how she changed. Don’t exactly feel sorry for her but have to admit she wasn’t suited to the job. You have to feel some pity. Yet this is what she wanted to do. When she said she wanted to be a workhorse instead of a clotheshorse I thought she finally said something I understood. But why did she wait till so late in the day. Yet I admit she did some remarkable things. She sometimes acted sensibly in comparison to other Royal Family members. Stopped wearing gloves in public and allowed people including aids sufferers to touch her. Made the Queen and the rest of the Royal Family look pretty weak by this act alone. Made them look awful in fact. She also produced 2 wonderful boys who have saved the Royal Family. If not saved then rescued. The exhibition of her clothes was pretty extensive. They were certainly all well made. Some looked better on her than on the wire frame. Some definitely looked better on the wire frame than on her. I felt some did not suit her and made her look silly. Some outfits were more sophisticated than she was. I didn’t think that any except one outfit had any sexual content. They were all kind of immature. The dresses all seemed small. She was certainly slim. Bulimia works. We walked back through Kensington Gardens to Marble Arch and got a bus to Oxford Circus. Even more people in Oxford Street than normal. No carol singers. We looked in Selfridges. It was packed. We looked in the large M&S. It was packed. Have got John Lewis and H&M to see. Maybe at the Boxing Day sale. Spoke to Chris on the phone and arranged what to do tomorrow. We catch the 18.54 train from Victoria to Nunhead. Chris and Margaret will meet us and take us to their cottage in Fittleworth. Nothing on TV. Had trouble staying awake. Monday 18th December. Up at 6AM. Had to get up and go to the toilet a number of times during the night. I do not know what triggers my body to produce copious amounts of urine. I needed to go to the toilet a number of times yesterday during the walk. Not an easy thing in London. Harry reckons it is even harder in Europe but he was probably being patriotic. Australia are about to win the test and the ashes. Marilyn sent me a message on messenger which I answered. First time I have done this. Blood Pressure 97/69. Pulse 92. Maybe losing all that urine has lowered my blood pressure. Again low blood pressure and high pulse. We are visiting Steve and Mary today. 10.42 train from Waterloo to Kingston. We can use our Oyster Cards. I resolved to buy a ticket and Jenny resolved to use her Oyster Card. Kingston upon Thames. We met them at the station and started with a walk along the Thames. They come to Kingston to see their child who lives there. Nice day. Not a cloud in the sky. Lots of swans swimming. Pleasant to walk and talk. We had lunch at a flash pizza place. All except Jenny had pizzas. I had a glass of Pale Ale. It was OK. Pleasant talk of politics for a while. Steve very passionate. I started by saying that it did not make sense to have a Prime Minister and Cabinet who were against leaving the EU negotiating to leave. I said that all pro EU supporters should have withdrawn from government and handed power to the Brexiteers. I said that Theresa May would never be able to please everyone and probably not anyone. The Brexiteers have got the country into the mess and they should be made to extract the country from the mess. They agreed. Much discussion ensued. Ranged all over the place. Mary is extremely attuned to current politics. Steve less so. Steve has no praise for either Tory or Labour. Just the opposite. She is a local government candidate for the Lib Dems. Has been a perennial candidate for parliament in the past. Very nice woman. Was a long time local government councilor until the debacle of the coalition election. Took a photo and sent it to Martyn Edwards. Steve keen to hear of him. Brought him up to date as best I could. Steve has got slightly even more gregarious in 50 years. I don’t know but I think he is more gregarious now – hard to judge. He has recently been helping his friend do the ploughing. How does he stay quiet while ploughing? After we said goodbye we had a walk around Kingston upon Thames. It’s larger than I anticipated. Has a large shopping mall. Bought a shirt in an op shop. Lots of people hurrying about. Mostly Caucasians. We came home by train via Waterloo. Brought provisions at M&S. Lots of people in Oxford Street. The cost of my ticket buying it retail was 7 pounds dearer than Jenny using her Oyster Card. This does not seem fair. Or Faire. Sunday 17th December Up at 6AM. For some reason I have to set the alarm every night. I cannot work out in settings why this is so. Australia doing OK in the test match. Because it’s only shown on Pay TV not much publicity is given to the cricket and the news coverage is pretty limited. UK is testing its new aircraft carrier. Surely these mega ships are only advertising campaigns and a waste of money. North Korea can send all the big countries into a spin with a few rockets. Watched a bit of Westminster Hall. If anyone thinks the UK has not changed in 50 years they should watch this telecast. Cool nippy day. Blood Pressure 133/68. Pulse 47. We stayed in until 11AM or so. We then set out to go on a London walk The Unknown East End. We went to Liverpool Street and walked to Whitechapel tube. Had lunch in a Pret on the way. Cold wet day. Longer walk than I anticipated. Misty rain. Very London. Walked past a very large Mosque. Lots of Bangladesh shops. Finally got to Whitechapel and guess what – the bloke taking he tour was Harry – the Jewish Bloke who took the Jewish walk last time. The walk went round all the East End highpoints. The pub where one of the Krays shot someone – was it Ronnie or Reggie? The pub has been done up and now bears no relationship with the original pub – we did not go in. We saw the place where Ronnie or Reggie got back into his car after doing the shooting. We then moved on to the large bust of Mujibur Rahman which a grateful man has put in his front yard. It does look a bit like Stalin. The man who placed the bust made a bit of a fuss of our little group. I mentioned to him that in 1970 I had passed through East Pakistan just as it was becoming Bangladesh. The Awami league had won the elections but the Military would not let them take office and were about to stage a coup. The civil war erupted after I left. I related all this to him. He was impressed. Not a lot of people know these things. He called in a member of the Bangladeshi press who just happened to be present and asked me to repeat this into the camera. Which I did. I’m not sure I was good enough for TV man though. He wasn’t as impressed as the man with the bust of Mujibur Rahman. Later on we saw the building where the Russian Socialist League held its annual conference when the Party split into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. It wasn’t a very large building. Just 3 stories high and not very wide. In attendance were Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin amongst others. Stalin did come to London and stayed in a shelter in the East End although it does not appear in his official history. We saw it. Apparently shared a bed with another revolutionary. Trotsky and Lenin stayed in more salubrious accommodation elsewhere. We saw Sydney Street although it bears no relation to what it was like at the time of the siege. We walked through much of the East End looking at various mosques and churches and where Synagogues used to be. At one point there were more synagogues in the East End than what there are Mosques now. The Jewish people have moved out to more up market suburbs. No synagogues now. Harry pointed out various places that had been bombed during the war including spots that were destroyed by V1 and V2 rockets late in the war. Six thousand people were killed by V1 and V2 rockets. Harry related that his family lived in the east End. His grandmother only spoke Yiddish. Never learned English. When the family moved to Stoke Newington she used to come back to the East End to do her shopping because this was where the shopkeepers all spoke Yiddish. Including apparently some of the staff of Woolworths. Which she pronounced “Voolvichs”. The family still make jokes about how she spoke. We went to The London Hospital. Harry related the story of Joseph Merrick and Doctor Frederick Treves. The skeleton is still in the hospital. The building where he had his flat is still there. Merrick died of asphyxiation. Doctor Treves died of peritonitis. We saw the Whitechapel Bell Foundry which has been in continuous operation since the 1557 and only closed down this year. The building is to be turned into luxury apartments – what else. We went to the site of the original White Chapel which was demolished during the war and was not rebuilt. The land it was on is now a Park named after a young man who was murdered in a race killing on the edge of the park. Not a large park mind you as land is on short supply in the East End. We finished up in Brick Lane which has acquired a lot of bright lights since we were last here. Saw London Artisan but didn’t buy anything. By this time it was dark. It had more or less rained all day. It was cold and we did not go into any building. I wanted to go into London Artisan and thought Jenny was telling me not to go in and I reacted badly and admonished her unfairly – again. We walked to Liverpool Street and came home via the Central Line. I had to put on my jumper when we got home as I was cold. I think the coldest I have been. Saturday 16th December Up at 7AM. I didn’t turn the alarm on. Woke up during the night and watched a show on Roy Orbison. It concentrated on his family life, his children and the tragedy in his life. Very good show although his children were always on the verge of breaking down when they spoke because of the emotion involved. But what tragedy he had. And it kind of continued even after his early death. His second wife died not long after him. Quite young as well. We tend to forget how big a star he was and how he was respected by everyone. And what good songs he wrote. And what a voice he had. The ultimate tragedy was that he died just as The Wilbury’s were reaching worldwide fame. Blood Pressure 125/69. Pulse 54. John Henderson and his girlfriend are coming for lunch. Jenny went shopping in M&S while I attempted to bring my blog up to date. She actually bought a coat that I like. Only John turned up. We went to the local café for lunch. Our English girl was not working today. Two Georgian girls there. One Syrian man. The Syrian man quite friendly. Did not think the food was as good as previous. Johnny showed us photos of his girlfriend. She can look like Astrid Kushner. They both like posing. He is working in a video graphics. He enjoys it. He seems to have integrated into London quite well. Probably better than Shelley. We came back to the flat for a cup of tea. After a short talk Johnny had to go home so we went with him. Changed at Finsbury Park to get to Manor House which is where he lives. We did not go to his house but again tried to find Kevin and Marys flat. Just maybe we did this time – we will have to stand corrected. But after much frustrations unfortunately by the time we tracked it down it was dark. I always go the wrong way and of course we went the wrong way today. And Green Lanes has many facets to it. The numbers chop and change. It sometimes becomes other street names. Anyway I have taken photographs to try and prove we got to 167 Green Lanes N16. We got chatting to a youngish bloke at the bus stop and then on the bus. He is a fan of 70’s music and was on his way to a record shop to check out the vinyl and buy his brother a record. Quite a nice person. One of the old school. We got off at Chancery Lane and walked home along High Holborn and then Oxford Street. When we got to Oxford Street the numbers of people in the street resumed their normal number. Walking along High Holburn my sense of direction changed a number of times. This goes on inside your head and you don’t realise when it’s happening. But it does happen. To me at least. Nothing on TV. Had trouble staying awake. Friday 16th December Up at 7AM. Rupert Murdoch has sold off more than half of his business. He has kept the newspapers and Fox media. The world will change when he dies. Media power will lessen – not disappear – but it will become less pronounced. No one could possibly match him in putting across a political view while selling newspapers. Blood Pressure 117/61. Pulse 50 We took the tube to The V&A to see the Winnie the Pooh exhibition. I thought it was Ok but Jenny was in raptures. Lots of original drawings. Lots of letters from Milne to Shepherd. Lots of photos of Christopher Robin. Lots of children in attendance. But lots more middle-aged women gushing over everything. Grown up fans obviously. Interesting that colour was only added to the books was when Disney bought the franchise. But I think they did a reasonable job. The colours have enhanced to drawings and made them more appealing. Previously the dust jackets only were in colour. A quick check of the rest of the museum shows that most of the displays that were there 2 years ago are still there. There is a special exhibition of Pink Floyd coming up. We had lunch at the Museum café. As we were ordering an announcement came over the PA that a fire had been reported in the building and we were to stand by. No one seemed to be bothered or concerned. Sometime later there was a further announcement that said it was a false alarm. In the same disinterested voice. Again no one seemed concerned or interested. There was absolutely no reaction from the staff or public to either announcement. We then took the tube to Russell Square to go to the Charles Dickens reading. Bought a book on Dickens by Simon Callow to read on the plane. Have previously read Callows book on Wagner which was pretty good so I am confident it will be a good read. The reading was of the last of Dickens Christmas stories and one of the most dramatic. The actor reading the short story looked a lot like Dickens. He played the all the parts – sometimes hamming it up. I had trouble staying awake. The actor would describe a scene which I would then imagine. I would then transfer the scene into a day dream and this in turn would in turn very quickly into dream sleep. I always find it very easy to fall asleep in these circumstances. I could not follow the plot anyway. Could not tell you what the story was about except I think one 84 year old man was in bed and claiming to be dying. His family and friends seemed to be coming into the room at regular intervals. We walked home using the Google Maps function on our phones. Dark about 4 PM. Danny Baker had a show about pop music in the 80’s. He tried to make it interesting but it wasn’t. Absolutely nothing else on TV. I had trouble staying awake and went to bed early. Thursday 15th December Slept quite well. Got up at 8AM. Our bedroom was in the attic. Quite comfortable. Has its own ensuite. Leisurely breakfast. Much enjoyable talk. Read Denis’s Guardian. He has enough money to live comfortably. Guardian is delivered daily with his name on it. What more establishment could you get. Later in the morning Denis took Jenny and myself for a long walk around the village. One pub. One general store. One coffee shop. One hairdresser. One pub recently closed. I felt I kept seeing actors out of English Television Dramas walking around. Everyone looked extremely stereotypical. Very typically English. When Jean and Denis changed houses and there was a period between settling both titles they lived above the pub. Their previous house was quite large and they downsized when the children moved out. Previous house was pretty flash. Looks quite large – 5 bedrooms or so. Just 2 or 3 doors down the street. He is very proud of his involvement and attachment to the area. A large horse stud has published plans to build 220 dwellings on the edge of the village. The village only has 250 dwellings. Denis is against it and is involved in the campaign to stop the project. Showed us his daughters place and her workshop where she conducts dressmaking classes. Becky is also in a Ska band with her shortly to be husband. They play professionally. She sings and plays trumpet and tuba. She has actually been to Australia on a school trip playing the tuba. She came to the house twice while we were there. Once to walk the dog – Jean cannot do it at the moment – and she came for lunch between classes. Very impressive girl and Denis loves her deeply. Jean says there is no pressure to produce grandchildren but the inference must be lurking in the background. When it came to saying goodbye to her I became quite emotional. I could not control myself. I could have known her all her life. Denis is very appreciative she has chosen to live in the village close to them. Their son Rory lives in Ireland. When the children were young and because Denis’s antecedents are Irish they kept a cottage in Ireland. They went there a lot. Rory has chosen to live in Ireland. Denis organized lunch. Much as I would. Soup and toast. Their house is a comfortable house. Comfortable kitchen. Comfortable lounge. Comfortable back yard. Easy to live in. Later in the afternoon he drove us to Lewes. Jean had to go to the supermarket anyway. I said goodbye to Jean as she went into the supermarket. Again I was emotional but kept myself in check. What an enjoyable 2 days. How amazing that it has happened. In the flat we had a natural leader, 2 intellectuals and 1 interested skeptic. I was in fact a refugee from Australia. I was lucky to meet and become friends with 3 other decent people. I liked them all. I felt at home in their company. They never patronized me. I felt they treated me with respect. In 1970 I watched England get beaten by West Germany in Mexico with a group of people in our flat. As Beckinbauer kicked the 3rd goal I exchanged glances with Denis. He gave a glance of extreme disappointment and instantly looked away. He did not want to share the disappointment with anyone. I was always teasing him about his being patriotic. I watched the BBC coverage of the Let It Be album with Denis. He was impressed to the point he was forced into silence. I was an overenthusiastic fan of The Beatles. He never admitted to anything but in this case he had to admit they were OK. He wasn’t just grudging about it – he was serious. He admired them – they were pretty good – he had to admit it. For some reason one night I was sleeping in Chris’s bed. Denis came home late after selling his newspapers. He had to get up early to sell more papers before he went to work. He had an elaborate clock alarm set up. The mechanical clock sat in a saucer and a spoon was put on the saucer. When the alarm went off quite a racket occurred. He was happy to have a conversation. He said he was thinking of moving out because he wanted some privacy. For some reason I went into a dialogue from Steptoe and Son. I was Albert and he was Harold. He understood and went along with it. Once we talked of London itself. I was surprised at how philosophical and reflective Denis could be about it. I loved London and often said so. He said he was glad he had moved to London. The place moved him. He found it inspirational. It fired his imagination. I voted in the 1970 election that Ted Heath unexpectedly won. I walked to the voting booth to vote with Denis. He was approached at the gate by a Tory functionary and Denis politely but firmly told him he would never vote for him. The Tory reacted with deep disappointment. Instantly I felt sorry for him. I realized then I had passed from biased individual to someone who identified as British. The last night I saw Denis we shared a small bottle of Bells Whisky. I took the bottle around to the flat to say goodbye. I don’t think we drank it at the flat though. I mixed lemonade into the whisky to make it easier to drink. Denis admonished me for doing this. It spoilt the ambience of the whisky he said. But he thanked me for the whisky. The goodbye did not take long. This was a most amazing 2 days. Most enjoyable. It happened unexpectedly. I never imagined it happening. On the way home at Victoria Station a choir was singing. I sang along to Fairytale of New York. Could not keep my emotions in check. So much so I could not sing. How much of it is the same as 50 years ago. Wednesday 13th December. Alarm at 6AM. Listened to the World Service for half an hour. Heard a report on the singing station announcer at Richmond Railway Station. Great news - Trumps man in Alabama has lost. Surely it’s simply an issue of getting decent people to vote. If anything is simple in America. Blood Pressure 103/67. Pulse 73. Why it is when my blood pressure goes up my pulse comes down? Some of the Murdoch commentators are extremely disappointed at the defeat of Judge Roy Moore. I don’t understand why they are convinced Trump is good for the world. Unless of course they want to see some destruction. We go to visit Denis at Lewes via Victoria. Was walking down Oxford Street to Oxford Street Circus when a bus went past marked Victoria so I suggested we should hop on. It was much slower than the tube and by the time we got to Victoria I was starting to panic that we might not catch the train. Got the tickets but they could not tell me which platform the train would be on. Also some confusion about the word Lewes. I pronounced it Lewes but of course it is pronounced Lewis. I am starting to have to ask people to say that again and they don’t like it. We arrived at 11.45 and recognized Denis without much trouble. He drove us around the town for a quick look before we started to head for East Hoathy which is where he lives. Caught up a bit on the drive. I related incidents to him which he claimed he could not recall.
There were many more incidents that stuck in my mind which I will relate later. Denis brought us up to date as to what has happened in his life. He seems to have done OK. Retired at 52 after a successful working career. Had his own business. Wife and 2 children. Has immersed himself in Village life. Secretary of the Cricket Club. Plays golf to the point where he goes on golfing holidays. Is in the Drama society. Has actually been in a Glyndebourne Production of The Mastersingers of Nuremburg as an extra. Glyndebourne is not far from where he lives. We got to his house and met his wife Jean who has recently been quite ill. But she seems OK now. Denis showed us his house and we talked to Jean. His house is just large enough for them. Very comfortable. Jean is a very nice woman. Good talker but can also listen and conduct a proper conversation. A caring sensitive woman. Does a lot of volunteer work in the village. Volunteers at the local prison crèche for instance. Is the sewing mistress for the local dramatic society. Very well informed person. Was recently suddenly taken ill and Denis says he did expect her to die. But thankfully she didn’t and has made a good recovery. Denis is devoted to her. And why not. Obviously had not met the right girl when I knew him 50 years ago. We had a drive around. He took us to the top of the downs. Windy spot but quite good view. More green grass than expected. Sheep well fed. Some unusual rather larger than normal paddocks. Denis very proud of the area. We drove through 1 or 2 nearby villages. Extremely stereotypical English. We drove into Glyndebourne itself and had a bit of a look. Could not get out of the car though as were not supposed to enter the grounds. Denis is indifferent to Opera and does not go even though he has been an extra and mimed the singing. Jean likes it and has been to a lot of productions. Had several conversations with Denis alone. Quite enjoyable. Nothing really has changed in 50 years. The 50 years time difference may not have existed. We talked quite easily. About important life subjects as well. As we used to. He still has the same political beliefs. I am sympathetic but always want to know the precise model. Is maybe even firmer in his views than 50 years ago which is surprising. Voted for Brexit. That’s 2 out of 4. I’m sure Ray voted Brexit also. Denis did it because he says he was voting against the austerity regime that has been in place for several years. His was a protest vote. I’m sure he regrets it now. As I patronized/advised - the EU is a noble concept - the EU is a definite good for the world - the leave campaign was full of untruths and exaggerations and bore no relation to reality - it was conducted by people with chips on their shoulders - none of whom should be allowed to partake in public life. A clear moral distinction existed between the remainers and brexiteers.. He politely declined to reply. We went on to talk of other things. We could always pass onto other things without any problem. Having differing views was not a problem. At night they took us to eat at a Pub in the next village. I had Venison Pie. It had no distinct taste. It tasted much as normal meat. The pub was quite old. Elm sprigs attached to the roof. Christmas lights up. I had 2 half pints of English beer. I have to admit it has improved from what it was 50,years ago.Maybe because it wasn't so good people didnt drink quite so much 50 years ago. Wednesday 13th December. Alarm at 6AM. Listened to the World Service for half an hour. Heard a report on the singing station announcer at Richmond Railway Station. Great news - Trumps man in Alabama has lost. Surely it’s simply an issue of getting decent people to vote. If anything is simple in America. Blood Pressure 103/67. Pulse 73. Why it is when my blood pressure goes up my pulse comes down? Some of the Murdoch commentators are extremely disappointed at the defeat of Judge Roy Moore. I don’t understand why they are convinced Trump is good for the world. Unless of course they want to see some destruction. We go to visit Denis at Lewes via Victoria. Was walking down Oxford Street to Oxford Street Circus when a bus went past marked Victoria so I suggested we should hop on. It was much slower than the tube and by the time we got to Victoria I was starting to panic that we might not catch the train. Got the tickets but they could not tell me which platform the train would be on. Also some confusion about the word Lewes. I pronounced it Lewes but of course it is pronounced Lewis. I am starting to have to ask people to say that again and they don’t like it. We arrived at 11.45 and recognized Denis without much trouble. He drove us around the town for a quick look before we started to head for East Hoathy which is where he lives. Caught up a bit on the drive. I related incidents to him which he claimed he could not recall.
There were many more incidents that stuck in my mind which I will relate later. Denis brought us up to date as to what has happened in his life. He seems to have done OK. Retired at 52 after a successful working career. Had his own business. Wife and 2 children. Has immersed himself in Village life. Secretary of the Cricket Club. Plays golf to the point where he goes on golfing holidays. Is in the Drama society. Has actually been in a Glyndebourne Production of The Mastersingers of Nuremburg as an extra. Glyndebourne is not far from where he lives. We got to his house and met his wife Jean who has recently been quite ill. But she seems OK now. Denis showed us his house and we talked to Jean. His house is just large enough for them. Very comfortable. Jean is a very nice woman. Good talker but can also listen and conduct a proper conversation. A caring sensitive woman. Does a lot of volunteer work in the village. Volunteers at the local prison crèche for instance. Is the sewing mistress for the local dramatic society. Very well informed person. Was recently suddenly taken ill and Denis says he did expect her to die. But thankfully she didn’t and has made a good recovery. Denis is devoted to her. And why not. Obviously had not met the right girl when I knew him 50 years ago. We had a drive around. He took us to the top of the downs. Windy spot but quite good view. More green grass than expected. Sheep well fed. Some unusual rather larger than normal paddocks. Denis very proud of the area. We drove through 1 or 2 nearby villages. Extremely stereotypical English. We drove into Glyndebourne itself and had a bit of a look. Could not get out of the car though as were not supposed to enter the grounds. Denis is indifferent to Opera and does not go even though he has been an extra and mimed the singing. Jean likes it and has been to a lot of productions. Had several conversations with Denis alone. Quite enjoyable. Nothing really has changed in 50 years. Time may as well not exist – the 50 years were irrelevant. We talked quite easily. He still has the same political beliefs. I am sympathetic but always want to know the precise model. Is maybe even firmer in his views than 50 years ago which is surprising. Voted for Brexit. That’s 2 out of 4. I’m sure Ray voted Brexit also. Denis did it because he says he was voting against the austerity regime that has been in place for several years. His was a protest vote. I’m sure he regrets it now. As I patronized/advised - the EU is a noble concept - the EU is a definite good for the world - the leave campaign was full of untruths and exaggerations and bore no relation to reality. He politely declined to reply. We went on to talk of other things. At night they took us to eat at a Pub in the next village. I had Venison Pie. It had no distinct taste. It tasted much as normal meat. The pub was quite old. Elm sprigs attached to the roof. Christmas lights up. I had 2 half pints of English beer. Tuesday 12th December. Up at 6AM. Coldest night of the year. But we were snug. Listened to the radio for a few minutes and heard a hypnotist interviewed who treated Sadam Hussein’s son. Amazing. Sam Dastiari has resigned from Parliament. Not a wise move as far as I am concerned. He should have stuck it out. Sadiq Khan has released a policy manifest of sorts where he says he will build more public toilets. Fantastic. There is definitely a lack of public toilets in London. We should have sued the IRA into Liquidation when they started blowing up public toilets. Blood Pressure 144/74. Pulse 57. We go to Oxford today. No problems in getting to Paddington by 8.21. I got told off for walking through a restricted area. The gate was opened and it led to platform 4 so I went through it. Did not see the sign. I was looking at the train timetable which was not easy to read. Sunny day but extremely cold. Train impressive. Modern and comfortable. Saw lots of snow covered paddocks. Very white snow shining in the sun. At Oxford within the hour. Jenny’s ticket did not come out of the gate and I was suspicious of the return tickets so I consulted the man in charge. It turned out the tickets were not return tickets. I bought them on line in Australia and from the start I should have been suspicious. I had $111 deducted from my bank account to pay for them and this is about all contact I had with the firm selling the tickets. The total cost was supposed to be $72. In the end the man in charge felt sorry for me and issued us with a voucher that would allow us to return to Paddington in the late afternoon. Said he had been well treated when he went to Australia. We took the hop on hop off tourist bus around Oxford. Probably overpriced. Should have walked but it was freezing cold. It was warm on the bus and when the sun shone directly through the bus window it was enjoyable. Lots of colleges. Lots of churches. Lots of tourists. Lots of mushy snow. The canal was frozen though. Playing fields of Oxford covered in snow. Because we were on the bus we could not get photos which was a pity. Went to the Bodleian Library and The Ashmoleum Museum. Bodleian is interesting but security tight. Warm inside building. City is smaller than I expected. Well the university part that is. I know there is a manufacturing town which is separate and has no contact with the university. Must be very enjoyable to live in the university part. More colleges than I anticipated also. Learned much about the place I did not know before. And what they do. It’s simpler than I thought. People apply to go to Oxford and they are allocated a college. Colleges don’t specialise. People can study anything. Lectures are done in lecture halls. Tutorials are done anywhere. There is one college that doesn’t even have students. Everyone there is doing post graduate pure research of their choosing. Got the 4.31PM train back to Paddington. We bought provisions at M&S. Not much on TV. Monday 11th December Up at 6 AM. Listened again to the Shipping forecast. The announcers certainly give the impression of enjoying what they do – practicing their pronunciation. Reading endless weather forecasts that are all the same except for the location. Not much on TV. But I can easily waste time fiddling on the computer. Blood pressure 134/72. Pulse 55. Cold day outside. Misty rain. We walked along Oxford Street to Bloomsbury Street and went to buy Daisy a card at the bookshop Jenny had previously seen. Turned out to be The Young Socialist Bookshop and the Socialist Worker is still on sale. Still looks the same as 50 years ago but has moved with the times and is in colour. Bought a copy for Denis. One of the first memories I have of him is him telling his girlfriend that he had to give her up because he was giving up his life to The Socialist Workers Party and this involved him in spending most of his spare time in selling the Socialist Worker. She had a look of disbelief on her face. He did stick at it for about 6 months. There was light rain as we walked along and very cold. I cannot remember it being this cold. Because it was so cold we went into a Primark and of course bought something. I never know what to buy Chloe. I bought her 2 bangles. I hope she likes them. For lunch we went into a Korean Fast Food place. It was quite good . The receptionist felt the need to warn me that it was spicy. I didn’t have the wit to ask if I looked that Australian. Intermittent snowing as we ate. We were early and the place filled up as we ate. Would like to go there again. They have unusual not seen before seats which might be Korean. Came home for a cup of tea and the Landlord has sent me an email telling me he is in London today. He almost immediately called around to pay for the aerial. Very nice person. Used to live in this flat. Said they were the best 2 years of his life. Now has 2 small children and lives in Surry. We walked up the street to get supplies from M&S. Definitely dark by 4.30. Warm inside the flat. Sunday 10th December. Up at 6AM to watch some old TV. On the Buses. Third Rock from the Sun. Sweeney Todd. All very enjoyable. Read the Sunday Papers at leisure. Cold nippy day. No rain. Blood Pressure 139/70. Pulse 57. Walked to Tesco’s to buy a Guardian. It started snowing as I walked out the door. Not a thick blanket but enough to say it snowed. I had snow adhering to my jacket by the time I got to Tesco’s. Took some photos. We watched it snowing out the window for some time. Took some photos. Enjoyable. Not exactly a white Christmas but heading in that direction. We walked along Oxford Street to Bloomsbury Street. Some snow hitting the ground. Jenny found her bookstore but it was closed. We got on a bus to Victoria just for the sake of it. Took us through Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. Had a bit of a look at a new shopping mall at Victoria. Well new to me. Victoria has changed out of all recognition over 50 years. Came home for lunch via the tube. In the afternoon we took the tube to Brixton. Had a bit of a look around again. Definitely more light skinned human beings here this time than last time. Probably even more light skinned than dark skinned in total. How demographics change. The area is being swamped by whites. What would Pauline say? Disgraceful. We must stop it somehow. Took the bus to the Horniman Museum. Quite a long ride. Went through Woolwich and Dulwich. Went past Dulwich School. Saw the playing grounds where P G Wodehouse would have played cricket. More snow here. White fields. White front yards. Mushy snow on the footpath. The snow covering the playing fields is a bright white and quite attractive. The Museum has lots of stuffed animals. Some of them looking worse for wear. The Australians look decidedly dodgy. A full size Dodo on show. A detailed story of its tragic life attached. Did not take much to send it extinct. Extensive grounds outside. We came back by bus to Victoria. And then by the tube. Well and truly dark at 4.30. Unfortunately as it was dark we could not pick out any landmarks on the way. It was cold today. I admit it. Lots of news about the snow in London on TV. Not much on TV. If anything it’s not as good as I thought it would be. It’s entertaining but not as good as it was 50 years ago. Maybe its spread thinner. Saturday 9th December. Woke up at 6AM. Watched TV for an hour or so. Went and bought The Times and came home and read it cover to cover. Blood Pressure 117/63. Pulse 61. We went to Brixton to check it out. Much the same as last time but I would say the demographic has changed. There are definitely more Caucasians walking around than last time. No singing Jehovah Witnesses though. do Jehovah Witnesses celebrate Christmas? I bought a Louis Farrakhan Newspaper. I didn’t take the chance to say that I was a supporter of Malcolm X to the young man selling. I wish I had. I did ask him what it was all about. He gave an explanation that included telling the truth and some other clichés. The paper is interesting in that it does have some straight news about various places in the world. But it mostly lauds the speeches of Louis Farrakhan and Elijah Muhammad. Less children in evidence in the street. Maybe we came a different time of day to last time. The Market itself is slightly more upmarket. Same high class looking restaurants. Saw a new type of shop. You go to a large index and pick what you want and then order it on line and the goods are delivered to this point. They also offer 2 months interest free credit terms. But if you transgress the interest charges are 29% per day from the date of purchase. The pop up area is now covered in and has obviously gone upmarket. Night time disco etc. Same eating places and much more comfortable eating area. We got the bus back to Liverpool Street and walked to The Barbican. You have to walk through what should be called The Barbican Tunnel. We took an Architectural Tour of the complex. All of it outdoors and very cold. I was uncomfortably cold for most of the time. But the tour was educational and given by a passionate girl who we presume was German. I was slightly ill informed about the place previously. I thought it was the post war Labour government’s attempt to provide an example of socialist living. But not exactly true. It was built because the City of London was in danger of losing their member of parliament because the population had dropped so much during the war. It did have elements of social experimentation in it. But essentially it was a deal between Westminster and The City of London that a housing complex would be built by the City. Planning started in 1948 but it was not finally finished until 1982. It was not designed as public housing and each unit was individually leased. In the 80’s along with all other social housing the leases were sold to tenants. There was no conventional public housing as in council flats. People had to pay. However it had a strong utopian element built into the planning and was built in the brutalist style. They were unashamed about this. If you want to joke about it you can ask whether it influenced soviet style building or whether soviet style building influenced it. There are lots of concrete. Lots of levels. The young woman doing the tour was very passionate in explaining the reasons behind the concept. The whole area was raised to the ground during the blitz. It was 35 acres of completely open ground. The City needed the building and they had money to pay for it. The Architects made it their life’s work. The driving philosophy was beauty and functionality. They did try to provide the perfect life for the people who lived here. Whether they achieved their aim is debatable. It’s a lot of concrete. Not a lot of flowers. Lots of levels. It’s pretty brutalist. But from the limited number of people I saw who now live there they appear to be happy. And not all rich. In knew of it in 1970 and took an interest in it although I never came to look at it. But I was curious as I was with all social experiments. It had completely fallen into disrepute and was derided by the Tories as the perfect example as to how social experimentation could go wrong. How socialism simply does not work. Jokes were made on TV about living there. Film was often shown showing how alien the place looked. What not to do. If they wanted to illustrate Orwell’s 1984 they always showed film of The Barbican. How easy it was to get lost on its various levels. How crazy it could make you just by living there. How windy it was. Etc. However after they sold it to the public in the 80’s they built an arts centre and this has resurrected the whole area. The price of apartments is in line with all real estate prices. Everyone wants to live there now. We had lunch at The Barbican. Sandwiches and orange juice. We sat and looked out the window. The sun was out but as per usual I can make no sense of it. It’s always in the wrong place and goes the wrong way. East is always in the west. We had afternoon tea at The Barbican. We went to a free showing of an Art Installation at The Barbican. Five screens showing film while a new symphony played in the background. A silent film accompanied by a Symphony. Not sure what the film was actually about. It wasn’t too bad. We watched all the way through. We walked to the nearest tube. Cold and dark by 4.30. Sunday 10th December. Up at 6AM to watch some old TV. On the Buses. Third Rock from the Sun. Sweeney Todd. All very enjoyable. Read the Sunday Papers at leisure. Cold nippy day. No rain. Blood Pressure 139/70. Pulse 57. Walked to Tesco’s to buy a Guardian. It started snowing as I walked out the door. Not a thick blanket but enough to say it snowed. I had snow adhering to my jacket by the time I got to Tesco’s. Took some photos. We watched it snowing out the window for some time. Took some photos. Enjoyable. Not exactly a white Christmas but heading in that direction. We walked along Oxford Street to Bloomsbury Street. Some snow hitting the ground. Jenny found her bookstore but it was closed. We got on a bus to Victoria just for the sake of it. Took us through Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. Had a bit of a look at a new shopping mall at Victoria. Well new to me. Victoria has changed out of all recognition over 50 years. Came home for lunch via the tube. In the afternoon we took the tube to Brixton. Had a bit of a look around again. Definitely more light skinned human beings here this time than last time. Probably even more light skinned than dark skinned in total. How demographics change. The area is being swamped by whites. What would Pauline say? Disgraceful. We must stop it somehow. Took the bus to the Horniman Museum. Quite a long ride. Went through Woolwich and Dulwich. Went past Dulwich School. Saw the playing grounds where P G Wodehouse would have played cricket. More snow here. White fields. White front yards. Mushy snow on the footpath. The snow covering the playing fields is a bright white and quite attractive. The Museum has lots of stuffed animals. Some of them looking worse for wear. The Australians look decidedly dodgy. A full size Dodo on show. A detailed story of its tragic life attached. Did not take much to send it extinct. Extensive grounds outside. We came back by bus to Victoria. And then by the tube. Well and truly dark at 4.30. Unfortunately as it was dark we could not pick out any landmarks on the way. It was cold today. I admit it. Lots of news about the snow in London on TV. Not much on TV. If anything it’s not as good as I thought it would be. It’s entertaining but not as good as it was 50 years ago. Maybe its spread thinner. Friday 8th December. Up at 6AM. Watched TV for an hour. There will be no hard border with Ireland. Apparently it is going to be cold today. Blood Pressure 119/74. Pulse 73 Went and bought a paper. The Daily Telegraph today. Read it and watched TV for 3 hours. Then had a snooze. Might as well be home. Still I feel pretty fit. I don’t feel 72. We did a little shopping before we left for the day and when we went outside we had a beggar right outside our front door. Caucasian of Middle Eastern appearance. Begging with his hand outstretched. Whining in a sing song voice. Couldn’t tell if he was crying or pretending to cry. I didn’t give him anything. Resolved to give him some change when we returned from shopping but when we came home he was gone. There are a number of beggars in the streets. All of them seem to be doing it hard. Some have dogs. One man had two dogs. I think that the public have become harder in their attitudes since we were last here. Well I’m convinced of it. The Brexit vote has hardened attitudes considerably. To buskers as well. I have checked their begging cups and none have much money in them. As inflation has run riot these last few years I cannot see anyone living off the fat of the land when begging or busking. Coins have no value. You need notes to survive. We got simcards for our phones from our local O2 outlet. We now have UK phone numbers. Mine is 07934 752100. We went to the café near here run by the same two girls as last week for lunch. Had the same lentil soup. Excellent again. They have lots of food for a very small café. Only a few tables and chairs. But very well decorated. Lots of atmosphere. We then walked to Hyde Park exploring all the way. Passing through many streets that we have seen mentioned in novels. Wigmore Hall. Walked down Harley Street. There are a lot of Doctors. Finally came to Hyde Park and inspected the Winter Wonderland. Larger than expected. Security at the gate to get in. Once inside you could walk where you want but we did not find the ice sculptures. Asked one of the attendants but he didn’t know. I asked him where the toilets were and he didn’t know this either. I must say the fairground rides are more dangerous looking that what used to be at the Wangaratta Show. So much bigger than in the past. Some look very dangerous. Went very high up in the air. Not a lot of people riding on them. Not that there was a lot of money changing hands in the food stalls either. The theme of the eating area was Bavarian. Lots of people there. Probably all tourists from Europe. Will they still come after Brexit? After that we walked along Park Lane to Marble Arch and saw a bus going to Finsbury Park so we got on it. It took us through Piccadilly Circus and up Shaftsbury Avenue. I thought Finsbury Park was further out. But it was well worth taking the bus. When we got to Finsbury Park of course I did not recognize anything. Only the tunnel leading in to the underground and the above ground station on the hill above. But nothing else. I used to get the bus to and from Muswell Hill at least once every day but don’t know where the bus stop actually was. I cannot remember for the life of me. It looks completely different. I remember grass but there’s no grass anywhere on show now. I remember getting out of the train and the bus was always waiting. Day or night. Just across the road. It’s not like that now. There seem to be many more buildings. Certainly more than I can remember. There is a very busy road outside the station which includes a bus station. But it’s not unusual for me to have forgotten things. There is a church right next to Australia House that for the life of me I cannot remember being there. We had coffee and tea at a Pret. I could not find anyone over 60 to ask why everything looks so different. Came home via the Victoria Line. Only took about 5 minutes. Lots of people in Oxford Street. Jenny took a video. Dark by 4.30. It is disorienting. Makes you think it’s time for bed. I like it. I went and had a drink at the pub next door. Conventional clientele inside. Mostly men but some woman. All in their 30’s I would say. Nice atmosphere. Everybody happy. Beer wasn’t too good. I had trouble finishing half a litre. Thursday 7th December. Woke up at 5.30AM with intense pain in my right hip. Could not get back to sleep. My iPhone alarm went off at 6AM and I got up. Blood Pressure 113/70. Pulse 79. President Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel. Dare I say it - probably a good thing? What am I doing agreeing with Trump? I went and purchased a new aerial and it appears to work perfectly. Except I cannot get BBC1 or BB2. But can get lots of other channels. Nippy day. A bit of a mist in the air. I have advised the landlord I have bought a new aerial. Jenny went to M&S to buy supplies while I sorted out how to use the TV. We went back to Notting Hill Gate to look at the old Stationmasters Cottage where we stayed when we first came to London. It has been done up obviously. Jenny says it is listed in Airbnb. Notting Hill Gate is much the same although some shops have shut. The wine merchant has closed. The homemade food shop has gone. Jamie Oliver’s Restaurant has gone also. The Fish Restaurant is still there. If I was generous I would go and eat there. We had lunch in a Pret. Much the same as yesterday. Very healthy soup. Sat and watched the traffic and people go by. Saw 2 really old people - one male one female – they weren’t together. Something highly unusual. We took the tube to The Natural History Museum. I bored Jenny by relating to her how I once jogged the whole length of the tunnel corridor without seeing one other human. Maybe I exaggerate slightly. But I did jog the full length and I didn’t see too many people. I thought it would make a good subject for a film. I did not jog today despite her invitation that I do so. I sat down at every opportunity. 50 years makes a difference. I thought when we came to London I would simply take up where I left off. Queue to get in. Thousands of European tourists. Once inside it was OK. Saw a model of a blue whale which they now admit is slightly larger than the real thing. Even so it’s surprisingly large. Lots of photos of it being hunted and what they did with the products they extracted from its body. Hints that Russia and Norway are still killing them. Awful grisly photos showing the whales being led to their slaughter. Human beings used to think it was good sport. I know – I grew up in that sort of society. Unfortunately it still exists within a certain element in Australia. I think it’s entirely appropriate that the Blue Whale as a species has said “seeing you have tried to destroy me I will follow my collective unconscious and commit suicide by not reproducing”. Which is what it appears to be doing. It is not reproducing like the rest of the whale population is. Its numbers are simply not increasing. Mysterious but perfectly understandable as to why not. Lots to look at - but again – too many people. We came home by bus. Got caught in a traffic jam. Was stopped for 45 minutes. I kid you not. It was dark when we finally got going and because we were late the bus route was terminated early. This often happens apparently. Thankfully it was at Vauxhall. The bus was supposed to go through to Elephant and Castle. Left the Museum at 4.30. Did not get home until 6.15. On the bus for over 1 hour. Still it’s an adventure and we were not in any hurry. We experienced at first hand peak hour travel on the tube. Watched the news at 6.30. Later we watched Timothy West and Prunella Scales sail down the Welsh canals. We saw them when we were here last time sailing the English Canals. Still in perfect sunshine. Who says it rains in England. She has aged a bit over the past 2 years. Of course now that we have TV there is not much on. Jenny turned the heating down manually. Doing it digitally doesn’t seem to work. We needed to have a blanket on us for the night. Wednesday 6th December. Woke up at 5.30AM. Still have the hot pain in my right hip. The alarm on my phone is now working properly. Christine Keeler has died. Poor woman. Tragedy personified. Blood Pressure 125/66. Pulse 46. We made it to the bus by 8AM. But much panicking along the way. Walk to Oxford Circus not factored in. Once at Victoria we find there are several bus stations. Depending on where you come out of the Underground you can be a long way from where you want to be. All this contributed close to one genuine nervous breakdown. Not saying who. However we got there. Buses are getting closer to an airplane in concept. The driver’s area looks like a cockpit. Seats are much the same. Earplugs on the seats. Video screen attached to the seat in front. Very limited leg room. We seemed to be heading the wrong way – as per normal I was turned around. Went past Heathrow and Staines – or was it Slough. I had time to almost read The Times all the way through. Enjoyable. Not as good as it was 50 years ago but still better than most papers. I thought Stonehenge was closer to London. Does not look like winter. Plenty of lush green grass. Finally got to the Stonehenge Visitor Centre. Immediately took the shuttle bus to Stonehenge. Still surprisingly interesting. You cannot go up to the stones. You are roped off and walk around a circle set well back from the stones. You can get to touch the stones only if you do the rather more expensive night tour. Lots of information on plaques. The place is now owned by English Heritage. It’s surprisingly tasteful. We had several changes in the weather. Including a burst of sunshine. Made the place look much more attractive. A fair crowd in attendance. Most were tourists. Mostly from Asia. We talked to a young couple who were from Minnesota. I remarked that Fargo is set in Minnesota and it looks exceedingly cold. Lots of black humour about the snow and ice. I don’t believe they knew what I was talking about. But they were young and probably do not watch conventional TV. Had a fair amount of metal attached to various parts of their bodies. The visitor centre was OK. Gave lots of explanations. Plenty of examples etc. They have built some huts purporting to be similar to the buildings that housed the workers who built Stonehenge. Stonehenge wasn’t built in a day. So maybe the workers were not always there. The fact is no one knows who or why or how Stonehenge was built. Did the Druids build it? Maybe. Probably. They lived surprisingly sophisticated lives. We could change places with them without too much changes to our lives. Not much has changed in the life of humans over 3000 years. They do agree on where the stones came from. A long way away. There is one large piece of rock cut into shape with a sign attached daring anyone to try and move it. They have even gone to the trouble to put it on rollers to make it easier for whoever tries. It takes 100 strong men to move it just a fraction of a centimetre. We talked to a volunteer who recently returned from several years in Australia. Served in the Australian Army. He had some contract he said. Served in Sydney, Darwin and Canberra. I didn’t ask him how come he was able to return to the UK after he had served in a foreign army. We had a cake and cup of tea at the Visitors Centre café. Quite good. Finished reading The Times on the way back. Just like 50 years ago. Takes all day to read it. I felt totally attuned to The Times 50 years ago. It could have spoken for me. It did speak for me. I totally identified with it. I read it happily from cover to cover without hitting one jarring note. Totally immersed in it. I felt it was speaking to me. It was at my intellectual level. Or I was at its intellectual level. Do you get the picture? It reinforced all my political feelings and prejudices. The current paper is enjoyable but unfortunately it is owned by Mr. Murdoch and I cannot see through my prejudice. I don’t trust him to be unbiased even though the paper says it is. The format is essentially the same. The writing is good but does not seem to be as deep. I could be totally unfair. It’s always said that you cannot compare era’s with era’s. That was then – this is now. It can never be the same. Maybe we should be grateful to Mr. Murdoch for keeping The Times alive. Even if he does use it to bolster his own status. We got off the bus at Gloucester Road. Went to a Pret and had a soup with bread. Jenny had a long subway like stick of bread and meat and salad. She said it was excellent. We took the tube to Paddington to see if I could arrange our tickets for next Tuesday. I didn’t have the correct papers but the man did me a favour and arranged for the tickets to be printed. I had arranged and paid for the tickets via the internet before we left and the firm I used do not even have an office in London. Just as well we did a recce. We came home via the tube and walked looking for a firm called Maplins to see if we could get a new aerial. We walked to Soho without success. Lots of people about. But we did find a smaller shop and they directed us to where Maplins are in Great Portland Road. The landlord has given us permission to put a new aerial in. I think I inadvertently made a racist remark to the shop assistant at Maplins. I could tell by the look in his eyes he was hurt and considered me a conservative racist Caucasian who in turn considered him to be alien to England. He pointed out he was British born and raised even though he had an unusual accent. After I had said I was Australian I said I was more British than most English. Stupid thing to say and I know he took it the wrong way. I tried to explain that I was 70 years old who went back to Empire days. Even more stupid thing to say. Probably made it worse. People like him must get sick of being considered alien when he feels as English as anyone. He did look Indian but this is no excuse. Maybe not as many people in the street as last night but still too many people. Where do they come from? It’s worse than China. Britain will soon have to bring in the one child policy. Perhaps Brexit will make it possible. Denis Drinan has said we can visit next Wednesday and stay the night. Tuesday 5th December. Woke up very much alert during the night. I guess this is a perfect example of jet lag. Listened mainly to Radio 2 and Radio 4 and The World Service during the night. Scanned the whole spectrum. All pretty good. There is also commercial talkback similar to Australia with similar sentiments expressed. I actually listened to the shipping forecast. Or is it called the Shipping News. I can see why they make jokes about it. The announcer should get bored but appears not to. Up at 6AM. Blood Pressure 141/74. Pulse 57 Brexit Vote in the news. Northern Irish border the problem. DUP have reneged on their deal with the Tories. Lots of Northern Irish people interviewed. Is there a less attractive accent in the world? I thought that when the class system was demolished then accents would go as well. But they haven’t. Why? What makes people have accents? Especially unattractive ones. They must go eventually. You think the Irish are held back by not being the smartest people in the world but then you come across the Northern Irish and you don’t know what to think. They seem determined to be stupid. Unfortunately they aren’t smart enough to comprehend this. Still no TV. What do you do when you are awake and fully alert in the middle of the night? Left home about 9.30. Cold nippy overcast day. Not really cold though. 50 years ago I mainly wore shirt and jacket. Never an overcoat. Its still the same. Lots of young people hurrying to work. The place is different than 50 years ago. The young people are richer for one thing. They easily spend money on coffee and cake. They look much more sophisticated also. I felt completely attuned to them 50 years ago. Not so much now. Went to Charles Dickens House. Booked to attend a reading of Dickens work. Did a bit of reading in the bookshop/gift shop. Several books worth buying. A sympathetic book by Simon Callow. I will buy it and read it on the plane. We went by tube to Russell Square. This is where I stayed the first night I came to London. It also looks different to 50 years ago. We then had a fair walk to Dickens House. After that we went to St Paul’s. Took the bus. I am trying to travel as much as we can by bus. You get a better idea of the layout of the land – dimensions – distances – etc. We were trying to get tickets to a free performance of Handel’s Messiah. No luck. All tickets were sold out the day it was announced but we were advised if we came at 5.30 on Sunday and queued we might get in. We did gain entry to inside the Chapter House which was interesting. Went there to ask about tickets. Saw a painting of the Fire of London showing the fire before it got to St Paul’s. I have seen the painting in history books. This was the original painting. Over 500 years old and in good condition. Colour’s surprisingly good. Bright. Very good details of London Bridge and the old St Pauls before the fire got to it. The bridge did not get burnt but the fire came right up to it. They must have been able to somehow stop the fire coming onto the bridge. I suppose they would have had access to enough water from the river to stop it. Then bridge was made of wood and in parts was 2 stories high. People lived on it. Apartments above the shops. Interesting that after the fire they changed the local building regulations and all buildings after that had to be fire proof. Or were supposed to be. Certainly the new St Paul’s is made of stone and concrete. The Chapter House is stone with Brick Veneer. In Paternoster Square they have 2 table tennis tables set up. Jenny insisted on playing and got an Italian Women tourist to take our photos. But it was too windy so we did not play for long. A big Christmas Tree being set up. It is interesting to reflect that in the same place – and all of England for that matter – just a few hundred years ago all Christmas celebrations were banned. If we could recreate Cromwell’s day it would be exceeding interesting. We then had a long walk to The Barbicon Centre. We wanted to check out the free tours they have. Big crowd there. Some kind of academic graduation ceremony. Lots of young people in gowns and mortar boards. A slash of purple in their gowns. Does this mean anything? Both sexes and right across the heritage range. Lots of proud parents and grandparents having their photos taken with the graduating pupil. Lots of congratulatory handshakes. We had lunch in a Pret. It took us some time to find one. Normally they are pretty thick on the ground but this area is devoid of them. I had Chicken Soup and shared a bread stick with Jenny. They have a new innovation since we were last here – a half size soup - and she had one. After that we walked to the London Museum. Some changes since we were last there. But walked through all of it. The Roman history is the most interesting. The Romans were here for more than 400 years remember and the Brits tried to obliterate all of it. They hated foreigners as much then as they do now. More Victorian clothing items etc than last time. I would have thought that they would have made a special exhibition of television but no. Just a small screen showing an obscure children’s show. 50 years ago whilst there was less television than now some of it was better. There was rubbish on television 50 years ago believe it or not but there also was television that was so good it would easily beat anything on today. Young people hate me saying this but it’s true. We came home by bus. This was extremely enjoyable as the route was along High Holburn – the road seemed wider 50 years ago – I didn’t recognize anything – but the route took us past Australia House. I looked in the window where I used to work and there were 2 people in there. But this was the whole room – there were 20 or so when I worked there. The front door appeared to be open also. Went over Waterloo Bridge to Waterloo Station. Saw the Thames for the first time this trip. Came home via the Bakerloo line. No problem getting a seat. Went to M&S to buy some instant coffee. Dark at around 4.30. We had had enough of walking so came home and did not go out again. We have an interesting looking pub just two doors down we must visit. And there are lots of authentic looking eating places – a Skandi Noir – our English place run by the two girls previously mentioned. Our landlord has given me permission to go and buy a new aerial. Denis Drinan from the flat at 75 Eardly Cres has contacted me. Did a fair bit of walking today but I think I am getting fitter. Not so tired or sore. Had a few breaks from continually walking though. If I have a break I normally get a second wind. Monday 4th December. Slept through to 7.30. Intense pain in the right hip forced me to get up. Blood Pressure 130/62. Pulse 54. I have to get my phone alarm working. Overcast nippy day. Temperature about 8 Celsius. Not really cold. Did not wear jumper. We have some currency left over from our last trip that has been made redundant and we had to go to the Bank of England to get it changed. Would only change notes. Would not change coin. Said we should go to Tesco’s of Kensington where they will accept coins. Cannot believe that it’s so difficult to get it changed to acceptable currency. You would think the Bank of England would feel responsible. No explanation as to why this is. Modern thinking. Modern living. We then went to the Information Centre at St Paul’s. Saw a German girl named Doris. She spoke excellent English. Very wide vocabulary. How do people become so proficient in a second language? I would like to know. I complimented her on her language and asked her why she was called Doris. Not exactly a German name. She said she didn’t know but her parents must have liked British names – her sister is called Linda. We booked a trip to Stonehenge for Wednesday. More expensive than I anticipated. I hope it’s worth it. 50 years ago it was free. Stonehenge was situated in the middle of a paddock. Suddenly you saw it when driving along the road. Small carpark on the side of the road. A middle aged man was on hand to explain things. I thought he did a good job. Didn’t even ask for money. Maybe he asked for a donation. Cannot remember – but I do remember his enthusiasm and sincerity in telling the story of Stonehenge. And what he said. Where the stones came from. There is an outside ring of stones buried underground. There are other rings of stones in other parts of the country. No one knows why they are where they are or what their purpose is – except for aligning up with the summer solstice. A genuine amateur. Maybe he held out his hand for payment. But then we knew the value of money. Nowadays he would not be allowed within 1 mile of the place. From there we went to the Physic Garden at Chelsea. Took the District Line to Sloan Square and walked. Further than I thought. The map showing how to get there is not to scale. Interesting selection of plants cultivated for medicinal purposes. One small section of Australian Plants and some explanation of how aboriginals used them. Some were good for skin irritation. Others for removing fungus growth. Had lunch at the café. Excellent food. Great salad. All ingredients grown onsite. We returned to Victoria Bus station by bus. The bus passed us when we were 50 metres from the bus stop but the driver saw us attempting to run and waited for us. Made a joke of it. We made a recce for Wednesday to Victoria Bus terminal. Saw where the bus leaves. Had a walk around to check the place out. I once arranged to meet a friend on a Saturday afternoon at Victoria Terminal. Neither of us had been there before. No idea there would be so many people there. I knew she would have trouble finding me so I sat up on a window sill high above the crowd. The place was new then. The Victorian Line had just been completed. There was no roof over the bus terminal. Nevertheless there were a lot of people there but my friend had no trouble finding me. I thought I was clever. Now Victoria Terminal has a roof and a shopping mall is included. If you didn’t know the place you couldn’t say I’ll meet you at Victoria terminal without your friend having some trouble finding you. We came home via the Victoria Line. Went to Marks and Spencer’s to get things for tea. Home by 4.30. Getting dark. Both of us tired. I am without any energy whatever. To bed at 8PM. No problem going to sleep. Sunday 3rd Dec 2017. Woke up at 5.30. Blood Pressure 110/76. Pulse 76. Still no TV. Can get one channel that shows continuously Murder She Wrote and two other shopping channels. Cold overcast day. Mist in the air. No rain. Cannot see the sun so don’t know north from south or east from west. This is the disturbing thing about London in winter. You can never find your bearings. Growing up in Australia means you always know where north is by just looking at the sun. I had this problem 50 years ago and still have it. I don’t know in which direction to walk when I come out of the tube. I wore a jumper and scarf and I got too hot. We walked to Regents Park. Some people jogging. All ages. All sexes. Reflected on the fact that youth is wasted on the young as they relentlessly jogged past. Came across 2 grey squirrels as we walked into the park. Both expected treats. One even crawled a short way up my leg telling me to get busy. But unfortunately I had nothing for him. Quite a lot of the trees still have leaves on them. Is this because of climate change? You would have to say probably. Not many people feeding the animals. All the birds looked hungry. The water in the lake was extremely clear which indicates not much food in it. One or two eccentrics feeding the birds. One man had about 100 pigeons following him. They know me he said as we passed. Pleased with himself. One of the old school. Regents Park is larger than what it was 50 years ago. Or seems so. We finished up in Baker Street. Large crowd wanting to get into Madame Toussards. Watched as the doorman ran the scanner over a small child. I should have come back to London in my 40's or 50's when I prided myself on my ability to walk. I am too old for full time walking. I had had enough walking by 12.30. Not a lot of energy left. Intense pain in my hips and buttocks. We took the tube rather than walking home. Soup for lunch. There is a danger in coming home for lunch because there is always the temptation to have a nap. It saves some money but you can get trapped at home and not get as much sightseeing as you should. We shall see. No matter what the pain quotient I will try and keep at it. This is the last time we will come to London. In the afternoon we went via the tube to Trafalgar Square. Once again it looks different than it did 50 years ago. They have changed the traffic patterns for one thing. The dimensions look different. We looked to see what is on at St Martins in the Fields. We might go to something on Sunday night. In 1970 I was in Trafalgar Square one Sunday morning and I saw Bernadette Devlin making a speech to a small crowd. In the next fountain a german was shaving and washing himself. Very different now. We went to the National Portrait Gallery. Some of it is OK. But some of it is just plain dull. Portraits of people we have not heard of and nothing particularly special about the painting itself. I think it could do with a bit of culling. Maybe a lot of culling. And there should be more modern portraits. Most of the few modern paintings are obviously superior paintings. Some aren’t but you can see the difference and get my point. Extremely hot inside the building. It definitely drove my core temperature up. Took the opportunity to go to the toilet but of course the male toilets were locked so I went to the disabled female toilet but guess what? The lid would not stand up by itself so I had to hold it by hand. Designed for females only. Males who cheat and use it will be inconvenienced. Came across the BBC Radio building. Asked at the desk if there were any tours on offer. None but we could submit an application to be in the audience for a number of shows and therefore gain entry to the canteen which overlooks the studios. I have already looked on line and all are booked out. Interesting that the receptionist is from eastern Europe. The BBC are consistently consistent. I might come next Saturday morning and see if I can spy Danny Baker entering the building. Had my photo taken under the recently installed statue of George Orwell. One of Orwell’s quotations on the wall behind the statue can only be aimed at Thatchers Government and Rupert Murdoch. It is exquisitely defiant. But brave of the BBC to put it up. Interesting also that Orwell is smoking a cigarette. They have resisted the urge to be PC. We walked home. Lots of people in the street. It is dark by 4.30 and this is misleading. Makes you think its nighttime. More and more people as we got closer to Oxford Street. Not as many as last night but again too many people. I suppose they are all shopping. Lots of people taking photographs. Must be tourists. Foreigners. Will they still be here after Brexit? No doubt the English want them all to go home. What was the Brexit vote except an expression of the long held “we hate foreigners” prejudice of the English. Struggled to not go to sleep by 6PM. Without television there is not much else to do but to fall asleep. Saturday 2nd December 2017. Woke up at 7.30. Blood Pressure 119/80. Pulse 72. How can this be? Perfect on the first day. Is this a portent? Television still not working. Disaster. What to do? Our landlord is away on the continent somewhere. The air bnb add said both TV and Cable TV available. We walked to St Pauls. Quite nippy outside. Need gloves and scarf. I only had gloves. Jenny wanted to visit a London Information Centre. It was worth it. I recommend it. They have a lot of good publications. I particularly want to go to the Gresham College free lectures that are held in London but unfortunately there are only 2 in December. Lots in other months. These lectures were in existence 50 years ago and I occasionally went to them. I didnt go as much as I should have because I didnt think I would ever leave here so there was plenty of time to go at another time. I didnt have to hurry. This is the story of my time in London in 1971. Suddenly I had to leave when I had only barely scratched the surface. I had not even started. Walked past High Holburn. I remember once coming across High Holburn during a lunchtime walk in 1970. It looked different then. But then everything does. Walked through Paternoster Square near St Pauls. What is this place? I will have to look it up. We came back by bus. We should try and only travel by bus this time around. In 1970 it was lower class to travel by bus so I didn’t. Or partly why. I didn’t really know the bus system like I knew the underground system. Now it’s not exclusively lower class. And more enjoyable. Our bus takes us to Oxford Street Terminal pretty well opposite Great Titchfield Street. Big crowds in Oxford Street. We walked around side streets near our place just exploring and had a Lentil Soup in a local eatery run by two young girls. Excellent food. We should eat there every day. Extremely nice young girl from Coventry moved to London 1 year ago to manage the shop. The other girl is from Georgia. Judging by the state of the food they produce hard work is the order of the day. What with what the rents around here must be I don’t know how they make a living. We are living in the centre of London. Centre of the world really. The rents should reflect this. We went out again at 4.30 or so and walked along Regent Street but didn’t make it to Piccadilly Circus as we intended. Too many people. Some kind of demonstration outside the Canada Goose Store made the street almost impassable. Disciplined chanting from the demonstrators. Mostly women. We turned off Regent Street and went towards Soho. In 1970 I walked the length of Regents Street from Oxford Street to Piccadilly Circus and I did not see one other person. Admittedly it was about 9.30 on a cold night in winter. Every shop was closed. Nothing was open. There were no eating places at that time to attract people. It was so quiet that when you walked past each shop you could hear the interior music from inside the shop playing the musak of the day. Things were different then. Was it worse or better? Both I feel. I can remember the walk well. I enjoyed it. I commented to myself that I was doing something significant. Walking along the bright lights of Regent Street all by myself. Window shopping. Now you have to struggle just to keep on the footpath. There is a danger you will be pushed on to the road. Too many people. Even more than China. English women are so much bigger than what they used to be. They have grown approx. 30cm in 50 years. They are also so much more confident in their attitude. They now own the world. We inspected a new shop that sells soap products made up to look like food. Lots of people in there. It must be a new fashion. You can get facials etc. Have your skin rubbed with products which include blueberries etc. It didn’t look too appetizing but I watched a young girl having the works done. Face covered in clay. Arms and shoulders having some slime substance rubbed in. She appeared completely to be without embarrassment. Thursday 30th Nov Tarnook/Friday 1st Dec London. Left home around 5PM 30th Nov. Thursday. Departed 10.30 at night. We arrive London 11.30 AM Friday morning 1st Dec. Journey of 25 hours. We pass through several time zones. Hot day. James drove us to the airport. We left under the threat of 12 inches of rain forecast. If we get that amount you can more or less guarantee a flood. James said he would stay the night at Alex’s. Lots of new glamour stores in the international part of the airport once you get through border security if that’s what they are calling it these days. Not a lot of fast food places though. Only one really and lots of customers. Finally got on the plane. It took off and turned left towards Adelaide. Almost immediately went over ocean and stayed that way for all of the journey. Skirted round Perth and headed north. Maybe the weather is better over oceans. We stayed over the ocean – the inflight map showed all the troughs and peaks under the sea – and even flew all the way up the Red Sea. Duboi airport is fairly extensive. We only had time to go from one plane to the other. Airport so large there is a shuttle train service. Airport full of people. Notably the airport is a silent airport. No public announcements. Squat toilets in the women’s toilet. Men queued up to go in cubicles in the men’s toilet so maybe squat toilets there also. Not much sleep. But don’t feel too bad. Jenny has not got sick. How airlines are not making loads of money is beyond me. Every seat taken. A380 Airbus must hold 500 at least. Three/four/three configuration all the way along the bottom deck. Then there is the top deck. Very large plane. Mostly young people. I did not think the food was up to standard. One meal had three sausages and I could only eat one. I normally love airline food. In all meals everything except for the hot portion was frozen. Bread rolls were frozen etc. Butter frozen sold etc. Salads frozen. Most hot food was pretty tasteless. Chips were soggy. Very soggy. Nothing specifically Middle Eastern as far as I could ascertain. Simply a bad imitation of western junk food. Watched three movies. Churchill. Dr Zhivago and a Jackie Chan Chinese fantasy. None were any good. Dr Zhivago has aged badly. Julie Christie just not appropriate - looks wrong. Churchill film was simply boring. Actors no good. Only the bloke who played Churchill OK. How they make such crap movies about historical figures is hard to understand. Jackie Chans was set during Japanese occupation – lots of money spent on sets, uniforms, guns etc but still a silly fantasy film even though the subject matter was important. Hundreds of Japanese killed etc. I listened to Mozart and Beethoven. Listened all the way through to Beethovens 6th and 9th. Some Mozart I had not heard before. Listened all the way through to The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute. I cannot recall there being so much dialogue in either Opera. In this case it seemed there was more dialogue than music. The standard of music in the recordings was not as good as I have heard elsewhere. Listened for a while to a lecture on Mozart and the Romantic period. I have always felt that Mozart wrote with his heart and Beethoven wrote with his head. But of course Mozart was a genius whose only interest was to write good music. Did Mozart write a brum note ever? Did he ever write anything that was not worth listening to? Of course his purpose was to provide music. Of course he knew he was good at it. The best even. He didn’t write with the intention he would be worshiped 200 years later. He just wrote the best he could for whoever paid him. Sometimes he didnt get paid. Because he was a true genius he deserves to be remembered. Hayden was wrong. Its more then 200 years and we still haven't remotely seen his equal. Beethoven was deaf when he wrote the 9th so it’s debatable if he heard any of it. I would have liked to have been in the audience at its first playing. It would have been gob smacking. The audience wouldn’t have known what hit them. It’s still gob smacking listening to it. There’s so much in it. The second movement fairly thuds along. Machine like. And the third is even more amazing. Did he know it would be his last symphony so he made it a killer? Or did he do it simply because he was commissioned to do so? Hard to say. If he had been commissioned to write a 10th it may have even been better that the 9th. Soft landing. Hardly noticed it. Brilliant sunshine. Not a cloud in the sky. Big crowd at the UK Border. Long wait to get through. In the past we have arrived early in the morning – 6AM or so and got through quickly. Not so today. Today it was 11.45. Lunchtime. Not as many inspectors available. Once you are through however it’s all happening. We still had our Oyster Cards from last time so it’s straight onto the Piccadilly Line. Changed to the Central at Holborn and off at Oxford Circus. More steps that I would have liked at both stations. It’s not exactly convenient with cases and bags. People asked if they could help but I had visions of them running off with the bags so we said no. Found Great Titchfield Street and walked 300 metres to our flat. Gained entry without too much trouble. Lots of stairs. But quite warm. Everything we need except the TV does not work. Internet and Wi Fi OK. We walked to Marks and Spencers in Oxford Street and bought our tea from the Food Hall. Lots of people in the street. Lots of street eateries. Tried to turn the heating off before going to bed at 8PM. The English love over heating every building. So different to 50 years ago. Hugh Hefner has died. He lived a long life and he is another person I never expected to die.
I admired Hugh Hefner. Not only because he lived out his dream but because he kept at it and kept it in perspective. He never became arrogant. Even though he could have and had reasons enough to do so. But he remained surprisingly modest. At heart he was a gentleman. I think in his way he respected women. Not all women believed this. He probably did not have an intellectual relationship with any women except maybe his daughter. Or on the surface this is what it appeared to be. But who knows? If you are attracted to women who are only interested in their own looks does this make you an exploiter of women? How many women are there who are only interested in their own looks? If you have such women lining up to satisfy your desires is this exploiting women? If you have a idea that there are lots of men who are only interested in pretty women and you satisfy this interest does this make you an exploiter of women? Hugh Hefner was lucky in that he was able to establish a magazine that became popular right from the first issue. He did it all himself and he was able to keep power over it. He loved the magazine. It was more than a business. It was more than a living. It was his whole life. I was able to read Playboy in the late 60's and into the mid 70's. I didnt read it all that much from then on. I guess I stopped mainly because of lack of opportunity. And expense. I have to admit that it was passed on to me by a person who got it from his brother in law who subscribed to it for the wrong reasons. He had a whole room full of Playboys. I can honestly say I read it mainly for the articles. The magazine did have intellectual content. Of course I did look at the photo's. Who doesn't like looking at naked girls. Hugh obviously liked looking at naked or semi naked girls. His trouble was his sexual interests stayed the same all his life. He never progressed beyond what his sexual desires were at puberty. But who does? Norman Lindsay was painting a young nubile amazon the night he died. Hugh never married or had a relationship with any girl who was over 30 as far as I know. Even when he was over 70 he still fancied young girls in their 20's. He simply followed his sexual likes. He liked pretty looking girls who were it is admitted mostly vacuous and not interested in the world. And he didnt mind saying so. But is this exploiting women? Maybe. Who knows. I was attracted to Playboy because I agreed with Hefners attitudes on social issues. And his politics. I was particularly attracted because he was always against the Vietnam War. Long before it became fashionable. And he said so. He wasn't afraid to have opinions. He had a moral attitude that was lacking in the establishment. He wanted to change the world. The magazine did have a certain sophistication. It did have a certain sense of humour. The articles were interesting and well written. The magazine and by inference Hugh was interested in lots of things. And I found it interesting. I probably had the same beliefs as Hugh. I might add I also subscribed to Time Magazine at the time. So of course I did not read every single article and I was not totally immersed in the magazine. I read it for what interested me. It was against the Vietnam War. It was for racial equality. It was against segregation. It was interested in the world. Travel. Different cultures. These were important things to me at the time. I admired Hugh Hefner because he was not a good looking man. He could not be called handsome by any stretch of the imagination. He did not look strong minded. In fact he looked weak minded - easily exploitable - especially by women. And strong evil minded men. He did not look as if women would find him attractive. He did not look like a man's man. He was not what you could ever call a locker room jock. He had nothing in common with shock jock's. His television show was tasteful. He was not trying to proselytize anyone. He did not appear to be a hail fellow well met type. He did not look like he would be at ease in the company of ego driven men. He did not look like the type of man who would enjoy off colour sexual jokes. He probably enjoyed the company of women more than men. If anything he was a humble man. He was always polite. He was not an egoist. If he was not so successful would anyone have taken him seriously? After his death a documentary was shown on TV. This was mostly sympathetic to Hugh but of course being American they had to have balance. So they had various right wing people expressing their disapproval. The star in this camp was Pat Boone. A number of things emerged that should make Conservative America eternally ashamed but of course they wont be. Hugh once had a secretary that had a fiance who was addicted to cocaine and the fiance financed his own addiction by selling cocaine. In time his girlfriend - Hugh's secretary - became to depend on it also. The Secretary and her fiancee went to Florida on holiday and while there attempted to purchase cocaine but the deal was a set up by the authorities and they were caught. They were charged but it never came to court. When the authorities found out the she worked for Hugh Hefner they offered her a deal - say she bought and consumed cocaine in the Playboy Mansion and all charges would be dropped. They put a lot of pressure on her - threatening many years in prison if she did not cooperate - and finally she cracked and committed suicide. The conservative right always feel they can go to any length to eliminate people they hate. And they hated Hugh Hefner. They went to great lengths to try and destroy him. Yet by any standards he was a true American Hero. The star hater was Pat Boone. His contention was that Hugh Hefner was a pornographer. He gave what he called many examples of this. He claimed that Hugh unlike Pat had a low opinion of women. Pat Boone reminded me of Billy Graham and if they ever make a bio film of Billy Graham they should have him in the lead. They are both perfect examples of extreme right wing super hypocrites. Pat Boone claimed that because Hugh had Marilyn Monroe on his first cover this proved he was a pornographer. His claim was that Marilyn was on heat when the photo was taken. Did Pat Boone ever talk to Richard Nixon and do we have him on tape like we do Billy Graham. Pat Boone is a hypocrite. How can he critisise Hugh Hefner when Boone's whole career has been predicated on him being eye candy for women. What is he except a pretty boy. He has no talent. His only talent is his looks. What I cannot remember is if I was ever affected by the nude photo's. Did I find them pornographic? Did I ever get an erection looking at the photo's? I cannot recall ever doing this. Certainly I did not masturbate looking at the photo's. They did not produce an instant erection. I looked at them because of some spurious curiosity. They seemed all to be young country girls who had absolutely nothing in common with me. I have to say that even though some were extremely good looking they all unfortunately gave every indication they were pretty dumb. Definitely not my types. If anything I felt sorry for them - if you can ever feel sorry for good looking women who have no interest in anything except their own looks. Masturbation did not seem appropriate. I have often tried to think about Einstein’s Theories, Quantum Mechanics and Dark Matter. Not sure if I understand it all. But hopefully thinking about it might speed up my understanding of it. E=Mc2 Energy equals matter multiplied by the speed of light squared. Energy and matter are interchangeable. Energy is created by matter and light combining. Equally Matter is created by Energy and Light combining. This is how the world was constructed. After the big bang that is. Except for Dark Matter. Maybe. A lot of this is conjecture. More than half the world is made up of Dark Energy and Dark Matter. Neither of which is visible. Dark Matter does have gravity but does not appear to have mass. A central query of life is whether anything can travel faster than the speed of light. Is there anything in the world apart from electromagnetic energy? And can Dark Matter be attached to it? We all muse over Einstein’s theories and the big bang. The beginning of the world. Just what occurred at the big bang. I have long tried to understand quantum mechanics. Most of what makes up any object is space. There is space between each atom. Is anything in this space? Is it only electromagnetic forces that holds matter together? Question: When matter approaches the speed of light does the matter break down into its component parts? When mass approaches the speed of light does it resume the components of Energy and Light Question: Is it possible that dark matter can be energy that moves faster than the speed of light? If it is moving faster than the speed of light and we could somehow harness it could we travel faster than the speed of light. Dark Matter does exert a gravitational effect? It is said that without this gravitational effect the galaxies would pull apart. In the world of the infinitely small where gravity has no effect why doesn’t Dark Energy have an effect. Maybe it does have an effect and we don't yet understand it. Question: Does Dark Energy have an effect in Quantum Mechanics? Is this gravity influencing the behavior of small matter such as quarks etc.? Is it possible to quantify this? I will keep writing about this as thoughts come to mind. Odd Man Out.
What follows is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. In the early 50’s an itinerant family moved to Meadow Creek. Father Mother Daughter and Son. Where they came from or what their background was I don’t know. Father was what was called a seasonal worker. This meant he found part time work on local farms depending on the time of year. They moved into a house not far from the school that had been deserted since the war. It had no electricity or running water. They had no car. Neither the father nor the mother drove. The overwhelming impression their appearance gave was that the whole family were poor. They certainly looked it. Both parents had prominent teeth missing. The father was skinny and the mother was stout. She always wore socks instead of stockings. Their clothes were unfashionable and looked like hand me downs. They had that second hand look. The children’s clothes looked handmade if that. What they were made of was previously used or previously discarded. They were torn and tattered. Their shoes were always scuffed and falling apart. The girl was in grade 3 and the boy was in grade 2. The boy was white skinned with red blotches and he had large freckles all over his face. He had frizzy red hair. The girl was grey skinned and also very freckled but her freckles were black. She had grey frizzy hair. Neither child was muscular. The girl was shy and introverted. Silent. The boy was more open. He always wanted to be friendly but no one wanted to be friendly with him. Society at that time was structured in a strictly rigid form. Graziers were at the top of the ladder and seasonal labourers were at the bottom. Society was ruled by a strict class and caste system although no one admitted it. The children at my school followed this class hierarchy with great determination. The two children came to the school in the middle of the term and on their first few days had to stand out the front because there were not spare desks or chairs for them. When the furniture came the teacher gave definite instructions as to how each should carry and take care of their chairs. This was a sore point with him. Chairs and desks were scarce. He had a thing about furniture being broken. It was a punishable offence. It meant the strap for anyone who broke anything. These two children were never accepted and they were mercilessly treated by the rest of the school from the start. It was said that their parents were not married. It was also said that the father had a touch of the tar and both these rumours were often expressed by the older pupils as having great importance. Children obviously got these beliefs from their parents and elders. I didn’t really understand why these beliefs were so important but I did not question it. The statements concerning the two children were made with such authority. What was said seemed to be so all encompassing. It was not uncommon to see a group of girls half chasing the girl around and calling in unison tar baby tar baby because of her dark skin. The girl would be in tears but no one cared. This was fun. They knew they would never be stopped doing it because the girl was not liked and she was both unattractive and poor. The result was the girl spent a lot of time by herself crying and sobbing. Her body would heave with sobs and this only made the mob happier. She was an outsider and was not liked. She was not an attractive girl. She could not defend herself. She had no dignity. It was as if she deserved it. I cared but of course I said nothing. I did care. I felt sorry for her. My heart went out to this poor girl. I wanted to go and put my arm around her but I didn’t dare. I did not want to be seen as the odd man out. I did not want to be thought of as being sympathetic with this undesirable person. I did not want to be thought as being the same as her. I was frightened I would be treated the same way. No one would talk to me. I hated being teased. I always felt so humiliated when I was teased and was always struck dumb. I could never go against public opinion. So I stood silent. I was frightened. I did not know what to do. I had a great longing to be part of the mob. I wanted to be accepted. I felt I could do nothing. A few weeks after their arrival there was a reorganization at the school. Desks and chairs had to be moved around. Children had to pick up their chairs while the grade 6 boys moved the desks. All the young children were standing holding their chairs. One of the popular boys lifted his chair above his head and attempted to hold it like a circus performer would. He said look at me and tried to swivel it around. He quickly lost control of it. It fell to the floor with great noise. A leg was broken off. The whole class looked to see who it was. It was the son of a prominent farmer who was on the school committee so we all relaxed. He would not be punished. The teacher never punished some pupils and he was one of them. But for some reason the red haired boy spoke out – “look Mr S – he’s dropped his chair – are you going to give him the strap? Look at me. I’m holding my chair properly”. The room of students found this funny and laughed out loud but the teacher found it infuriating and he ran at the boy shaking his fist as if to hit him. The laugh was caught in everyone’s throat. What would happen? The teacher did not hit the boy but went up right into his face and screamed at him. Imbecile. Stupid. Idiot. Shut up. Get out of the room. The boy wilted visibly and stepped backwards. He started to cry silently. The rest of the children started laughing again. His sister came to his aid to comfort him. She put her arm around him. Some pupils even jeered at her. The teacher turned around still fuming and strode away. I did not laugh. I stayed silent. I knew a great injustice was occurring. I knew something terrible was happening but I was powerless to do anything. I could do nothing. I felt sorry for both of them. I wanted to go and stand with them. But of course I did not. I did not know what to do. I stayed in the background. I was one of the crowd. I did not want to be noticed. I did not want to be seen to be connected with their lower class. I did not want to be disliked. I did not want to be associated with these two undesirable children. I did not want to be thought of as being the same as them. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be popular. I did not want to be thought of as being different. I did not want to be the odd man out. Has the world changed? Official Eminent Person: Odd man Out I once went on a government sponsored march. It was a symbolic gesture which ended with a ceremony to acknowledge the Kulin aboriginal people and their traditional ownership of the land. The walk started from outside the NGV and proceeded along St Kilda Road to an area past Government House to a spot in the Botanical gardens where there was to be a ceremony acknowledging the traditional ownership of the Kulin people. And speeches. It was held on a Sunday morning and St Kilda Road was closed to traffic. The weather was overcast and cool. The government sponsored the walk. I heard about the walk because I had had to go out of the office on Friday morning and during the drive I heard on the radio Melbourne’s shock jock Neil Mitchell denigrating the event and as usual pouring contempt on the Labour government’s intention. I thought this made it important enough to go to. I wanted to try and make a statement even if I knew that by going I would not make any difference. I had long been concerned at society’s attitude to aborigines. I knew I had always lived in a racist society and I always felt uneasy about it. For all the talk about what aborigines had been given by the government I knew they were never given two things – power and acceptance. I despaired over whether aborigines would ever be accepted into the mainstream of society and wondered if they would ever be given power – real power – which had an effect on the behavior, status and wealth of Caucasian Australians. I could not get anyone else from my family to accompany me. The event had received a fair amount of publicity and might give someone a reputation they might not want if it was known if they attended. I already had the reputation of a being a left wing ratbag in the extended family – and a mean one at that - so I had nothing to lose. I drove alone. I was lucky enough to find a free parking spot and walked to where the march assembled. I was not surprised by the number of people who turned out for the march. There was not an overly large crowd but there were a satisfactory number. I deliberately started in the middle of the marchers and determined I would push my way towards the front during the course of the march to get a feel of who were attending. I wanted to see if I recognized anyone. Maybe people I knew might be marching. Famous people maybe. I was not disappointed. There were surprises. There were actually some celebrity matrons marching. At least two. For part of the way they walked together. These women actually often appeared in the society pages. Was this a fashionable society event? Maybe it could become one. I looked around to see if there were any celebrity photographer’s accompanying them but unfortunately not. I would not get my photo in the paper by lurking in the background. Apart from Bracks and Brumby it seemed that all of the Cabinet were there. There were a number of things that struck me. They were all young and were all well-dressed. Suits and ties. Sunday best. They talked in small groups all the way along. Sometimes one or two would leave the group and join another group. The three of four groups were constantly changing. The talk never stopped. I noted there was not one joker among them. They were all serious people intent on the matter at hand. I did not attempt to get close enough to eaves drop on what they were talking about. Politics I assumed. Party problems. Cabinet matters maybe. The rest of the marchers left them to their discussions. There was one odd man out. An Eminent Person. He was even officially designated as Eminent. Or more precisely one eminent couple. A man and wife. Mr Malcolm Fraser and Mrs Tammy Fraser were amongst the marchers. They both looked as if this protest march was the most natural thing in the world for them to do on a Sunday morning. They were showing where their sympathies lay. Both were happy to talk to people as they walked. I walked close to them for a fair length of time. I was interested to see who were drawn to converse with them. They were not mobbed by fans but nor were they ignored and left to walk alone. Most people who approached them were middle aged or over middle aged. I would say that the majority would have been Liberal Voters. They looked conservative. Some were New Australians. Beneficiaries of multi culturalism who wished to express their appreciation. There were some aboriginals. A lot of shaking of hands. There were no problems or unpleasantness. It was all very civilized and Mrs Fraser was particularly charming. People obviously enjoyed talking to them both and the Frasers liked talking back. I was so close to them at one point Mr Fraser looked me in the eye inviting me to come up and speak to him but I declined. I could not bring myself to speak to him. I could not help pondering as to what his motives were in attending this march. Why was he doing all these odd things at this point in his life? He was in effect now acting as the conscience of the nation. What was he looking for? Was he looking for Atonement? Forgiveness? Absolution? I had not forgiven him for his actions in 1975 and how could I give him succor now? So I went home and wrote him a letter. Which in turn led to some humour. I wrote to him that while I congratulated him and his wife on participating in the march I could not bring myself to talk to him. I agreed that their attendance in the march gave it a status that it would not have had if they were not there but nevertheless I still had issues with him that were unresolved. I could not forgive him and take him to my heart as others did. I pointed out in my letter that I thoroughly disapproved of his actions in 1975. I felt that more than anything his actions were immoral. Highly immoral and he could never get away from this. I pointed out that Democracy is an arrangement that is agreed to by the participants and that he had betrayed that arrangement. It is a matter of honour more than anything and public figures must act honourably. He had definitely not acted honourably. It did not matter that he had a chance of seizing power and that anyone else would have done the same thing. In my mind this made it worse. I particularly pointed out the immorality of his actions in guaranteeing the Governor Generals pay and pension in 1975 values before he was appointed Prime Minister. And I felt his recent claim that he had always been against Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War was hard to swallow. And his claim that he always saw himself when he was Minister for The Army as being the champion of and the protector of Australian Soldiers against the dangers of excessive American Policy was extremely hard to comprehend. I also said however I thoroughly approved of some of his recent utterances and congratulated him on his stance on many issues. Views that were now thought to be controversial and going against public opinion. Even appearing to be opposite to what he expressed when Prime Minister. I finished up by asking him if indeed he was now seeking Atonement. Forgiveness? Absolution? I said I did not wish him to reply and did not give my address. A few weeks later at work I received a phone call. I was out in the factory checking on a production matter when a message came over the loudspeaker “phone call for Neville Gibb. Malcolm Fraser for Neville Gibb on the phone”. I picked up the nearest receiver and it was not Malcolm Fraser. But it was his secretary. How she tracked me down I do not know. This was before facebook. She had some questions. She said Mr Fraser had read my letter and he would like to reply to it. Could she have my address? After some discussion I said I preferred to decline a reply and she accepted this. I was polite about it. For the next few days I was often asked by bemused people if they had misunderstood the message on the loud speaker. Was it really Malcolm Fraser on the phone? How did I know him? What did he want? Of course I did nothing to disabuse them of whatever was in their mind and emphasized our close friendship. Malcolm and I were like this – close collaborators - buddies. We often talked on the phone. I particularly led my boss on with tales of being Malcolm’s close collaborator. Same school etc. Obviously the same politics. Same charities. Friends with his daughter. Talked to him all the time at the Football. Etc. I think he half believed me but being rusted on anti labour he did not know whether to be jealous or contemptuous. How could someone like me know Malcolm Fraser? The march ended with a quite formal and well organized smoking ceremony. I had never seen one before. A proper and somehow inspirational acknowledgement of Aboriginal Land was read out. Again I had never witnessed one. This was surprisingly serious stuff. Some short surprisingly relevant speeches were given. All by women. Change happens slowly. But maybe it can happen. Jenny and I recently attended a Van Gough exhibition at the NGV. We went in a trip organized by the Benalla Gallery and we traveled by bus leaving at 8AM and returning at 5PM. It was an enjoyable day. Because we already had tickets we did not have to queue for long when we got to the gallery. The bus journey from Benalla to Melbourne seemed to not take long either. Van Gough’s pictures are not his best but this is a small criticism. I would for once like seeing some of Vincent’s killer pictures but the exhibition does show how Vincent progressed. Most of the pictures are early but there is one of his very latest. As is normal with artists Vincent collected a lot of drawings etc from magazines, newspapers etc to give him inspiration and maybe they just caught his attention so he cut them out of newspapers etc and a good third of the exhibition was examples of what he had collected and maybe stacked in a corner for looking at later. But because he had collected them they were thought to be important so were kept by his estate. Some were interesting. Mostly not though. More importantly Vincent collected and was obviously influenced by Japanese wood prints and there was also a room of Japanese Prints. The Gallery owns the best Hokusai print of them all – The Great Wave and fishing boats in front of Mt Fuji - and this print was in the exhibition. The others came from all over the world and were in effect a world class exhibition of Japanese Prints. This exhibition was impressive on its own accord. These woodcuts – sometimes rolled off in great numbers for the masses are obviously of a high artistic standard and are well worth seeing. What can we discern from them? Do they give an indication of Japanese life at that time? I don’t know. Maybe. They do comply with the universal art standard – do you feel you understand the artist? The answer is definitely yes. This aspect of Japanese Art somehow made its way around the world and the world was intrigued. And still is. But this is surely because it is simply good art. You cannot help but being impressed. Vincent’s exhibition starts with his early drawings and progresses from there. No one can say Vincent suddenly appeared as a ready-made genius painter. He worked at it for a long time. He was extremely prolific. He did lots of drawings. He tried hard to get it right. Don’t let me mislead you – he did have talent – but he was hardworking as well. You cannot help but admire him. Some of his pencil drawings are exquisite and draw on your heartstrings. He did lots of drawings in pencil, pen, charcoal and ink and they are all good. Sometimes he is obviously copying to a certain extent other great artists or is giving his version of their paintings. Probably just to see if he could I assume. Or to work on his style. When he started using colour you can see how he was influenced by the Japanese woodcuts. In one or two he more or less recreates the previous Japanese woodcut or he transposes the subject of the Japanese print into a local scene. The exhibition does not have many of what I call Vincent’s killer paintings. Only one – maybe two. This does not lessen the value or enjoyment in any way however. Vincent experimented with many styles before he settled on his own distinctive way. He was of course well known in Art circles when he was alive. He was respected by other artists. He knew all the Impressionist painters and he tried to set up an Artists Colony in Arles. Unsuccessfully unfortunately. Some of his early works are extremely commercial. He tried to produce paintings that would be attractive. Some are obviously set up to be attractive to the viewer. eg The Shepherd and his sheep. As he progressed he was able to bring into his paintings the essence of the subject landscape without giving a complete reproduction of the image he was painting. His landscapes around Arles completely show the viewer just what the landscape looks like. Of course he could do portraits as well. And he would have abandoned or painted over any painting that did not come up to scratch. As we know he was extremely prolific. This exhibition emphasizes how Vincent liked the seasons. It also shows how he could experiment. Eg. The Green Vineyard. This is almost a recreation of a Japanese print done in impressionist style. In fact it is exactly this. He even has Japanese women parading through the vineyard with their parasols. The question is: why do we like Vincent’s paintings? Why do we think he is a genius? Why are his paintings so valued? The short answer is that they are valuable because they are so good. We recognize their goodness immediately. They are attractive. We understand them. We are drawn to them. Our heart goes out to his paintings. We agree immediately that this is the painting of a genius. I also think that good painters can organize paintings to fit on the page in a way that the eye finds attractive. This is their genius. It looks easy to the eye. It pleases our brains. There is a balance to the painting. Our eye travels round the painting in a measured way – slowly and happily – without stress. Vincent learned how to put paint daubs on a canvas that depicted images we understood and sympathized with. No matter what his emotional and mental problems were they did not interfere with his work. He kept on producing no matter what his circumstances. He was hard working and prolific. He had a fight with Gaugin and in a fit of jealousy and disappointment he cut off his ear. But what else did he do? - he went home and painted a self portrait. Nothing interfered with his work. He knew what he was doing. Good on him I say. When I went to France I went to Arles because even though I only had a limited knowledge of Vincent's life I knew he had lived in Arles. And I must say I was not disappointed. There are no paintings of Vincent's in the Arles Gallery. There are no blue plaques in the town. But when you move around the country you keep turning up in Vincent's paintings. Suddenly you look around and you are in the middle of a painting. You recognise it immediately and totally. Its both amazing and thrilling. We love what he did. Our appreciation of his pictures are our belated judgment of his work. How he would have handled our uber fandom is hard to say. CANBERRA
I have been to Canberra a number of times. The first time was in 1953. I went with my parents. And my mother’s sister and her daughter. Two cars. We were driving from Moyhu to Dalby in Qld. We must have made a detour from Gundagai. I distinctly remember stopping and looking at the Dog on The Tuckerbox. There were a lot of other people doing the same thing. It was a tourist attraction at the time. In Canberra we parked in front of Parliament House. It was gleaming white. A large building seemingly out in the middle of an empty paddock all on its own. There was recently cut bales of hay in the paddocks. No other buildings were visible. We did not go inside the building. Later on around 5.30PM we drove through Civic. The only buildings were the Melbourne and Sydney buildings. The workers had knocked off at 5.20 and were queuing up at three or four points in Northbourne Ave waiting for buses to take them home. The road was unpaved. Dusty. My mother and her sister (who was travelling with us in her own car with her daughter) both expressed critical comment at how easy a life public servants had. Their work finished at 5.20. How soft. In 1965 I went to Canberra by myself. I stayed in a cabin at a caravan park a short way out of town on the road towards Sydney. I must have arrived on a Wednesday or Thursday. The town was working. I would go into town at about 8.30 every day as if I was working. I would sit in the square with the public servants as they had morning tea or lunch. The weather was sunny. I listened to a Policeman on the radio advising people how to get home on Friday night. I tried to go to where there were people but there were not many about at night. On the weekend in Civic there was only one Coffee Bar open. This was the only place open in all of Civic. Not that Civic was very big at the time. This was called the Lemon Bitter. A rock group had recently played there. There were still notices on the walls and on the tables advertising this. They were called the Bitter Lemons. The playbill said The Bitter Lemons at the Lemon Bitter. It had a Photostat copy of 5 young men on it with the exciting news that they were shortly coming to the Lemon Bitter. I spent some time over the weekend in the Lemon Bitter but I didn’t see much that was exciting. The Coffee Bar was not overwhelmed by customers. I felt slightly ashamed at taking advantage by sitting in the place for all afternoon and only buying one coffee. There must have been some connection between the Bitter Lemons and the Lemon Bitter but I was too shy to ask the owner how the concert went and when they would next be playing. I drove from Melbourne via the Princes Highway taking the Sluggin Buggin road to Jindabyne. It’s a long road and I did most of it at night. I didn’t enjoy it. I tried to sleep in my car but could not as it was too small. A Mini. I had a vague idea that this was the site of the Snowy Mountain Scheme and in one small town I saw a group of men walking together along the street – maybe 50 – and I concluded that they had to be workers. On reflection I don't know who or what they were. The Snowy Mountain Scheme was wound up by this time. But they conformed to stereotype. When it got light after Jindabyne the road was flat and straight. I drove on to Canberra. At the time I was suffering from insomnia and had come away from Melbourne deliberately without any medication. This trip cured me. I have never suffered from it again. I went to all the tourist attractions. The Mint. The Turtle shaped Science building. Parliament House. I saw question time where Arthur Caldwell questioned Harold Holt. I went into the Senate. The Liberals were in the ascendancy. The Labor members had this defeated hang dog apologetic look about them. I did see Gough Whitlam for a few moments. He seemed to be the only Labor member who held his head high. During a speech to a mostly empty chamber a Liberal member accused Gough Whitlam of doing something and the Labor whip went and got Gough. Gough strode in for only a few seconds and shouted “I told the Truth” which set the Liberal speaker back on his feet and Gough left the chamber. Frank Crean was one who tried to make reasoned arguments but to any Labor point the Liberals would always shout – “what’s your Vietnam Policy”. Their comeback to any Labor person was “what’s your Vietnam Policy”. The Vietnam War was very popular at this time. The Labor Party alone were against it. To me this was depressing childish stuff. Especially as I already knew the Vietnam War was wrong. I was already convinced that the Liberal Country Party government and anyone who voted for them were immoral. I looked at the Embassy area. The American embassy looked like it was designed by George Washington. It did not have a fence around it at this time. It had a little hut out the front with a guard in it. The Japanese Embassy certainly looked Japanese. There were only limited embassies at this time compared to today. There was not as much vegetation as there is in 2017. It was easier to see new buildings. Most buildings were new. Northbourne Avenue was only about 1km long. It ended at the first intersection. The Mint was virtually out in the country. Canberra has been planned. Of that there is no doubt. At that time the Civic area was surrounded by enormous carparks. In time these carparks have been built on to the point where now it is difficult to find a car park. In each successive round of building the buildings have got bigger. And higher. Civic is now at a point where there cannot be any new buildings. Old buildings will have to be rebuilt. The Melbourne and Sydney Buildings remain intact. But Civic has moved towards the north with each successive new building project. I am an admirer of Canberra. I think it took people out of their misery and gave them something inspirational. It showed that the public service could be a good thing. Canberra is socialism with a human face. Socialism has always been a dirty word in Australia. Not enough has been made of Canberra. Or socialism. Canberra shows that planning is good and I don’t know why Australians see planning as something to be resisted. Compare the difference between Gundagai and Canberra. It is not just a matter of money. It is the way people think. It is an example of the pettiness and small mindedness of conservative people and how they hate to do anything different. You can tell by looking at them that people who live in Gundagai are the opposite of the free thinking people of Canberra. I would not like to live in Gundagai. I know instinctively how they vote. We went to Canberra to go to Derry McPhail’s funeral ceremony. It was well run and everyone who spoke expressed their devotion to him. He deserved it. I had emailed what I wanted to say to Christina and I half expected that she would disapprove and when James phoned me I wasn’t surprised. But I was determined to say something so I made sure I was on the list of speakers. I have to say that the list was very impressive. Except maybe for me. Everyone expressed their admiration and devotion towards Derry. Some were deeply emotional. But Derry did deserve all that was said. One person sang one of Derry’s favourite song. I admit to being the weakest and least impressive speaker. I was the odd person out and I’m sure no one understood what I was trying to say. But I had my say and I don’t regret it. I genuinely liked Derry and wanted to make some statement in public. You can see it on youtube. We stayed in ANU student accommodation. The furniture was pure PWD. I loved it. All wood. We discovered an historic building within the ANU area which was the First Administrators Home. I think this was code for the British Administrator before he was termed High Commissioner. There was a time when Australia had no foreign policy of its own. We didn’t do much touring. We went to the National Library and looked at the display of Cook’s log. Cook wrote a lot but always to the point. And not always interesting. Nothing about himself. Never panicked when in trouble. You can read the one time he gave a seaman so many lashes punishment. Very matter of fact. When did he write the log? Every night? You find the time they arrived at Australia thinking he might make some comment out of the ordinary but there is no great revelation. I wonder what he was like as a man. Would have seen right through me I suppose. Also on display were 50 fashion photographs which were not worth looking at. Athol Shmith has a reputation which he doesn't really deserve. All he did really was photograph his model wife. But maybe there were not many others who did this and that is why his work has endured. The Library normally has good displays and this was out of character. Bill Cawthorn has died.
He is better known as Bill The Busker. He was often seen busking outside Target in Benalla. He did say that his job was busking and he had done a lot of it. He had been slowly busking his way around Australia and he was staying at Painters Island in Wangaratta when he met Tammy and had got caught in Benalla. At times he had gigs in hotels in the district. He said that he entered himself in the occasional talent show or open mike night. Tammy would drive him. I had visions of grandeur by thinking I could become his manager. I could fulfill a dream by becoming the Brian Epstein of Benalla. I got to know him by just listening to him. I became a fan and in time I would sit for all his set and be entertained. I would try and go into town when I knew he would be playing. Of course I could not resist offering him advice between songs. But he took it in fairly good humour. And I have to say by me offering him superfluous advice about his songs and singing style in time we became friends. We didn’t socialise all that much but once he did come to my house to listen to what I could offer him in the way of songs. I wanted to teach him to sing Smokey Dawson’s “Memories of Old Khankoben” but because I was slightly more advanced in music and as I only played the piano it didn’t come off. We agreed that he and Tammy would visit for tea one night and we would work more on the song but the night never eventuated. He wasn’t all that keen to learn more songs. He had his repertoire written in his two books and that was really enough for him. Wasn’t interested in Slim Dusty. He claimed he was from a different generation. Didn’t sing folk songs. Click go the Shears? – “never heard of it”. Wasn’t interested in the Beatles. Or The Rolling Stones. Although he did claim to be an expert on Frank Zappa. This was a contradiction. He claimed he knew every song off Zappa’s first six albums. When I expressed skepticism he said it was true. Every song. When I further said I found this hard to believe he took me at my word and said he would prove it by singing every song. After three songs I admitted defeat. Not that I knew even one Frank Zappa song. He could have been making them up as he went for all I knew. But I believed him. He could not play them on the guitar of course but he obviously had listened to the albums an untold number of times and had committed the songs to memory. He could tell you details of Zappa’s career and private life. He was obviously a fan. This went against his general claim that he had limited taste in music. Of course he could have been following in the grand tradition of imitating Dylan’s personality. He was in effect a colleague of Dylan and would have known his attitudes. He could have been pretending to be Dylan. He could also have been taking me down a peg by taking the mickey out of me. We did meet once in the supermarket both pushing trolleys and I have to admit I found this an enjoyable experience. We gossiped in between the aisles. Leaning on our trolleys. I enjoyed his company. In retrospect we could have spent more time in each others company but unfortunately we did not. We do not believe we are going to die. He nearly always said he wasn't well – but as he did not look ill I didn’t believe him. He did say at one stage he had sworn off drink. He did tell me that he had over indulged in sex drugs and rock and roll to excess in his younger days and that he had come off second best. He was permanently affected. His kidneys were not functioning properly. Maybe also his liver. He had health problems he said. But I did not expect him to die. We did have some conversations of a personal nature. We discussed children, families etc. He did say he had enormous regrets about the relationship between himself and his children. Or lack of. He did say that he had not been able to resist sexual temptation when he was younger and that he had unfairly treated his first wife. He confided that he carried feelings and that he always thought of her when he sang “Wish You Were Here”. And he always sang this song whenever he could. This was his version of the Pink Floyd song and he did a pretty good job singing it. Obviously it had a special meaning. He admitted that Tammy had worked out that the song was not about her and did not like him doing it. He said he did not have good things to say about his second wife. He did not blame her - he admitted responsibility – but he would have preferred his druthers to be different. The relationship had ended badly and he did not want to reestablish contact. In time he said he had contacted his daughters and was talking to them again. I feel I did have some responsibility for his actions because I was always asking him if he had made contact with his children. And if not why not? Didn’t he love his children and miss them? We did do a fair amount of talk about children because he was having a hard time with his step children. I did not envy him. I only had limited contact with his stepchildren but they summed up more or less all the problems that are caused by the difference in generations. And step parents. Just how much contact should there be between a step child and a step father? Of course the mother has total control. Is it possible to love step children? Will the mother ever allow it? I only saw the step children when I visited Bill at his house. I sometimes saw the girl at the Learning Centre but she never looked in my direction. The boy of 12 or so was always sullen and resentful. Never deeming to make any contact or admit your existence. The slightly older girl was totally silent. She mainly sat in her bedroom and looked at her mobile phone. She looked miserable and I’m sure she was. I wanted to look both children in the eyes and say that I understood them perfectly. I had felt the same way when I was their age. I knew how they felt. We are all human beings. There was nothing unique in the way they felt. I felt particularly sorry for the girl. She is a large girl. More correctly overlarge. She would have had enormous problems in coping with the wider society. She will always have difficulty in getting a job. No one would ever be prompted to help her. But of course I did nothing. If I had it would not have been understood. And I am sure not appreciated. That’s why I say older women should be taking more interest in young girls with problems. It’s a subject that I probably bore people with. And I’m sorry to say women resent my comments. With all the talk about feminism there is not much real attempt made to relieve the problems of young girls by older women. It’s a sore point with me. Older women should be taking charge of young girls and helping them. They aren’t. One day I met Bill in the street and he said he was breaking with Tammy that very day. He could not continue with his step children. It was too toxic at home. It would be better if he left. He wanted to leave and still be on good terms with Tammy. He said he was going to camp in his station wagon. All he needed was a place to park. Well this presented me with a problem. I did have 150 acres on which he could camp. Plenty of room. I was in a kind of dilemma. Could I tell him to come to our place without first checking with Jenny? We were going to Tasmania early next week for a fortnight and a few weeks after that we were going to China. James was supposed to be coming to stay with us and Tom and Jane were supposed to be coming with the children the weekend we were in Tasmania. I said I would get back to him. I spoke to Jenny and she said he could use our spare bathroom. He could even use the caravan maybe if he wanted. I sent him a text saying this but by this time he had made other arrangements. He replied by text and I have it in my phone. I will keep it forever. “Thank you kindly my friend, very generous but I have things sorted for now, stay in touch my man, stay, you stay true” This was the last contact I had with him. I did send him a photo of a busker in Beijing singing much the same songs as he did but he did not reply. His funeral was a successful affair. It was held at the Gaudi Monument and was compared by a young Salvation Army Chaplain who admitted he had not known Bill. But he was sincere and authentic. I liked him. People were encouraged to say something and I could not resist speaking. I’m not sure anyone understood what I was saying or my intent. But I was speaking to Bill rather than the congregation. I could have been silent but why? People did not look at me when I spoke. What conclusions should I draw? The Chaplain finished up by reciting the prayer of King David. As usual I found it ironic that a Christian should recite a Jewish prayer with such conviction. I have always felt this contradiction. Doesn’t this prove we are all Jews? So why do some Christians still hate Jews? Later on at the wake at the Hotel I was approached by Bill’s daughter. What a revelation. She thanked me for saying something at the ceremony. She was attractive, well-dressed and sophisticated (although she had not heard of Frank Zappa). Forty years old but did not look it. She did not have children. She showed me a photo of Bill’s first wife. Also an attractive sophisticated looking woman. Also a revelation. What was Bill doing? He obviously wasn’t telling all about his past and his previous socioeconomic level in society. His daughter showed me a photo of Bill when he was in hospital and unconscious. Close to the end. Thankfully she had been able to get to him before he died. But he couldn’t talk. He looked awful. He could have been E.T. When it came to say goodbye to his daughter I asked if I could kiss her hand. Which I did. I am not the type of person to have friends but Bill and I could have been friends. He was after all a friendly fellow. He was not judgmental. Once in the street when he was busking he was approached by a man who was nearly half naked and this was in August – very cold. He spoke kindly to the man for a few minutes and at the end of the next song he explained to me as only he could – some people have mental issues. I am ashamed that I did not take charge on the day he said he was leaving and I wish I had got him to come to our place that very day. He might still be alive. But I was hesitant. He would probably have asked me to come to his place if the roles had been reversed. I wanted to tell his daughter all this but of course I did not. I felt by kissing her hand I might send a message of regret to Bill to mitigate a bit for my actions. He was living in the Edi Cutting when he got sick. I am familiar with the Edi Cutting. It is right out of my childhood. Elements of my extended family live at each end. It might be pleasant living there for most of the year. But a person with a malfunctioning liver is up against it living there in the middle of winter. I WAS THERE I was there the day the world changed. Because there once was a day when the world changed. This day actually occurred. It really did. We live in a world that appears to be fixed. And in most ways it is. Our world does not often change and sometimes no matter how much we want it to change it never does. In many ways we don’t want the world to change and go to great lengths to prevent change. If you go through life expecting that the world will never change when the momentous change occurs it is hard to know what to make of it. In my case the world did change and would never be the same again. I found it both exhilarating and a letdown. Pleasing and disappointing. Both traumatic and healing. Soothing and disquieting. All of these and more. The day itself was almost perfect weather wise. The first week in October. Not a cloud in the sky. A cool fine day. There was a slight breeze. If you stood still you could feel the cool breeze across your face. I have always found this pleasurable and remember it to this day. I am reminded always when I experience this sensation. Tom and I left home early. I was fulfilling a long held promise to him. It had been touch and go whether I could keep my promise to Tom but after a lot of stress and effort I was able to arrange it. We took the normal route to our destination and had no traffic problems. Neither of us are superstitious so we did not see this as portentous. But in hindsight you could read something into it. On arrival I fulfilled another long held promise in that I allowed Tom to buy a magazine that I had always denied him previously because I considered its purchase a waste of money. But I was pleased to see him read the magazine and get a lot of enjoyment from doing this. I had never seen my son take so much interest and concentration as he did in carefully reading every word in this magazine. We sometimes get pleasure in ways we never expect and I remember the pleasure I experienced in watching him added to the enjoyment of the day. He was ten years old and I could see the joy he took in reading. We had to wait a long time for the ceremonies to begin. But we waited patiently. Finally proceedings started. The world actually changed over the course of the next two and a half hours. This sounds trite but at the end of proceedings the world had changed forever. The actual event still seems like a dream. And like all dreams I only remember fragments. Some things have been indelibly imprinted on my brain and others have been wiped forever from my memory. I remember small unimportant things and I do not remember other things that have later been deemed important. In reality I only have vague memories of most of the day. I have no sense that two and a half momentous hours passed. I cannot remember either Tom or myself uttering a sound. Certainly neither of us can remember any involvement or reaction to what was happening. That is until the end. Towards the end I wanted the last 5 minutes to go on forever but of course it went in seconds. I did not dare make a sound until the actual end. Then I made myself known to everyone. Or tried to. The world had changed. I was there when it happened. What a thrill that my son and I could share in Collingwood's triumph. Postscript: I tried to duplicate this experience with my other two sons. Each one was taken to a Grand Final but Collingwood reverted to type and lost both games. One by a close margin and one by a large margin. Both sons understood and forgave me. Neville Gibb
May 2017 Derry McPhail has died. Sudden heart attack.
He was on holiday in Vancouver and was taken ill just before he and Maria were getting on a ferry. He had some chest pain. He lost consciousness quickly. He could not be revived. I regret his passing. I regret not spending more time in his presence. I had the chance and did not take it. I liked being with him. Like him I did not think he would die. He was after all younger than me. He appeared to be healthy. He was a large powerfully built man who had never smoked or drank. He had no vices. He ate healthy food. His nickname was Bear and most people called him Bear. This was because he looked like a Bear. I have never liked nicknames and called him Derry which was his real name. I felt this was both more respectful and more affectionate. He was Emeritus Professor in Geology at the ANU. He was a PhD. I believe his Doctorate was in The Movement of Gold. He was the smartest man I knew. When I was with him I always felt I was in the presence of a very smart person. He did not always advertise this though. He was a modest man and respectful of others. I never discussed this with him but I felt in a way that he lived his life on two planes - one when he dealt with ordinary people like me - and another plane where he lived within himself and dealt with his own thoughts and maybe on this plane also dealt with other equally smart people. I did ask him once if he had got his job because he was such a good teacher. He answered no and said it in a way that gave me to understand that for some reason I should not push the subject further. I took this as an indication of his modesty. I asked him once if his own father was a large man like him and he replied that he was adopted. I then asked if he was interested in finding out if he had siblings etc and he again said no leaving me to understand that it would be better if I did not question further. I'm sorry I did not push him further because I believe he had indigenous Canadian genes in his makeup. He was a very nice man. He was nice to everyone. He was not superior in any way. He was well liked by everyone. I cannot believe that there was anyone who actively disliked him. He could make anyone feel at ease, And he made everyone feel at ease. Including me. I loved him for this. Once we both went to the opening to the Arboretum in Canberra. He only went because of me. The ANU had a small stand handing out brochures and pamphlets etc advertising the ANU's wares and seeking paying students. He could not resist going up to the young girl manning the stand and offering her encouragement. She was all on her own and not getting many takers. You could see by the look on her face that she appreciated his attention. He was this kind of person. Very encouraging. He was an Ice Hockey Fan and played all his life. He was a mainstay of the Ice Hockey competition in Canberra. He was often away from home either playing or organising Hockey Games. He played me a video of how Ice Hockey developed. He watched it with me with intense interest even though he must have seen it many times before. I only knew him because he was the father of my sons spouse. He was Canadian who came to Australia for work - first at Monash and then at ANU. He worked at Princeton prior to Monash. This indicates the intellectual circles he moved in. I doubt I would have come into contact with him if it was not for my son. Still I was glad that I did come into contact with him. I liked the time I spent with him and would have liked to have spent more time with him. Even if he was a different class to me. He more or less treated me as an equal. At least I think he did. In the late 50's Moyhu was a thriving place. There were 3 general stores. There was a butchers shop. There were 2 garages that repaired both cars and farming equipment and sold petrol etc. There was one Police Station. There was one Lands Department Depot. There was one Railway Station. There was one Hotel. There were two Milk Factories. There was a River Trust Depot. There was a transport company. There were two sawmills. I had one relative working at one Milk Factory and one uncle worked from time to time at one sawmill. All these organisations employed people. The prosperity of the place was due to the fact that the Government set the price of milk. Everything else flowed from this fact. I was once in Moyhu at 5.30 on a winters afternoon just on dark. This was unusual because we would normally be home milking at this time. We must have been late for some reason. I witnessed something that struck me as what sophisticated town people did and it has stuck in my mind. I saw the Receptionist/Secretary of one of the machinery garages finish up for the day. She put a cover over her typewriter. She cleaned up her desk. She put on her fashionable looking overcoat. She walked around and said goodnight to everyone else. She then walked up the street to one of the other stores to get her ride home for the night. It was quite a long walk. She lived in Edi. It was the act of her walking that reminded me of how different my life was to hers. She walked in semi darkness and the noise of her walking reverberated through the misty night air. The clip clop of her high heels on the asphalt and the unhurried way she walked struck me as sophisticated. Extremely sophisticated. She had finished her job for the day. She had all the time in the world. She was going home to relax. She didnt have to hurry. She had nice warm clothes. She was young and attractive. She had a weekly wage. She had a good life. I instinctively knew it. In a way I hated my life. I had to go home and milk in the dark and cold. It would be hours before I could eat. I would be hungry until then. My life was always insecure. Always close to poverty. It was always a struggle to make money enough to live. Work was never ending and certainly never enjoyable. This girl seemed to have a much better life than me. She lived effortlessly. There was a great divide between town and country even on this small level. This example highlighted it. I have just been told that Ray Mckenzie has died. Ray lived in Moyhu in the 50's and I saw him a lot. Ray McKenzie was my fathers first cousin. His mother and my grandmother were sisters. They were both Porters. I loved my Grandmother and I felt she loved me. I once stayed at her place for a week and it was a week of bliss. She lived in a Housing Commission House and was thankful for it. My mother always thought this was something to be ashamed of and I knew I should never mention it in mixed company. My father always bought her milk and cream when he visited and on this day I was so excited about staying with her even though he was warning me severely to watch out for the glass containers when I was getting out of the Ute I still managed to hit them with my feet as I swung them out the door and knocked both bottles out onto the ground where they both smashed. It was like watching a cartoon. I was powerless to do anything else. My feet just hit the bottles and I was helpless to stop it. My father made me walk in and apologise for breaking them but of course she said it was OK. There was a milk bar just up the road she explained. My father and mother both had a close relationship with the younger Porter sister. The relationship was made less simple because my fathers mother was much older than her sister and my fathers aunts children were much younger than he was. He was much much older than his cousins. His aunt was not much older than him. Also for some reason my own mother was close to Rays mother. Almost best friends. The two Porter siblings seemed to be from different eras and did not have a lot in common. To my mind they were very different. My grandmother was a more serious person. She did not indulge much in gossip. She did not speak disparagingly about others behind their back. Her mind was on higher matters. This was in large part why my mother didnt like her. My mother felt much happier when in the company of the younger Porter sister. She never felt comfortable in the presence of her mother in law. Ray was more or less my contemporary. He was about 10 years older than me. He had three older siblings and two younger siblings. One of his siblings was younger than me. I felt he was almost my contemporary. I looked up to him. I liked being with him. But I knew he did not have a good reputation with everyone. He was always friendly to me. He was always happy to see me. He once lifted me off the ground by my head after I asked him. He would always do what you asked him to do. But Ray was friendly with everyone. There weren't many people he didnt like. He was nice to everybody. But of course not everyone liked him. Some people treated him with contempt. I was warned by my mother not to get too friendly with him. It is not easy to describe him without resorting to cliche. He did not do well at school. He left school at the first opportunity but this was not unusual for the time. He worked at various jobs. He was for a time a Policeman and I was surprised when he left the Police Force because I thought he would have been good at it. He had uncles on his mothers side who were high up in the Police Force. He came home and lived with his parents until he got married. He made his living as a driver in his later years. He was not always good with money. Once he had his car repossessed and this was a great talking point within the extended family. He tried but did not succeed at lots of sports. He entered lots of country gifts. He took part in boxing matches. He tried basketball. He played football. He had a go at virtually anything. The verdict of the extended family was that he was wasting his time mainly because he didnt win any of what he entered. This sentiment was always passed on to me. Unless you win you are making a fool of yourself. At one point in the late 50's an event happened to him that had long lasting effects. Because Moyhu was a thriving place it had a good football team. Every young person wanted to play football and competed to get into the team. Ray was no exception. Early in the season Ray was not named in the team but he was named 19th man. There were several young men who were considered good candidates and Ray was the first who made it into the team albeit as 19th man. Ray was both excited and pleased. He celebrated getting picked. When someone between thursday night and saturday pulled out of the firsts Ray expected to go into the team as he was 19th man. But on saturday they brought someone else into the firsts and left him as 19th man. Ray objected to this and refused to play. He requested a clearance to the team 20 miles up the road. As far as I know only one person supported him and that was his father. Everyone else thought he was being stupid and said so. This highlighted the problem with Ray's life. He wasn't the type of person who people automatically respected. Ray was the type of person who people did not care if they hurt his feelings. His feelings were for some reason always considered unimportant and could be ignored. In any extended large family there are always individuals who are looked down on and Ray was one of these people. It was my mothers fear that I would turn out to be one of these people. I was frequently lectured about this. My mothers great concern was that I would bring shame on the family. When Ray refused to play for Moyhu they played dirty and held up his transfer for as long as they could. This was pure bloody mindedness but entirely typical of them. Finally after appealing to the League he had his transfer and went and played with King Valley. Moyhu kept their satisfaction intact but in reality King Valley obtained a loyal servant for the next 50 years. Ray played with them for a long time and when he retired from playing he became a loyal unpaid servant. The next year when King Valley played Moyhu for two quarters Ray played on his brother Bill. Bill was more talented than Ray and was expected to play all over him. Bill was an up and coming star. The Moyhu crowd took an intense interest in the clash between the two brothers and made much derogatory comment to Ray about his lack of talent. But on the day Ray shaded Bill. He played so well Bill had to be moved off Ray in the last quarter. This did surprise people. I know because I was there and I witnessed it. I don't think anyone from Moyhu congratulated Ray after the game. I'm sure they didnt. But Ray would tell you if you asked him. Probably went on a bit too long about it but why not. In 2017 the first game played by King Valley after Ray died the team played with black armbands out of respect for Ray. This is only fitting. Ray deserved it. Ray always reminded me of Bob Hawke. He had the same looks and talked the same way. His mouth moved the same way. For the past 6 weeks it has been my privilege to be responsible for 3 kangaroos. These 3 Kangaroos are orphans that have been raised by an animal welfare person - Shirley - who lives in Benalla. They are all survivors of traffic accidents. They are all approximately 14 months old. They had the run of Shirley's house until recently when she moved them outside in order to get them used to being released into the wild. She has brought them to me to allow them to integrate slowly into the landscape at our place. We have both open and treed country.
Of the 3 one has more or less moved into the landscape and has only been home twice. Of the other two - one I call little Skip - has stayed close to home and comes home most nights. The other one comes home every 3 or 4 nights. Skip likes to go with him but seems to lose him after a day or so. All three were still being bottle fed when they arrived and all three still like a feed when they come home. The first thing they demand when they arrive is a bottle. For a few days we could sometimes see them moving around in the open country exploring the place. Since then they have moved into the overgrown areas and keep themselves under cover. When they arrived we had a small section at the back door enclosed because Shirley wasn't sure how they would react if they were just set free. After 2 days we took down the shade cloth barriers and allowed them to go free. They coped remarkably well. They didnt panic or run off. They slowly had a look around. They saw the trees and gravitated towards them. They seemed to blend into the landscape very easily. They looked very much at home very quickly. One night early on some local Kangaroos came into the yard and had a good look at them. It is possible seeing that we have only seen one kangaroo since then that she immediately integrated with them. I believe that this kangaroo is a female. The two that still keep in touch are males. This makes sense as females would be accepted much more readily than males into the wider mob. I would love nothing else rather than have a pet Kangaroo that lives inside the house and lies on the sofa next to me keeping me company and talking to me occasionally as we watch TV. But this was not the intention when Shirley raised them by hand. The object was always to re introduce them into the wild. So we have a balance to aim at. They may always be aware of our presence and always see us as a benign force in their lives. But hopefully they will live most of their lives in the bush. The only worry I have is the road. We live on a gravel road with not much traffic but there are a heartbreaking number of kangaroos killed on this road. The human beings who live around here are immoral creatures who have little concern for the native wildlife. This is a sore point with me. Some farmers believe it or not have licences to kill 100 kangaroos a year. No one cares if they kill kangaroos with their cars. We shall see. Little Skip indicates that he would like to come inside but so far I haven't let him. He puts his head through the door and jumps inside but I quickly usher him out. In my short time with these little Kangas I have come to some conclusions. 1. I don't think they readily distinguish one human from another. All humans look alike to them. 2. I'm fairly sure they recognise each other. They are pack animals. But we humans can be in their pack also. I'm fairly sure of this. 3. They live in the moment. They don't think about the next 20 minutes or the last 20 seconds. They live in a constant bubble. 4. They are without guile. They are innocent creatures who trust everything until they panic and then they panic completely. Afterword. All 3 kangaroos have departed from our immediate area. We have a neighbor with a large dog - a cross between great dane and greyhound. This dog is very large. It is a friendly dog and likes chasing animals. It has several times wandered here and discovered we have Kangaroos. On one occasion it came it saw them and chased them but they managed to get away. The next time it came it saw a mob about 2 kilometres away and immediately went into a wild flap and ran until it caught the mob. It then chased them until it separated a young kangaroo from the mob and then chased it until it caught the kangaroo and killed it. He didnt so much attack the young kangaroo meaning to kill it - only to catch it. But of course it broke the kangaroos neck. The dog is so big and so strong it is impossible to get it to stop. It can jump a fence a metre high without any problem. Even 2 metres would not cause it any problem. It can run flat out for 5 or 6 kilometres. The little Kangaroo that was killed was not one of my kangaroos. But my little kangaroos having been chased away are not likely to come back. Why would they trust me enough to come back? Now what are we to make of this? I once visited a neighbor when Jess was alive and I asked her where her dogs were because Jess always liked to say hello. She just said 'Oh they are away in the bush bashing roos". No further explanation was necessary. Farmers do not give any importance to the deaths or otherwise of native animals. If the dog had killed a sheep instead of a kangaroo it would have been a big thing. Much more concern would have been shown The dog would most probably be dead by now. As it is the dog is looked on with sympathy. Some people would even call it heroic. I think this sums up all conservative voting australians. I grew up embedded in a society where these values were prevalent. The Spiegeltent is currently in Salamanca Place, Hobart. One of the shows on at the moment is called Velvet and stars Marcia Hynes. Hobart appears to be a happening place. There are large crowds of happy looking young people and not so young people thronging around the harbour and Salamanca place. Both day and night. The city area is pleasantly inhabited by mostly young looking professionals. There is approximately one cruise liner per day in the harbour. This adds some glamour to the ambience. Not all the people who throng the area at night appear to be tourists. People get off the cruise liners and take the tour of Hobart. But this is during the day. At night even without the crowd from the cruise liners Salamanca place environ is really happening. We went to a show at the Spiegeltent. This was a mixture of trapeze acts, solo drum performer, juggler, hoola hoop dancer and Marcia Hynes. The show was Ok but I had seen it all before. Many times. The trapeze act was similar if not identical to any travelling country circus act of the fifties. The solo drum performer apart from the modern high tech amplification was the same as any pretentious drum solo from the late 60's. The hoola hoop act was the same as any in 1956. It was new in that it was a man instead of a woman who initially pretended to be gay and no good at hoola hoop dancing but of course he turned out to be whiz at twirling hoola hoops. And he was entertaining. His hula hoops were electrified and glowed. He could make them look psychedelic. He could make patterns. His body language was believable and he played up to the audience. He danced well. During the show the noise was turned up to 11 and vibrated through your body. His act was no exception. Marcia sang a few songs and took part in the theatrics but her amplification was also up to 11. She did appear to be singing live but she could have been miming - it was hard to be sure. Marcia is a big girl and has put on weight as she has got older. And she has not put much effort into covering up her stomach or keeping her figure. Have all performers stopped resorting to proper foundation garments? I regret this. Marcia should try and be sexual. She could make herself much sexier by wearing corsets. She did not sing any solo ballads that suit her voice. As always in these situations I turned my attention away from the stage and looked to the audience for my entertainment. Just what did their faces say? What information could I glean? What prompted them to come to this show for example? Some were bopping in their seats. A lot were smiling. All were looking with intense interest. A lot were entering into the spirit of the show and responding whatever the artist was doing. Not a lot of the audience were young. Not a lot were old. Most were over middle age. Were there more men than woman? Maybe. But not many. Mostly they were couples. Some were groups of girls out by themselves for the night. All appeared to be hungry for entertainment. The question is - who were these people and where did they come? What are their back stories. What are their lives like? What motivates them? Who are they? People who could afford it I suppose. The show was on and people are looking for entertainment. During the day there was a girl busker in Salamanca place who had more talent than any of the performers. And she was more entertaining. She sang like an angel. I would like to know her name. Her picture is on the Salamanca Place website but her name is not mentioned. I regret not buying a cd from her when I was offered one. When I was 10 or 11 a circus came to town and in entertainment starved Moyhu of course we children insisted on going. One of the acts was a man with two horses. He could ride both horses standing up with a foot on each horse. Part of his act was boasting to excess about how good he was and he asked if anyone in the audience could also do this. There was plenty of children who put their hands up claiming they could and I was one of them. I hadn't ridden two horses side by side but I could certainly ride a horse standing up in the saddle cossack style. Maybe I was the first to jump in the ring because I was picked to take part in his act. His act was to question me as to what I could do and to act surprised and disbelieving at my answers. He didnt believe I could do what I said I could so after asking me to take off my shoes he bunked me up on the horse and attached a safety harness to my waist. I had no problem doing two circuits of the ring standing up and he made the comment "just my luck to get a smart alec kid" which of course brought the house down. He then pulled on the safety harness which lifted me off the horse and made me rise up high in the air and swing around in even smaller and quicker concentric circles. This caused oohs and aaghs in the audience. I was up fairly high. He then said 'get on the trapeze and see what you can do then seeing your such a smart alec" and the audience again laughed but he was joking this time and let me slowly down to where we both took bows to nice applause. I was aware I was flying around through the air and I enjoyed it. I would have even tried the trapeze if I was allowed. I was always jumping on stage when I was young when visiting stage shows and circuses came to Moyhu. There was a lot in those days. The Blind Concert. The Deaf Concert. An RSL fundraiser. A Sports Day concert. Maybe two circuses a year. I saw a very young Slim Dusty sing two songs that if my memory serves me well were before Pub with no Beer. I remember laughing uncontrollably at the clowns and comedians. Uncontrollably. Of course that was before I grew old and cynical. Martin Sharp and Richard Neville were more or less contemporaries of mine. They are both now dead. People who I consider contemporaries are now starting to die. This is something that I never thought would happen. Last week there was a documentary on TV about Martin Sharp. Richard Neville was featured in it. The documentary must have been a few years old because Richard Neville did not appear to be suffering from althziemers. I haven't yet exactly started to study the deaths column but atrial fibrillation has made me consider my mortality. After my first AF bout I thought shortly I would just suddenly drop dead. I obviously haven't but my life has changed. Before I never expected to die and I acted as if I was 24 but now I know I will die. And suddenly people are dyeing. Heroes mostly. Am I being pretentious in calling these people my contemporaries? The normal person would say yes. But I feel they are my contemporaries. After all we all lead parallel lives. We are all contemporaries. I shared some interests with these men. I believed I was their equal. Not that I ever believed that they would consider me their equal. But with the passing of time I am convinced I was their equal. I had strengths that they did not have. I have had a longer road to maturity. I always recognised Martin Sharps artistic talent. Although I always thought he did not completely exploit it. Especially in his portrait paintings. I admired Richard Neville in that he was strong enough to do what he wanted. He was strong enough to ignore those who made the rules. They were both stars. They went to London in the mid 60's and were taken up by the avant guard elites. They were able to forge themselves life styles that were envious. In the end I could not understand why they left London. Why would you voluntarily leave when you didnt have to? But they both came back to Australia. And both more or less relapsed into obscurity. Richard Neville wrote the book on Sobraj. Martin Sharp set up the yellow house redeveloped Luna Park and championed Tiny Tim. I was aware of Australian OZ Magazine in the 60's. Sometimes at work men would pull a copy out of their back pocket and say nudge nudge look at this dirty photo. I wasn't a subscriber. I may have bought it once but although I agreed with its attitude and I thought it was a good thing and I wished it well I cannot say I was a fan. Its hard to describe public attitudes of the 50's and 60's. Menzies sums up the 50's and 60's in Australia. Menzies had some good points but in other ways he was lacking. He was extremely weak when it came to accepting what was perceived to be the avant guard. He was against it. He would not admit it but he was a genuine philistine. He had no interest in art. He would not consider changing the White Australia Policy. He thought a persons class was important. Most people agreed totally with his attitudes. We know whats best for you more or less summed him up. Question it and you will get into trouble. We will tell you what to do. I'm the most qualified. Certainly my family were Menzies supporters and all had this we will tell you how to act attitude. They did not like anyone who disagreed with them. I can recall some elderly relatives turning very nasty. They took any questioning of their attitudes personally. They didnt like smart people. None had books in their homes. None were interested in art. These things were considered a waste of money. Any interest in art was considered suspicious. Amongst my acquaintances and all my relatives any Labor voter was considered unpatriotic. In the mid 60's a modern sculpture was commissioned to be installed on the outside wall of a a new building in Sydney. This was duly done and caused a bit of a stir. It was very avant guard. Unfortunately the sculpture resembled a public urinal. The editors of OZ had themselves photographed pretending to line up at the sculpture and to urinate in it. This photo was published in OZ. It received a large amount of publicity. All people my parents age thought it was shocking. Martin Sharp and Richard Neville and Richard Walsh were charged with publishing an obscene photograph and received a 3 month jail sentence. This more or less sums up public attitudes in the 60's. I was often told by people older than me that we don't like the way you think. They would look me straight in the eye and I knew they meant it. I was against the Vietnam War and was bewildered and outraged by Australia's involvement. Consequently I was in conflict with public attitudes. We forget that in the early 60's most people were enthusiastically for the Vietnam War. Because of my attitude I was often threatened with physical violence by people of my own age. I was told by friends of my father that I should be put up against a wall and shot. It was not until the 70's that people changed their views on Vietnam. I felt powerless in the face of these public attitudes. I felt very much alone. I naturally looked to publications and organisations that protested against these prevailing attitudes. I joined the Labor Party. I went to party meetings. I joined Young Labor. Whilst there were many worthy people in the Party I did not get any gratification from being a member. I found the class consciousness that permeated the wider society was if anything more acute within the Party. Any person who was actually working class was looked on with a kind of vague embarrassment and were not ever going to be taken seriously. You had to have a University Degree to get onto any policy making body. And because this was Victoria anybody who supported Gough Whitlam or spoke in his defense was virtually kept in isolation. And treated with supreme suspicion. A lot of people were in the party for social reasons. As I was just a Clerk and had no Univerity Degree I felt left out. And I certainly did not enjoy handing out how to vote cards. I didnt understand how they made any difference and I said so at Party meetings. My view was people should have made up their mind before they came to the Polling Station. And there were always a certain percentage of people lining up who were aggressively antagonistic to Labor. I found it depressing. In parallel with Richard Neville and Martin Sharp I went to London. Unlike them I was not taken up by the artistic elite but like them I was welcomed by my equals. I'm being a little unfair here because I made no attempt to make contact with the Artistic elite. And I felt I was inferior. I was not artistic. But because I was after all Australian I took an interest in OZ Magazine and was proud of their achievements. I purchased it a few times out of interest - and to prove my patriotism. At the time there were several London alternative publications. Amongst others there was the Red Dwarf and The Trotskyist Newspaper whose name I cannot recall. I believe there was a Communist Party Magazine but I was not aware of it. There was the early Time Out. I myself read The Times every day and loved it. On Sundays I bought both The Sunday Times and The Observer. I more or less read both papers from cover to cover. I felt I was on the same intellectual level as they were and that they were talking directly to me. There was nothing alien about them. Every week I bought Private Eye. I had more interest in Private Eye than OZ Magazine. I understood the jokes better. And I felt that Private Eyes Politics represented more or less my Politics. I felt I understood Private Eyes politics. It didnt judge me where Oz Magazine seemed in a way to judge me. Oz magazines politics were more anarchic and destructive. And I didnt find it all that funny. But for some reason I bought The Schoolkids Edition. This was before they were charged with publishing an obscene publication. I should have kept it for it would have a certain interest today. I could show it to prove my hippy credentials. Not that I ever felt an accepted hippy. I felt that if I had ever approached Richard Neville I would not have had the same voting rights as he did. He was a real hippy. I was not. I did not find The Schoolkids edition to be all that shocking. A bit off putting maybe because it was slightly vulgar. I did not believe for a moment it would corrupt the morals of the young. It was more educational than anything else. One thing I did find a little shocking but also educational was a drawing of a virgina with a string coming out of it. Before this I had no idea that tampons had strings attached in order to remove them from a woman's virgina. If I recall correctly maybe also there was a diagram of an applicator. I suppose this kind of thing could have been shocking to the ordinary person. I had certainly never seen it before. I did not know applicators existed. The Judge who presided over the trial certainly took it personally and said some extremely stupid things. Thank goodness because this made any appeal certain to win. The Judge obviously believed the magazine was attacking him personally and that they all should be punished. And he said so. I was disappointed that English Judges could be so silly and bigoted. Australian Judges maybe but I couldn't understand how this could happen in England. Why would the Police prosecute a magazine for publishing a drawing they claimed was obscene? Could it be that the establishment in England was as morally corrupt as the establishment in Australia? Well yes. Unfortunately. Establishments everywhere hate anything that they feel threatens them. I did have artistic desires. On the wall in my room in Earls Court Square I had a collage on one wall. I was proud of this collage that I made out of Photo's and articles I cut out of Time Magazine. I carefully collected only things that interested me. I thought it was quite good although I cannot remember many people showing an interest in it. The problem with collages is that when you move you cannot take it with you. My collage could not have been all that bad because the girls did not ask me to take it down when I left. Would Martin Sharp and Richard Neville have been interested? Would they have thought it embarrassing? Maybe..... But I hope not. What is true is that I had moved to London the same as they had and I had forged a life for myself that was envious. I felt privileged. Lucky. I did not want to change places with anyone. I envied no one. I believed I was the equal to anyone. I considered both men to be giants in their own way. I can say I was in awe of their achievements. But I also had achieved something. I felt equal to them and in time came to consider them my contemporaries. |
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