Bloody Americans! #11222,000,000

Did you read? Americans bought out the Vegemite factory and renamed Vegemite - Australia's single most iconic product - "i-snack".

Outrageous! Bloody outrageous! Mind you, I'm already furious with the Yanks because of the way their on-line news, in the wake of Samoa's natural disaster this morning, is screwing around with the name of the capital of American Samoa. It's Pago Pago, you stupid dorks! When folk are in the midst of a terrible calamity, the last thing they need is for the news to get their capital's name wrong, and in the most patronising fashion possible too.

Oh, and it's pronounced Pang-o Pang-o. Let's see how the US TV news manages to screw that one up.

But VEGEMITE!!! Screwing around with Vegemite! Mine gott in himmel!!! CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, this is!

Think of this: generations of Australians have grown up with the song:

... and now the Yanks go rename it "i-snack"!

DIE! DIE! DIE!

For the importance of Vegemite in the lives of Australians ... you just have to read my post about Mrs Jessie Jackson of Savu Savu to understand. It would even be not so stupid to say it's at the very heart of the Australian Identity!

And the Yanks have already screwed up ANZAC biscuits, SAO biscuits, Gingernut Biscuits ... other seriously iconic products ... but now they've gone for VEGEMITE!

DIE! DIE! DIE!

Remember the song everyone was singing several years back "The Bastards Buggered Our Biscuit!"? Guess the new one will be "The Vuckers Vucked Our Vegemite!"

Go the backlash! Go the backlash! Go the backlash!

Only in Hong Kong! #1

I think I'll start a new feature showing the bizarre things you find in HK. Here's the first:

Double click to read what it says!

What Kills Us This Week!

Woke up this morning, stumbled into the bathroom and ...


... right there, outside the bathroom window, in the air-shaft! Most unexpected and not at all pleasant.

You recall how our landladies, the Frankly Frightening Fang Sisters, took down all the external walls and, because we're on the 15th floor and our place is not overlooked from anywhere, replaced them with glass so as to bring in heaps of light. We love with this aspect of our place and it's never even been remotely a problem ... until this morning.

However, let's ignore the privacy aspect of it. Let's just complain about their voices! Being honest here: no one can ever accuse Cantonese of being a pretty language and the air-shaft echoes sound and the volume is about six times higher than normal, and they keep calling out to people on the other side of the wall who are handing them out the bamboo ... and it's so incredibly vile I'm ready to go back to bed and pull a pillow over my head.

They are sweet guys however and were so nice about me taking their photograph, and I'm sure they're there for official reasons. There have been signs around the place for weeks informing us of something about to take place in the building that starts today ... but they're not in English so we never have any idea of anything going on around us.

When we first moved into the building six years ago Building Management used to, very sweetly, put up bi-lingual signs and they got us Alfred, the bi-lingual doorman, but then all the residents found out how much we paid in rent and went all "threatdown" because it turned out we were being majorly ripped off yet still thought the place was cheap, so, according to Alfred, they all got paranoid and thought their own landlords would realise how stupid we foreign devils are and that all they had to do was put in a good bathroom, a good kitchen and bigger windows and they could then charge ten times the going rate for rent. And that's when the entire building went all passive-aggressive on us and no longer catered for us in any way; thus the current mono-lingual signs AND we lost Alfred.

And, as it turned out, our fellow residents were less paranoid than prescient because they nailed it; that's indeed what's happened. Ever since we moved in, all the landlords have started doing the upgrades and hurling out the low-rent residents and, only six years later, our building is already a quarter full of Gweilos (that's Cantonese for 'Foreign Devil'). And don't the original residents hate us.

But since the Cantonese always have such lovely manners, being hated is never a problem, and we are truly blessed to have such gorgeous neighbours on this floor: the elderly widow next door; the English-speaking adulterer with a wife on the 15th floor and a mistress on the 5th; the insomniac who plays the flute from 2am to 4 am, but thankfully plays it well and softly; a packed-house of the world's only truly ugly Thai Lady-Boys; and a packed house of Mainland ladies-who-labour- in-factories, forever rushing from one job to another and so are forever exhausted, grey-faced and fainting in the lift.

When we first came to HK, I was all adamant that "I haven't come to China just to live in a Gweilo Ghetto." and insisted we live well away from Disco Bay, Repulse Bay, Sai Kung and other places where foreigners live in massive numbers, and thus we ended up in Wan Chai, 'the World of Suzie Wong', a very happy and vibrant area full of street-life. However, our world is changing and over the years we have watched our lovely area "go gentrified", with our view of the mountains a fast disappearing behind the new highrise, a population in transition, pat pongs turning into bistros, sample shops turning into boutiques, and rents going up accordingly.

These days, the Frankly Frightening Fang Sisters regularly drop by to tell us the astronomical rents being charged for the other apartments overlooking Southorn Park:

The new electric nose-hair-trimmer opposite.

But, luckily, we just signed another two-year contract on this place and they didn't do it to us THIS TIME!

So, if I'm to choose a "threatdown" for this week, it would have to be:

THREATDOWN

Frightening Landlord Sisters who are all grumpy
because they think they have done you an enormous favour
and don't know "what they were thinking"!

Two Boys Named Gray!

It's raining and I still have a cold so I'm staying indoors all day, thus ... let's find a long story for today's post. Ah, here's a very special one that happened many years ago, when I lived in Australia, that I was so proud to be a part of; that always felt all "Hand of God" and that I was intending to turn into a filmscript and pitched it several times but never got any interest. So ...

Two decades ago, I was visiting a small town in NQ (no names to protect X's privacy), staying with a friend for a long weekend. When this story started, I was the friend's workplace. We had planned do something and were just leaving when he remembered he had to make a phone call. It took ages and I was climbing the walls with boredom when an old lady cleaner came along vacuuming. We politely said "hello" in passing and I noticed she had the thickest accent I'd ever heard.

"Where are you from?" I asked, just to give myself something to do.

"East Berlin."

"Wow!" I said, and she switched off the vacuum so we could talk about that for a while. And, as we chatted, I noticed, playing in the corridors, was the most exquisite little boy of about five years old, all golden and gorgeous, but with the most monstrous black mono-brow, from one side of his head to the other. "Is that your grandson?" I asked.

"No, he's my son."

Undoubtedly I looked disbelieving because she instantly gave a big happy grin and added "Yes, I know. I was too old for children. I thought it was cancer. But no. It was my Gray coming back to me. Yes. This is the truth. For over 10 years I prayed to Virgin Mary and finally she was kind and that's when she gave to me my Grays back. First one. Then the other."

Intriguing, huh! I sooo wanted to know more, but right then my friend returned and wanted to leave. "I'd really like to talk to you some more." I told the cleaner, so she invited me around to her house the next day to see her opal collection and have afternoon tea.

We can't continue to call her X. Let's say her name is Renee, although it isn't. Anyway, at the front of the building she pointed out her house - a perfectly normal Australian "small country town" house - just down the street from my friend's workplace.

The next afternoon, Saturday, I turned up at the house ... and, yes, her opals were wonderful, as were all her precious stones. Serious cases full of gems. All found and cut by her. And nearly two decades of prospecting in the Australian Outback, unprotected from the brutal desert sun, explained why she looked in her 70s when, in reality, she was only in her early 5os.

Her husband and son were away for the afternoon, to give Renee a chance to talk, so, still chatting about prospecting and gemstones, we sat down for a seriously high tea. I was almost embarrassed by how much trouble she'd gone to with the delicacies, but it was obvious she was desperate for female company.

As we ate and talked in the sitting room, right next to my sofa was an old photograph. I only glanced at it but then ... the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I pulled over the image to look again.

In the decades old photo was a young Renee, maybe late 20s, and with her was a brutally mono-browed young man in his 30s and a five year old boy who was ... unquestionably ... Gray! No seriously! "That's your son!" I said.

"Yes, I know. That's my first Gray!" and then she added "Those are my first two Grays! That's my first husband Gray! And that's my first baby Gray."

Chilling! Totally chilling! And I noticed that, although Renee didn't have even a hint of that brutal mono-brow ... both the baby Grays did! Unbelievably weird, right?

"My second husband is also Gray. It's really Graeme, but I call him Gray!"

She told me the story of how they met: "When I first came to this country, I was crazy! My Grays were dead and I'd been shot in the stomach so I couldn't eat properly, and I so full of pain and grief I just wanted to die ... so I caught a bus out into the desert and just walked and walked, wanting to feel the sun burn, wanting to feel deep thirst, and I walked and walked until I fell down to die. But right beside me, right beside my eye, I saw the sparkle in a stone and I took the stone and looked and realised, well, I saw all around me were gem stones and they were all for me and I was rich so then I wanted to live."

And so it went on. But that's simply how she became a prospector. To cut a long story short, for over a decade she prospected, out in the desert, all alone, and finding a lot of gems but still feeling the deepest, deepest pain ... and all the while praying to Virgin Mary to take her pain away ...

And then she met Graeme!

"... so I came up to the lonely campfire and he was sitting there. I almost screamed. It was Gray. My husband Gray. I thought it was a ghost and I almost ran. But he saw me there in the dark and called to me to join him for a cuppa tea."

She was almost embarrassed to tell me what happened next: that ... when, over that cuppa, he said "My name is Graeme but my friends call me Grae.", she flash-backed and, um ... pounced and ... bleep, bleep, bleep! ... mad frantic rutting under the stars.

He was, back then, a young prospector in his 20s ... and, well, to cut a long story short he taught her how to cut gems and they discovered she had a genuine gift for it, and so the pair of them went into partnership together, traveling across the length and breadth of the Australian desert, finding, cutting, selling, doing extremely well for themselves for almost another decade ... until ... well, she thought it was cancer ...

Only it was the new Gray on his way! A miracle indeed since Renee genuinely believed that part of her life was over. When Graeme found out he was thrilled, and they married and, when Baby Gray was five they moved into a small country town so to give him an education, and that brought me up to the present.

Beautiful, beautiful story, right? But it doesn't even start to be over!

The next part of my Renee story happened about a year later with those dozers smashing down the Berlin Wall. The ABC was showing a live feed of the event, and, because it was such an historical occasion I was sitting there with a glass of wine, watching. It made me think of Renee, the only person I knew from that part of the world, so I phoned her to find out what she thought, and it turned out she was sitting there, all alone, watching the live feed and crying, so I told her to grab herself a glass of wine and we'd watch it together.

It was during our hour-long phone conversation that she told me the story of how her first two Grays died: when First Gray was five they decided they wanted a better life for him, so they paid people smugglers a lot of money to get them out of the country, but, on the designated night, the smugglers only took them and about forty others out deep into the forest and mowed them down with machine guns. Renee was shot several times in the stomach and fell into a ravine so they left her for dead. Then she woke up to daylight ... she has no idea how long later it was ... struggled up the ravine, saw the mountain of dead, her Grays among them, and simply went crazy. She zombie-walked for days and days until she was found ... and she has no idea how any of it happened ... but suddenly there was a hospital and then people asking questions and then signing things then, equally suddenly, she was on a ship to Australia ... and then she was in the desert ... and it was all walking, walking, walking, wanting to die ... until the sparkle of a gem stone brought her back to life.

Drinking those glasses of wine with Renee on the other end of the phone made that whole Berlin Wall event very special for me.

The next part of this saga happened about three years later. Sunday morning and I'm reading the newspapers when suddenly my hair stood on end. I raced to the phone. "Have you read today's Courier Mail?" I asked Renee.

"I don't read newspapers." she said.

"You need to read this one and you need to read it now. Go straight down to the newsagency and get the Courier Mail. Look on page 36. There's an article you need to read."

It was a story on how East German police had been finding mounds of decades-old skeletons throughout the forest and believed they were all killed by people smugglers, but couldn't prove it because there were no eye witnesses.

I kept the phone by me as I continued to read the rest of the news. 20 minutes later, it rang and there was hysterical sobbing on the other end for the longest time. "It's me." she said eventually. "I am the eye witness."

"Yes, I know."

"But what do I do?"

"Go to the police. Do it now. Go down now, while you're still hysterical. Bring the newspaper with you. Show them the article and say what you said to me. 'It's me. I am the eye-witness.'"

"But why would they care?"

I laughed. "Because it's a small country town police station. This is an international event. They get to deal with Interpol. It'll be the biggest and most exciting thing that's ever happened to them. You will be forevermore their hero."

And that's what she did. And that's what they did. And that's when the system went into operation. Renee rang me often to keep me up to date.

She had to return to East Berlin. "But it might take a long time. I can't leave my Grays." she said to me.

"You won't have to leave them. Renee, have you any idea what a powerful position you are in? They will give you EVERYTHING you ask for, I promise you!"

So Renee made all sorts of demands and, yes, got to take her Grays back to East Germany with her, and Interpol made up their lost wages and young Gray got a tutor to help with his schoolwork. Great hotel. Great meal allowance. Even a promised travel allowance so Renee could visit her German family. Indeed, EVERYTHING she asked for they gave her without hesitation or complaint!

She rang me when she got back six months later. Yes, it took that long! Endless interviews and more and more of everything official and dire, and months in freezing rooms spent poring over book after book of mug shots ...


... but that isn't what she wanted to talk about! There was something HUGE that had happened while she was there. Beyond huge. Downright enormously and miraculously huge!

What happened was that the East German police wouldn't give Renee a break and her Grays, back at the hotel, were climbing walls with boredom. "Why don't you go up into the mountains and meet my family." Renee said to them.

"But I don't speak German." hubby-Gray said.

"It doesn't matter. You just have to show Little Gray where he comes from."

So they hired a car and left ... and half way up the mountain they stopped off for petrol ... and, at the petrol station, everyone there got all excited at the sight of Little Gray. Hubby-Gray had no idea what they were talking about, but was astonished that they seemed to calling Gray "Gray" and to be calling out to people nearby to 'come and see Gray!"

"How do you know my son's name?" he kept asking in English and it all got increasingly absurd and confusing, until a little old lady came up, took him by the hand and walked him to a house several doors down. There, she pointed to a single photograph among an entire wall of old photographs, obviously wanting him to see for himself how alike the two Grays were.

And, yes, it was the exact photo Renee had in her sitting room in Australia: Renee with her two Grays.

He wanted to say "How do you come to have this photo?" but excited, laughing neighbours kept pouring into the house, all having heard the news, and wanting to see Little Gray for themselves, and hubby-Gray noticed they all had the monstrous black mono-brow. And everyone was hysterical with laughter that both little boys were called Gray. "What a concidence!" hubby-Gray presumed they were all saying, but he was too busy trying to figure out what they were doing with Renee's photo. Finally, after much confusion, he managed to figure out, he thought, that the old lady was First Hubby-Gray's mother.

And then he noticed another photograph and the situation just got deeper and stranger ... it was the photo his own grandmother had in her house in Australia of HER parents. "Grandmother Mother Father!" he kept repeating, pointing from himself to the photo, and one of the neighbours got it and said something in awestruck German and all the neighbours fell back in shock and awe ... until the laughing started, and then came the hugging and kissing and everyone falling on everyone else, and the demand he stay for a meal ... and so they did ...

... and it is a happy, laughing, hilariously incomprehensible lunch, with neighbours constantly tumbling in, bringing more food, and explaining to Hubby-Gray, presumably, how they were related, and Gray going "Cousin! Cousin!" like 'beyond that didn't matter' so they started to chant "Cousin! Cousin!" with much falling about laughing.

But, after the meal, it all got terribly confusing again because the woman who was Presumably-First-Gray's-Grandmother pulled out a photo album, and started showing Little Gray all these weird photographs of First Gray growing up.

Like, huh?

Terrible, terrible confusion! Hubby-Gray went over to the photo of Renee and her Grays and pointed to Renee "Renee, ja?" and then from Renee to his Gray and said "Renee. Mother. Gray. Mother. Gray. Renee. Mother. Gray." The old lady kept shaking her head and saying something like "Renee tod. Renee tod."

"Nein. Nein. Renee nein tod!" said Hubby-Gray. "Renee. Gray. Mother."

The old lady, walking like a zombie, came over to the photograph and pointed first to Renee "Tod." and then First-Hubby and said "Tod." then pointed to First Little Gray and said "Nein tod." A goose-bump moment like no other. "Gray nein tod?" "Gray nein tod!" and took him to the photo album.

It appeared that young First Gray was raised in this very house by this very woman!

Hubby-Gray found it incomprehensible, and especially incomprehensible that Renee had never told anyone back in Germany that she was still alive, but ... well, for most of her time in Australia she hadn't been quite sane.

He then wondered what it would be like turning up at Renee's parents' house claiming, in a language they didn't speak, to have their grandson ... so decided it would be too hard and that he shouldn't do it alone; he had to have Renee with him. So that's when he decided to return to Berlin straight away and pass on the news that, maybe, just maybe, he couldn't be sure, that First Gray was alive, and he left behind the name of the hotel, just in case there was indeed someone who wanted to get in touch.

He didn't have to tell Renee. He got back to the hotel to discover Renee and First Gray in the lobby locked in an unshiftable embrace ...

... but that was Renee's part of the story. She had no idea that any of the above had happened. She simply got back to the hotel, shivering with cold, after yet another difficult and fruitless day of searching through mug shots, and was walking through the lobby when she heard a single word, in German, naturally, "Mother?"

First Gray had come back to her.

And that's the story of The Two Boys Named Gray. There was more, but it's not exactly a happy ending. Within weeks, yes, First Gray joined her in Australia for their happy-ever-after but ... well, after a month, they overnighted at my place so as to put First Gray on an early morning flight home to Germany. Seems he was too angry with Renee for just deserting him, leaving him in the forest that night surrounded by mounds of dead people, then never letting him know she was actually alive. And, also, he was jealous of Second-Gray and how the boy, now ten, appeared to be having the life he should have lived. And he fought with Second-Hubby-Gray and was making everything most unpleasant. And he refused to learn English and so couldn't find work, and so ...

... Renee was again back to having only one son called Gray, and she was fine with that!

"Maybe, when he's older, he'll find he can forgive me and we'll be a family again." were the final words Renee ever said to me. Neither of us ever had a reason to get in touch again and so we never did. Sad really, but I was so happy to be a part of this story, and I do wish there was interest in turning it into a film script. Guess it's all seems too far-fetched to garner producer interest, but, believe me, this all happened exactly as I've described.

Once upon a time, there were two boys called Gray!

My Favourite Photo!

You will never ever guess where I took this gorgeous photo.

I'd tell you but you'd never believe me!

Miss Bubble Travels!

Keith read this and said "Don't post it! You write a travel blog. People don't need to hear that things like this happen!" But they do, and folk should know this! So ...

Remember the photo I showed you of Jessica, the world's luckiest traveler? If you don't, here is another one:

Me and Jessica
in Townsville, NQ.

As I mentioned before, Jessica has the happy knack of simply turning up, all alone, in places she knows nothing about, and instantly bumps into old friends who take her around with them.

Thinking about Jessica got me thinking about how the world has Lucky Travelers - and I class myself as one of these, although not in Jessica's league - but that it also has Unlucky Travelers.

Miss Bubble was the latter.

We met Miss Bubble when we were children, doing a cruise around the top end of South America and the Caribbean Islands. Mum, who had a knack for spotting Lost Waifs, instantly befriended her and so she came into our lives.

To get a visual picture of her, think 35 years old, tiny, short hair so-blond as to be almost white, and a body that was almost as totally round as she was tall, and when we first spotted her, on her way to the Captain's cocktail party first night out, she was wearing a silver jump-suit all covered with sparkles. We kiddies started to giggle, "She looks exactly like a bubble." we said to each other, and when we found out her name was actually Miss Buble - like the singer - that was that! We all had to run away, spluttering with laughter. We weren't nice little kiddies, were we!

And, even after we knew her real name, we still always referred to her as Miss Bubble, although not to her face.

Anyway, Miss Bubble came from a small town in Middle America and had worked for nearly 20 years in a One-Hour Photo Shop in a local shopping mall ... and had never been anywhere else in her entire 35 years! All her life she'd dreamed of seeing the world, and saved up for it too, and suddenly decided "Carpe Diem" after seeing a special deal on a poster outside the travel agency opposite the photo shop, so booked this cruise as the first step of her planned adventures.

Her first step on foreign soil was some coastal city someplace in South America. I was a kid back then and I traveled all the time, so don't expect me to remember names. It's all a blur to me. Besides, I doubt any of these countries want me talking about them in the way I will be!

Anyway ... her first step on foreign soil was some coastal city someplace in South America. Mum, carrying Baby Jane on her hip, went with her and later said it started out so thrilling because Miss Bubble was deeply and viscerally excited and it was nice being around that. Together they walked to the local markets, and mum noted that Miss Bubble was desperately unfit. All red-faced, puffing and panting within minutes. Not good for travelers! "You really should have got into some exercise program before taking a trip." Mum told her. "But I don't like exercise!" said Miss Bubble. Sigh!

But they happily walked around the markets for an hour or so and, yes, Miss Bubble was also a stupid shopper; loaded down within minutes. Sigh! "You really shouldn't buy on your way into a place." Mum told her. "You don't want to be laden while sightseeing, so you should always shop on the way back!" "But it's all so exotic!" said Miss Bubble, and continued to buy more and more. Sigh!

This city, wherever it was, was famous for its cathedral, so, after the markets, mum consulted her map. "It's up that hill!" Mum said. "Oooh, I don't like hills." said Miss Bubble.

"There's an escalator to the cathedral just down that alleyway." a young man, lurking close-by, told them. "Oh, goodie!" said Miss Bubble.

"It's not here on the map." said Mum.

"But he's a local. He'd know." said Miss Bubble.

"Not all locals are honest." said Mum. "It's usually a better idea to go by the map."

"I don't like hills." said Miss Bubble. "I'll take the escalator and meet you at the cathedral."

Sigh! "Please stick with me." said Mum.

"See you at the cathedral!" said Miss Bubble and she was off.

Next time mum saw her ... well, she was screaming for dear life as she was dragged down the street behind a fast moving motorbike.

Seems that was the plan; rather than the promised escalator, there was a motorbike waiting down the pointed-out alley, and, as Miss Bubble puffed and wheezed along, laden with shopping, a young man riding pillion, grabbed her handbag and they took off fast. Miss Bubble, instantly losing her exotic purchases, wasn't willing to let go, and so ...

When she finally did let go, close to where Mum was standing, looking on in sheer horror, Miss Bubble was an awful mess. All grazed, bloody, bruised and so badly shaken-up. Mum, a nurse, checked her out and nothing appeared to be broken, so hoisted her up and took her back to the ship's hospital where she remained for the rest of the day, and so she never really saw anything of her first port of call. Nor did she ever get her many purchases back.

Next port of call: another place in South America. "I've learned my lesson." said Miss Bubble. "This time I'll just take planned coach tour. Stay on the bus. Stay with people. See everything that way." "Good idea." said Mum.

Yeah, yeah, since we're talking about The World's Unluckiest Traveler, it was again the worst case scenario: the bus got high-jacked by banditos up in the mountains, and all the tourists were stripped of everything, including their clothes, and the bus was driven off, leaving Miss Bubble and the others stranded high up in the mountains, totally naked and nothing but jungle for 10 miles around.

They had to make themselves clothes out of banana leaves and the walk down the mountain ... well, let's just leave it at that!

Oh, except for the bit about Miss Bubble meeting, during this nightmare journey, a fellow chubby Middle American, and, well, somewhere during this ten mile hike, the two of them fell in love.

I wish I could leave the story at that but ...

It happened somewhere in the Caribbean, on some island, when Miss Bubble and Chubby-Love were strolling romantically down some lonely beach, hand-in-hand, with a beautiful full moon above, planning their wedding, when they were set on by a gang. Chubby-Love had his throat cut, and Miss Bubble was gang-raped, had her face slashed up, and she was left for dead in the water.

Our ship had to leave her behind, obviously, but, before we left, Mum visited her at the hospital and said she never wanted to see anyone in so much emotional pain ever again. It was horrendous.

About eight months later, when we were back in Fiji, Mum got a letter from Miss Bubble. In it she said she'd learned her lesson and was never again going to leave her hometown and the Photo Shop. Not ever. She was done! "Some people just aren't meant to travel." she concluded bitterly.

Mum wrote a long impassioned reply, saying things like "The world isn't really like what you experienced." and "Please don't give up on your dream." and "Please give the world another chance."

After she was done, Mum read through what she'd written, sighed, then slowly ripped the letter in half. "I think Miss Bubble is right." she said "There are some people who simply aren't meant to travel."

Tahiti and Me!

Robert Oliver, my BBF from high school, is currently jaunting around the Pacific, travel-writing for his book about to be published by Random House. I've been taking sneaky peeps and, to my horror, have just read that he never understood why, growing up in Fiji, he always felt like he was supposed to detest Tahiti to the very fibre of his being, and how, after finally visiting the place, he found he was almost upset that he didn't and that he actually felt like a traitor for loving it so much.

Well, maybe Robert's forgotten the reason for that richly-deserved hatred - you traitor, Robert! - so We Righteous of the Pacific must remind him why we never mention the word "Tahiti" without spitting, and why we ensure every word we utter about them is infused with much twisted bile and venom.

Yes, I know it's unbearably beautiful. And I honestly think Morea Island is the most beautiful place I've ever been, and can hardly credit it that people actually say that it's not a patch on Bora Bora, which must be too too beautiful to be endurable. Yes, I know all this but still ...

... it's TAHITI!! It's YUCK! It's that simple!

Afterall, you have to recall what those 'besterds' did to us in the Pacific, and why we are thus obligated to use every opportunity to remind ourselves and the world that they have earned the entire Pacific's deepest and most abiding enmity.

Remember the atom bomb testings at Moruroa, and all those whispers about subsequent deformities and 'jelly-fish babies' - babies born with transparent skin and no bones -  the French were supposedly whisking off to France so no one would know?

And then there was dad, during those tests, monitoring radiation levels for Fiji. You recall how the levels were expediently skyrocketing with each explosion, so the French kept changing the figures for "the safe level"? And remember how dad was getting vastly higher readings - hundreds of thousands of times higher - IN FIJI, a thousand km away from Tahiti, than the French were issuing from around Ground Zero?

And remember how they were forever trying to high-jack the agendas of any Pan-Pacific gatherings so they'd always be about promoting French colonial interests?

And, hey, remember that time, back in the '70s, when mum organised that enormous "What do Pacific Women Want?" Conference, and the French delegation issued that totally fraudulent press release saying that this conference voted in favour of French nuclear testing in the Pacific?

And remember how terribly askew they tried to slew that entire gathering ... but they were no match for Margaret Whitlam, wife of the then-Prime Minister of Australia, were they! Gosh, there was a lady who knew how to take charge. Routed them big-time! And she did it with such grace, charm, poise and intelligence too. Mum hero-worshipping that Towering Lady from that week onwards and could never understand why Australia didn't use her vast and blatantly-obvious talents more effectively.

Oh yeah, and remember how Tahiti used to bring in "ringers" - French Olympians - to represent them at all the South Pacific Games? And how they tried to kidnap my older sister, Julia, because she beat their Olympic ring-in during the pre-race time-trials, so they didn't want her in the real race?

And Rainbow Warrior? Who can ever forget what they did to the mighty ship Rainbow Warrior! And all that awful treachery of the after-math!

And dad used to forever rant and rave about how the Pacific's French colonies, through their indifference and inefficiency, were screwing up all the various medical treatments and how they were actually "creating a reservoir of truly frightening diseases that would come back to 'bite the world' once everyone had forgotten to be afraid of them"!

And then, when I went to Lifu, in French New Caledonia, in 2000, I saw for myself exactly what he meant.

I should put it out there, since Lifu is now opening itself up as a tourist and scuba diving destination, that the place is riddled with leprosy. I grew up next door to Twomey Leprosy Hospital and can spot this awful disease even in its most early stages, and, boy, was I spotting it bigtime on that island. And there was also that mad dash into the jungle by a whole pile of people when I first walked into a village ... but they weren't quick enough and I know what I saw: gross leprous disfigurement!

WHO really needs to be told about this, doesn't it! Something has to be done! And it can't be done by the colonial French either, because, if they had the WILL to do it, it would already be done!

Oh, and there were cockroaches everywhere in those Lifu villages, and I remember a paper published in a very prestigious medical journal written by one of the Twomey nuns, which said that leprosy was spread by cockroaches as the intermediary host; that these nasty critters eat the sloughed-off flakes of leprous skin and, later, their droppings become airborne and are breathed in by others and thus the disease spreads. She concluded by saying that cockroach control was the single most important factor in stopping the spread of this hideous illness.

But that's all by-the-by, since the focus of this post is meant to be Tahiti.

All of the above makes it understandable, yes, why I dislike the Pacific's Colonial French Islands, but ... well, all that's possibly academic and intellectual ... and the real reason, the deeply visceral and abiding reason, is the "more hands-on" treatment of me by them.

What happened there ... well, on the grounds that a picture paints a thousand words, I'll post up this HK cartoon!


In this cartoon, found in The Standard, Master Qi accidently pulls down a girl's dress. In Papeete, it was no accident. As I walked along the waterfront, all the hideous young dudes were leaping out of cars and pulling my dress down to the ground. The people I was with thought it was hilarious too, but the whole thing made me feel deeply violated and vulnerable.

Those besterds!

Thus, Robert, gorgeous treasure, there's no wiggle room here.  You cannot play nice with Tahiti and stay nice with the rest of us! Tahiti (spit!) is contemptible, The Colonial French are contemptible, and we hate them and that, when all is said and done, is that.


Non vive la Roi!

The Accidental Bookseller.

Went looking for friend Christine's blog "The Incidental Bookseller" and accidentally typed in "Accidental Bookseller" ... and discovered an absolute miracle:

Accidental Bookseller.

I have fallen hopelessly in love with this blog.

Helene is a French woman living in Edinburgh and she rocks my world. I LOVE knowing that someone like her exists on this planet. I also now wish my blog was more like hers!

What I most love, apart from her amazing drawings, is that whatever she talks about sparks something in me, and I really want to 'comment' "I know. I know."

And what is totally astonishing is how much her self-drawing looks like my old cartoon persona 'Danger Mouth'. A zillion years ago, I used to have a cartoon strip in a old University Magazine, called "Danger Mouth" , based on my own adventures of sticking-my-foot-in-my-mouth. It was always things like me saying to a friend I hadn't seen for a while "You've lost weight. You look fabulous. What's the secret?" "Leukemia!"

I'm still forever doing things like that, but I'm so used to it now I don't feel the need to keep a record of these "ahhhhh!" moments!

Hey, I do have a single "Danger Mouth" image left in my life. Well, actually it's in a friend's life. I made it for her because she loved cowgirls, and accidentally drew my own 'Danger Mouth' face on it. Let me see if I can find it:

Very faded these days!

But this is really about Helene and her fabulous blog. Do have a look:

Do you too LOOVVVVE?

Leonard and Me!

I was most distressed to read that Leonard Cohen fainted on stage in Spain. Found the incident on youtube and here it is:




Not as disturbing and dramatic as I thought it would be, but upsetting nonetheless.

I remember so vividly when, as a kid, Leonard Cohen first entered my life. The Beatles had disbanded and "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I got love in my tummy." was top of the hit parade, and I hated everything new around. It was all so empty, stupid and vacuous. "Music is dead!" I thought.

But then, one evening at the Boom Boom Room in Pacific Harbour, Deuba, Fiji, I went to a small concert by new Fiji band "Sunny and Skee", and, oh boy, total, total MAGIC! Torch songs mainly, with Skee on a piano and Sunny singing. Yes, Sunny could "catch you on fire" with that voice, but the songs, the songs, the songs! Poignancy ached in every word. And the third set was practically orgasmic.

After the concert I approached them and told them their "original songs" in the third set were the best I'd ever heard and they both laughed and said "That was just a medley of Leonard Cohen songs!"

"Who?"

And that's when I first heard of Leonard Cohen.

They lent me his records and it was instant LOVE! And it's stayed that way ever since. Keith, at the beginning, used to say "It's music to slit your wrists by!" but he's since become an enormous fan and we have EVERYTHING Leonard has ever done, and we play him constantly too, and, considering how Keith has walls and walls of CDs - he's a real music buff - it's the ultimate compliment.

And then, only about four years ago, Baby Jane was complaining about how vacuous music had become, and how she was on a hunt for "authentic", so I said "Why don't you get the 'Best of Leonard Cohen' that's just come out?"

"Who?"

I couldn't believe it. Had I really been so quiet about my passion for Leonard that my baby sister hadn't heard of him? Anyway, I lent her all the CDs that I had in Townsville and, yes, Jane, I've noticed I haven't got them back.

She too is now totally in love, and her all-time favourite song is definitely "Dance me to the End of Love.":



And she went all the way down to Brisbane to see him in this latest concert tour and said it was the BEST concert she's ever been to. Total MAGIC!

She bought the DVD of the concert so she could share the magic with us, but that just made it worse. I was already consumed by envy, and seeing what I'd missed was horrendous, and so I can't wait for him to come to Hong Kong.

So it's really most distressing that ... well, he appears to have health issues! Get better Leonard. Whatever it is, get better!

Something for Rayna to LOVVVE!

Rayna, meant to show you ages back. See what I got for my birthday:



Cool, huh!

Tee hee!

The Great Australian Biscuit!

After writing the post below, I looked up Pavlova, the greatest dessert ever created, to see if there was a resolution to the Antipodean "who actually invented it" war and came across this: PAVLOVA!

Did you read? The earliest known recipe came from New Zealand, so they have "the righteous claiming rights." ... but then it goes on to say that New Zealand also invented the ANZAC biscuit!

Bahh hahha hhha! That is just sooo funny!

I once did an M.A. paper on "The Creation of the Australian Identity", where I postulated that Australian Nationalism was founded and predicated on the creation of this very ANZAC biscuit!

Do you know that story? How, while pinned down under enemy fire, on a beach in Turkey, a bunch of ANZACs (The Australian and New Zealand Army Corp), invented a delicious biscuit.

Isn't that just so unbearably cool? I LOVE that they did this? And, when they heard, so did the entire nation of Australia! It was this single piece of news from the War Front that made the entire country so deeply proud and, more importantly, to realise it was an "entirely different breed" from their English Overlords and so they challenged the British, who, under the command of a young Winston Churchill, were killing off thousands of ANZACs needlessly, in stupid and pointless unwinnable individual sortees, and tossed them aside in order to take over the running of The Battle of Gallipoli and no ANZACs died from that point onwards. Not a single one.

So it was the ANZAC biscuit that made Australia into A Real Nation ... and now it turns out it was the KIWI guys on the beach, dodging enemy fire, and, with the greatest courage, level-headed fearlessness and insouciant grace, doing the cooking, tasting, modifying and recooking needed to come up with a decent recipe!

Bahhh haah haahhh!

Dear oh dear oh dear. And the other sources of "The Great Australian Pride" - QANTAS, TELECOM, and the CSIRO - the best airline, the best telecommunications and the best science company on earth - were all sold off to other nations under the John Howard government!

Oh yes, and Arnotts Biscuit Company, makers of ANZAC Biscuits et al, was sold off too. To the Americans to boot, which made it so much worse, considering how anti-American Australia has always been. And then the Yanks immediately announced that "ANZAC biscuits were an inferior product", and they were about to change the recipe! Can you imagine the outrage! You don't call a biscuit invented under enemy fire "inferior"! Immediately the song "Those Bastards Buggered Our Biscuit" became a major hit on the local Folk Circuit!

And I actually do know folk - and you know who you are - who actually bought and ate the Yanks new ANZAC Cookie, and said "They're right! This IS a better biscuit!", but everyone immediately shouted them down in total outrage!

And who can blame them! Australian Nationalism was indeed founded and predicated on ANZAC biscuits being exactly what they were! A recipe created with under conditions requiring the greatest courage, level-headed fearlessness and insouciant grace ...

... so it's such a great pity, isn't it, that it was actually the Kiwi contingent of the ANZACs who created it.

Baahhhh hahahhha hahahahhhahhhhh!

The Cooking Wars!

We all know that China is forever creating international outrage with the toxins they're forever adding to food, but are you aware there are other foodie-grounds on which the rest of the world should be furious with them as well?


We first came across what China is actually up to at a bakery on Lantau. "Look, Kelly." I said to an Australian friend. "They've got lamingtons!"

The baker looked shocked. "You have heard of La Ming Ton?" she said.

"Yes, they're are a very famous Australian delicacy!"

The baker-lady didn't know what to think! "But this is a new delicacy invented in China!"

Kelly immediately got all Puffed-up Patriotic!

"Sorry. Lamingtons are AUSTRALIAN! We invented them over 100 years ago." she said, outraged!

"No, these are Chinese."

"Australian!"

"Chinese!"

"Australian!"

A bunch of "Foreign Devils" were passing the shop. "Any of you Australian?" I called out to them. "Yes!" said two. "Can you tell this lady what these things are called?" I said. They didn't even bother to come into the shop. "They're lamingtons." they said from the doorway. "And can you tell her where they come from." "They from Oz!" "100% sure?" "Yeah, 100% plus!" they said with a sneer.

Poor baker-lady looked upset, disappointed and angry all at the same time, but we didn't know then the reason why.

The explanation came about six weeks later when Rosemary turned up at Kiwi Heather's party with "the greatest Chinese invention ever!"

"You have to try this!" said Rosemary. "This is the most delicious food I have ever eaten!"

At that moment, Kiwi Heather came into the room. "Ah, you've made me a Pavlova!" she sighed, placing her hands over her heart, deeply touched.

"This is the latest dessert from China."

"No, this was invented in New Zealand." said Heather, huffy.

Well, that started it! Everyone Antipodean entered the fray. "Australia! It was invented in Australia.", "No, it's a Kiwi dish!" "No, it's Australian." "No, it's Kiwi!" "It's Australian!" "Yeah, just like Russell Crowe is Australian." "And don't forget Split Enz!", "Sam Neill!", "Dragon!", "Phar Lap!", "You always take what's ours!", "You can't even play cricket!", "We're the creative nation, and you're just a bunch of convicts, always stealing our creations!" and on and on and on and on, with several mentions of the All Blacks thrown in for good measure!

"China doesn't stand a chance in this one!" I said to Rosemary. "This is called a Pavlova and it's part of an old, old, old war!"

And that's when we first heard about the Mainland Chinese website that charges a great deal of money for New Original Chinese Recipes! About a dozen foodie-folk at Kiwi Heather's party subscribed to it, and just LOVED it, and hero-worshipped the chef-in-question, forever buying her "original recipes" for a very high price.

"Did she tell you how to make La-Ming-Ton about six weeks ago?" I asked.

"Yes!"

Ahhh, mystery solved!

Everyone was most upset to discover that their new great foodie hero was a big fat cheat, so Keith, who once worked as a chef, kindly said that you only had to change 2% of a recipe to call it "original" so she wasn't really that much of a cheat ... but the rest of us argued that National Icon Dishes were Sacred and no one could EVER claim them for their own ... and that's the side I'm on.

So, there you go! This is something which you too could come across in the near future, so get ready to do your bit. As folks from Nations-that-are-NOT-China, we have a sovereign duty to protect our own and stomp this Outrage into the ground ... but only when she picks on our own Nation's Iconic Dishes. Ohhh, if I ever find kokonda or palusami up there, she's a dead one!

The Marfan's Drama

Promised to tell you about "The Marfan's Drama" which blighted our lives for the past few years. Here it is:

Talei is tall. She is also wayyyy thin.

She also has perfect model proportions (although her neck is two inches too long to match the Hellenic Ideal), and the most exquisitely fine and slender hands, the lucky git!

Spot which hands belongs to Talei!

This is not usually a problem. Especially for us. We're an exceptionally tall family, forever producing men of around 6'5" tall and even our women, for generations, have hovered around 6 feet. Oh, apart from me, that is! I'm the Jessica Mitford of The Murphy Sisters!

So excessive height doesn't faze us and you have to read my post "The Murphy Giants" to understand why Talei's height became even remotely a problem ...

... however, it became even a greater problem than we ever could have imagined thanks to a great deal of dangerously unprofessional medical irresponsibility:

THE MARFAN'S DRAMA

I was already three years into my research into the Murphy Giants when Talei went to the dentist to have her impacted wisdom teeth removed: "I won't touch her without a medical certificate to say her heart's OK!" the dentist told Baby Jane.

"Why wouldn't her heart be OK?" Jane asked.

"Because she has Marfan's Syndrome!" the dentist replied with total and absolute certainty.

OK, that's a serious accusation, right? Marfan's Syndrome is a horrible genetic disorder that will, if you're not careful, kill you young! Jane knew that and, well, it's absolutely NOT something you just throw at a mother out of nowhere! Bad Dentist-Person! Bad, bad Dentist-Person!

Immediately Talei was raced over to the doctor. Her heart was fine! No problem whatsoever, which is quite a relief because, as you know, my mother had a congenitally deformed heart.

Jane was relieved, but then the doctor said, out of nowhere "You know, don't you, that she has Marfan's!"

And so the saga was underway!

Terrified Talei waiting for
the appointment
for the "second opinion"!

The second opinion? The doctor looked at the shape of her hands and said "Yup, those are Marfan hands.", then flexed her hand back as far as it would go and said "Yup, that's Marfan flexibility", then took out a tape measure, measured her and said "Yup, those are Marfan proportions. It's Marfan's all right!"

Talei and Jane were both devastated.

"She does NOT have Marfan's!" I said when I got the news, but no one was listening!

I was furious! And even more furious with the doctor because I'd measured Talei only months earlier and KNEW FOR A FACT that she was almost exactly the Hellenic Ideal ... yet the figures the doctor produced for her proportions had her with arms almost down to her knees. "He's wrong!" I kept telling Jane. "Those figures don't match the ones I got!" and "You only have to look at her to see she doesn't have longer-than-normal arms!" and "Just get out a tape measure and check her proportions for yourself. You'll see he's wrong!"

"Stop thinking you always know more than doctors!" Jane said, simply refusing to question the diagnosis!

And so it was on:

Word got out. Scouts from The Queensland Netball Association, who had been coming up from Brisbane to watch her play, immediately stopped coming to the games! And other parents started to call to say their children had also been diagnosed - by the same doctors, I should add - with Marfan's. Seems the whole town was riddled with this horrible genetic disorder.

Even Jessica, 6 foot 5" and so incredibly beautiful - perfect figure, perfect face, perfect skin, the Hellenic Ideal in every way - so perfect, even, she could walk into any modeling agency on earth and be immediately offered "million-dollar lifetime contracts"! Yes, even perfect Jessica was told she had Marfan's.

And they were all living terrified "safe" lives, unable to do or commit to doing anything, so as to protect their hearts and extend their life-span.

Talei was terrified too; like, to-the-bone terrified. She gave up netball "to protect her heart", and I noticed her computer was linked to all sorts of Marfan's websites and chatrooms, and that she was following the adventures of one feisty "Carpe Diem" Marfan's girl who frequently dressed like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh because ... well, isn't Amenhotep IV supposed to have had Marfan's.

Yup, everyone was convinced Talei HAD Marfan's Syndrome, including Talei, and that was that!

"She doesn't have Marfan's!" I kept saying, but no one was listening.

I was furious! It was all so wrong! Marfan's is a genetic disorder, right? To suddenly give this diagnosis to a single individual in one generation doesn't make sense. You'd have to have a long family history of the giant-ism; a family tree budded all over with exceptionally tall ancestors, all of whom died young, and who most likely didn't breed.

Yes, I know we indeed fit that profile, but only to a point. Yes, we have a family tree with giants up-the-whazoo, but our Giants all lived to ripe old ages, had zillions of kids, were forever stealing each others cattle, stealing each others wives, and in consequence fighting big Irish battles. No "living safe" for any of Our Guys! And, besides, for three years, I'd been deep into the subject of Giants; reading my way through thousands of books, only finding snippets here and there, trying to put together all I could find on our Murphy brand of Giantism, and knew for a fact ...

... we Murphys produced a different type of Giant!

But NO ONE was interested in what I'd found.

But, just look at Sergeant Murphy, right? Of Barnum Circus fame! "The Strongest Man in the World"! A giant who was daily showing off "Feats of Strength" and tossing elephants or whatever! A Marfan's Giant simply wouldn't have survived!

And I have a vague recollection of dad talking about HIS Great Uncle Patrick, who was once classified as the tallest man in the world, saying how, after Patrick retired at the age of 60, he so craved exercise he took a job as the local postman and walked over 40 miles a day, believing that, since he was going to be doing the walk anyway, he may as well get paid for it ... and then he'd come home and eat five dinners in a row. In what way does any of this suggest Marfan's?

And then there was that magnificent 1775 scientific tome, "Human Anomalies"! OK, you may think "What did they know back in 1775?" but you have to recall that this book is one of "The First Children of the Enlightenment", and the authors were being so, well, "enlightened", knowing they were inventing Science as they went along, so were all careful objectivity and measurements and thorough investigations and careful catagorising and cataloging. I know I only read the chapter on "Giants" but, boy, from what I saw this is one seriously mighty text ... and they really should re-issue it because there's a lot in there that is still relevant today.

Like Marfan's right? Yes, I know Marfan's wasn't "discovered" until ... what ... 1865? Nearly a century later! Yet, read the book for yourself! There's a definite description of "Marfan's Giants" in there, although, naturally, that isn't what they call it!

And also note that, although they used different terms, they classified their "Marfan's Giants" in a different category to "Blood Giants" ... and that the book actually specifically stated that the Murphy Family produced Blood Giants!

"WE DO NOT HAVE THE GENE FOR MARFAN'S!" I kept saying, but no one was listening!

Honestly! Gosh, people make me sooo cross!

But then after just less than three years of "living safe and terrified", everything changed! And it happened in Typical Dramatic Denise Fashion too:

2008, holidaying in Australia, we were all at the Fairground, the kids off doing something else, and Jane was bringing me up to date on the Marfan's front ...

... "She does NOT have Marfan's!" I was saying for the gazillionth time without Jane listening, when ...

... in one of those curious and extraordinary co-incidences that have enriched my entire life ...

... two Valkyrie Goddesses, both nearly 7 foot tall and all golden-haired, dramatically dressed gorgeousness, hove into view. The crowd fell back in amazement. Awed silence! Stunned! So clearly NOT drag queens, yet so magnificent! Ooh WOW!!! The Goddesses ignored it all, obviously used to it, and were talking together in deep and serious conversation.

And, as they stalked past us, a single word of that conversation wafted back on the breeze!

"MARFANS"

"They said Marfan's!" I said to Jane. "Did you hear? They said Marfan's!"

"No they didn't!" said Jane.

"Yes, they did!"

"No they didn't!"

"I'm going to check!" I said and so I raced off after them. "Did you just say Marfan's?" I asked them both, craning my neck upwards.

"Yes! We're the Australian Marfan's Support Group! Why do you ask?"

Ahhhhhhhh! Life is good, isn't it!

"You have no idea how much we need you. Please, can you help us?" I said, and they kindly came back with me to talk to Jane.

What a wonderful conversation it was! Exactly what Jane needed to hear. Although they were not exactly Goddesses sent from some Valkyrie Heaven - they were simply holidaying from Melbourne's winter on The Great Barrier Reef - they were a godsend nonetheless:

Turns out, both of these Amazons had their lives blighted by a diagnosis of Marfan's! "I was immediately dropped from the Australian Olympic Basketball Team!" said one, and "My parents said university was a waste of time for me!" said the other. And then, after decades of "playing it safe" and "protecting their hearts!", the Marfan's genetic test came out. Naturally, they were first in line, which is where they first met ...

... and, as it turns out, neither had it! Twenty wasted years! Time they'd never get back again! Time spent sitting around, unable to do anything or commit to anything so doing nothing and being safe! They were furious. And that's when they started the Australian Marfan's Support Group with the express aim to NOT allow anyone else to be given a Marfan's diagnosis without a genetic test for confirmation.

They had access to government funding, they said, for a geneticist, and they'd even send one up to Innisfail if there were enough folk to warrant it ...

... and right then Talei returned to ask for more money: "This is her?" they both cried out! And "For heaven's sake!" "Ridiculous!" "Those are NOT Marfan's proportions!" "The main manifestations involve the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, ocular, and central nervous systems. And she doesn't have any problems with those." and "If her heart is fine, why is she playing safe!" and "She's not wearing glasses!" "Eye problems are a major part of the diagnosis!"

"She does NOT have Marfan's!" they told Jane, and this time, finally, Jane was listening!

Well, they were lovely and followed up, and Jane was given links to government funding for genetic testing, and, to get the numbers to bring a geneticist into town, Jane called a meeting of all the families who'd been given a Marfan's diagnosis, (and, looking at them all gathered together, Jane could see for herself the ones who 'most likely did' and how different they were from the folks, like Talei, who were simply "tall and thin".), and they all submitted forms and the geneticist arrived ...

... and took one look at Talei and said "I've seen a great many people with Marfan's Syndrome and I'm so convinced she doesn't have it, I'm not going to even bother testing her." and "Doing a genetic test for Marfan's is like reading "War and Peace" looking for a missing "e". It's not easy and I only do it when there's a question mark involved, and there's no question mark here. She does NOT have Marfan's! It's that simple!"

And with those words, the Marfan's Drama was over! Thankfully, it was after only three wasted years, sitting around, doing nothing and playing it safe! With so many dangerously irresponsible diagnoses around, she was very, very lucky!

Jessica didn't have Marfan's either!

But the best part of this stupid, stupid episode is the discovery there's this feisty "Carpe Diem" Marfan's girl out there, who frequently dresses like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh in honour of Amenhopet IV, believing that "if they're going to stare at me anyway, I may as well give them something to stare at!", and who is enjoying every single day of her life, however long that may be! Yo, you GO, Girl!

And the main thing to be gained from going through this heinous experience is:

DO NOT ACCEPT A DIAGNOSIS FOR MARFAN'S WITHOUT CONFIRMATION FROM A GENETICIST!

And, if you're in Australia, to get in touch with The Valkyrie Goddesses (I think this is theirs) and they'll hook you up with government funding to pay for the genetic tests!

News! News! News!

Will be updating the latest on H1N1 in Keith's school two posts down!

But the key thing to remember is:

What do we want?

SEVEN!

When do we want it?

A phone call Sunday night would be the ideal!

This TRULY IS The Worst T-shirt in the World!

OK, maybe it simply says something about me that I got all excited when I saw this T-shirt on sale in HK this week:
It was an absolute joy to think that poor man up in China has managed to off-load at least some of his unspeakably enormous stock: several million from memory!

Of course, you remember this story: how Collette challenged me to find The Worst T-shirt in China, and I found this one ... In fact, why don't I simply find the post and let you read it for yourself.

I think the whole thing is hilarious: how Congo's Joseph Kabila must have had millions of these T-shirts printed off while he was stationed in China, since it's obvious he was planning to run in a democratic election against his dad when he got back ... but then simply returned home and ... far be it from me to cast aspersions, but I must say it doesn't look good. And the upshot of all this is that some poor manufacturer on the Mainland is now trying to off-load unspeakable millions of something there's is absolutely no market for.

I'm laughing. And I have to say Collette is completely wrong and these really ARE the worst T-shirts in the world. Mmmm, they're only HK$10.00 each. Maybe I should buy the lot and post them all to Collette, back there in Fiji. Now THAT would be very, very funny!

News! News! News!

A kid at Keith's school has been diagnosed with H1N1. Another four are awaiting confirmation. Another three have developed very high temperatures. They only need seven confirmed cases before the school is closed for up to a fortnight.

Yayyy!

Last night, we had a Typhoon 8 warning, and it was still in place this morning - although we've just heard it's now down to a Typhoon 3 - so Keith's home today. And if ... well, these other cases are confirmed ... it's a nice extension of this unexpected holiday.

Seems a shame to waste it, doesn't it!

Keith and I are disputing whether this is "Heavy Driving Rain" or "Little bit heavy-ish rain" - I'm arguing for the latter - and whether it's safe to go out to see a movie! We are sooo going out! Honestly, that man is a great big sissy, isn't he! Although he's refusing to admit it ... and says he will only go out if we plan to see a "Real Man Film".

However, my money's on "My Sister's Keeper"!

Later: Keith totally refused to see "That ghastly chick-flick!" so we ended up seeing The Proposal. Chick-flick-to-the-max! However Keith said seeing Sandra Bullock in a pencil skirt made it all worth while!

Then we got caught in a rainstorm coming back and now we both have colds!

Later: Two more confirmed cases! The countdown is on! SEVEN! SEVEN! SEVEN! And the latest BIG thing among "the bright young things" in Keith's staffroom is co-ordinating face-masks with eye-liner! Looks quite sexy, Keith says!

Face-masks are now coming in the most incredible funky colours, patterns and styles! We are sooo fashion-forward here in HK.

But the important thing: SEVEN! SEVEN! SEVEN! SEVEN! It would be so unfair if this doesn't happen, won't it!

Monday Morning: No phone call last night. Sad, huh! But Elaine says that if they have to take a fortnight off school, everyone will have to make up the time during the next holidays, so suddenly this is NOT something we want to happen anymore!

STAY WELL, LITTLE KIDDIES, STAY WELL!!

Days Later: Parents have stopped taking their kids to the doctor, since they all say they know what it is, just nursing them at home, and the upshot of this is they aren't getting Confirmation of H1N1 ... which means the official number of Swine Flu cases is staying down below 7. Keith says the actual figure is something like 14 ...

... and suddenly there's another affliction in the school. All the pregnant teachers have come down with "mysterious back problems", with doctor's certificates to prove it: all saying they need at least two weeks complete bed rest. Since H1N1 is known to kill pregnant women, everyone understands completely and so are willingly taking up the slack.

Last week, we reached 11,000 confirmed cases in HK, with one death, which really makes a mockery of the entire "Swine Flu Hotel" debacle more laughable than it was before.

The Murphy Giants!

Dad often told us, when we were growing up, that his Great Uncle Patrick was officially recorded as "the tallest man in the world". This story was never more than an interesting family anecdote until ...

... Talei looked like she was going to hit six feet and the age of 12 at the same time. Suddenly, what had previously been "just a story" turned into this huge and frightening genetic timebomb!

"How tall do you think she's going to get?" Baby Jane asked me, very worried.

What possibility did we have in our genes? Obviously we needed to find out how tall Great Great Uncle Patrick was, so I set myself to the task of finding out.

It wasn't easy: do you know there were three men called Patrick Murphy who were, at different times during the 19th century, officially classified as the tallest man in the world? They're known to history as:

1) Patrick Murphy
2) Patrick O'Brien Murphy
3) Patrick Cullen Murphy.

I have no certain idea which of these is OURS, although I've researched them all and suspect, from his County Down birthplace and middle name, common in our branch of Murphys, that it's the third.

There's a very poignant story attached to one of these Patrick Murphys, although I don't know which, and just hope it isn't ours: that when he was dying he refused to donate his body, as requested, to an Irish scientific museum saying he refused to be seen as a freak for the rest of time and wanted his bones to Rest in Peace. "Let me finally have my dignity!" he cried out in anguish. However, the pestering continued so Patrick demanded to be buried in an upright lead coffin deep underground to prevent Science getting his remains. His request was carried out, yet today his skeleton is indeed in an Irish scientific museum. Wrong, huh! Wrong, wrong, wrong!

But it was in this story that I first came across the height of a Patrick Murphy: 9 foot and 3 inches tall!

Poor, poor Talei! And then there was the whole "Marfan's Drama" which blighted Talei's life for several years, but that is another story entirely so I won't tell it here!

What I will tell you here is that, in the course of my research, I came across so many, many Murphy Giants. In fact, the single most common surname for Giants appears to indeed be MURPHY!

Let me tell you what I discovered:

1) Barnum Circus used to tour a giant called Sergeant Murphy (no known first name!), who was billed as "The Strongest Man in the World". They claimed he was 8 foot 2 inches tall, but, since we're talking "Circus" - which immediately implies "hype - who knows if this is true.

2) Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria collected giants as his troop of personal body guards? They all had to be at least 8 feet tall, and he didn't care how he got them! It seems that, for nearly 20 years, all over Europe, the extremely tall lived in constant fear of the bop on the head!

During his reign, from 1864 to 1880, King Lugwig II managed to collect 42 giants, who he dressed up in fancy clothes and treated like his private collection of dolls. And never did he appear in public without being surrounded by a cluster of them. Since this is, to this day, it's the largest collection of giants ever, I researched this troop in great depth, wanting to find out if they too had Murphys in their number!

The news wasn't good: did you know that Ludwig regularly sent his agents over to Ireland to cosh and kidnap the exceptionally tall? Men around 8 feet tall would regularly wake up with an extremely bad headache only to discover they were in a yacht well out in the Irish Sea. They would then be handed a document claiming they were willing to be ensured a lifetime of ease and comfort in King Ludwig's personal care, and were told to sign or they'd be thrown overboard! They all signed!

And of the 42 Ludwig Giants, do you realise how many of them had the surname Murphy? Seventeen! 17 out of 42 giants in the 19th century were OURS!

3) There was a family called Murphy who were murdered over a century back in Southern Queensland, in Australia, at a place called "Murphy Creek", named after them obviously, in one of that countries Great Unsolved Mysteries, who had previously been studied by Australian scientists because the entire family hovered around 7 foot tall. In fact, if you google "Murphy Giants", this family is what's most likely to come up.

4) There was the book in a rare antiquarian collection I was privileged to read, written in 1775, called - in Latin obviously - "Human Anomalies"! I'd have loved to have spent days with it, because the bits I saw while flicking through were fascinating, but it was given to me only to look up "Giants" as I'd requested, so ...

In this classic scientific text, there was indeed a chapter called "Giants" which talked about the five different types of giant. Four of these types had Latin names only I forget what they were, although I remember being very impressed at the scientific tone of the descriptions and that, even back then, they knew there was usually an underlying medical reason for this extreme height.

And the types of giants listed:

1) the giants with the ridges on the side of the head
2) the ganglingly tall giants with the very long arms and extremely fine hands and fingers
3) the giants who grew at a normal rate until puberty when they suddenly shot up to enormous heights.
4) another type, only I've forgotten.

And then there was a section of the chapter simply called

5) Blood Giants:

I'll paraphrase what that section said: that in some cases, there was no underlying medical cause for the giant-ism. There were simply families who produced individuals of extreme height because it was "in their blood" ... and the example given for these families:

MURPHY

What the book said was that the Murphy family in Ireland was famous for producing giants, and that was because they were descended from Brian Boru who was himself reputed to be 9 feet tall.

Mind you, Irish legends, like Circuses, are famous for "hype", but the fact his height was remarked on in all the legends does mean that Brian Boru was extremely and exceptionally tall.

So giant-ism in the Murphy Family is indeed a ticking genetic timebomb ... although dad always told us there are five different clans called Murphy; that we were the REAL AND ORIGINAL MURPHYS and the other four are either folks who were disowned and sent away in shame by the Real Murphy-Sept or else simply Murphy-Wannabes! Contemptible Nobody Surname-Stealers!

The real Murphys, he told us, were the ones from Wexford and those who straddled the border between Country Antrim and County Down, and we were to dismiss anyone who WASN'T from either of these places as Faux-Septs!

The first external verification I found for this was in that magnificent book "Ancestors" which I've talked about before in here and, yes, I know I promised to give you details, but haven't done yet. But I will!

However, proof is now immediately to hand: only yesterday, Keith called me into the computer room to show me something on-line he thought I'd find most interesting! A map of Ireland that showed the four different clusters of Clan Murphy, and, yes, actually specified that each of these clans had totally different DNA, and all originally came in different waves of immigration from different parts of the world! And you can go here to see the map for yourself ...

... although, wait, that isn't actually the map I'm talking about. That's simply a map of the different Counties of Ireland. You have to actually have to go into the Murphy Project to see the actual genetic distribution.

And when you do, note that we are the Clan in red, and are to be found in Wexford, around the borders of Country Antrim and County Down and lots of other places like Limerick ... so apologises to Audrey Murphy of Limerick for how dismissive I was of her claim to our surname! Although she's undoubtedly from the "Be Forever Shamed" branch of our family!

The other Murphy Clans? Boo! Hiss! Go find your own Surname, you silly Faux-Sept Nobody NON-MURPHYS!

However, this means that only WE REAL MURPHYS, the descendants of Morrough, son of Brian Boru, whether from Shamed-Septs or Otherwise, carry "in our blood" this ticking genetic timebomb of Giant-ism!

But all this is really about Talei! Thankfully, now she's 18, her superhero "Bamboo-Girl" status - with the power to double her height every year - appears to be almost a thing of the past: slowing down, although not yet quite over, and the best news is that it's bottoming out before it's hit "freakishly tall". She's now simply "model tall" and that's never ever EVER a bad thing!

Just remember that, Talei!

And if the worst comes to the worst, sweetie, have you checked out this guy?!

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/glance/864344/looking-for-love-worlds-tallest-man

He is soooo your boyfriend!

What Kills Us This Week!

Back in HK's British Colonial Days, the colonial officers used to always describe the Cantonese as "Hardworking, healthy, handsome, honest and honourable!" and in my seven years here I can only endorse that.

Yes, yes, I know I'm forever making fun of their nerdy, girly-swot, over-cautious, Chicken-Little-ness ... but that doesn't mean I have anything less than the greatest respect for them as a people. However ...

Currently, over the course of this week, there's been the inquest into that police shooting of the Nepalese guy Limbu. You remember all that? I wrote about it all here.

Well, this trial's all been really awful and I'm bleeding for Limbu's poor family, all over here from Nepal and Britain, Gurkhas mostly, who are trying to be Limbu's Voice in the proceedings but who are being treated really badly, with everything conducted in Cantonese and HK not providing interpreters and lots of ugly and mean-spirited things of that ilk.

But the thing that really got to me, really stuck in my craw, really really disappointed me is ...

... the initial phone call to the police that started this entire ugly spiraling maelstrom. OK, we're only hearing it in Cantonese with a translation written underneath, and something indeed may be lost in the translation, but it goes like this:

Woman rings emergency number and says "There's a dark skinned man on the hill outside my window."

You would expect, wouldn't you, that the reply from emergency would be "And ...?" or "Is he doing anything suspicious?" or "Is he doing something illegal?"

... but no ...

... this emergency guy replies merely: "We'll dispatch police officers right away!"

Yup! That's how the whole thing started. And then she rang back and said "He urinated. I saw him urinate!", and that's the crime for which Limbu was shot in the head: urinating in a jungle on side of a hill! And just look at the youtube clip and see how far away he was from the lady who claimed to be so outraged and offended.



So that's my choice for what kills us this week:

THREATDOWN

Being in possession of dark skin and a penis!

Coincidences!

I'm under strict instructions NOT to talk about Aussie Christine's big silly accident yesterday so I won't, but will mention that she was meant to have an appointment with her doctor at Queen Mary's Hospital yesterday but canceled it because she was too busy to attend ... and yet the universe set it up so she went there anyway.

Strange how life is forever throwing you these strange bits of synchronicity and coincidences and all that "hand of god" type stuff. My entire life has been abundantly endowed with these sorts of extraordinarily eerie things - like, remember how I scored my favourite Chanel LBD for pocket change? - but which you can never tell people because they never believe you!

But let me tell you about a few of the most recent anyway:

STORY ONE

See this photo taken in Townsville last month?

ABC's mum, me and Jessica!

ABC rang from Bangkok: "Jessica sent me that photo of you with my mum and her." he said, and we chatted about that for a while. "Jessica is totally astonishing." he eventually told me. "She's the most disorganised traveler who has ever traveled anywhere. She's forever just going to countries she knows nothing about - she never does any reading or planning or bookings or anything - just plonks herself in the middle of a strange country, all alone, and instantly bumps into someone she knows who says "Hey, why don't we go do X?"

"Like, she arrives in Townsville and bumps into my mum who takes her sightseeing, and then they bump into you ..."

OK, I had to tell him: "Did you know three days before I met her, she had just arrived in Cairns and the first person she bumped into at the airport was ... Keith, up there alone waiting for his flight back to HK, and because he had four hours to kill he took her out sightseeing?"

"NOOOOO!!!!" says ABC! "Honestly, she really does need to have something nasty happen so she learns to PLAN THINGS PROPERLY. I am forever telling her this, but it always turns out she never ever needs to!"

STORY TWO

I'm walking along in TST here in HK with dear friend Margaret who'd just arrived from Australia for a fortnight's holiday. She's telling me she's not very happy with life in general. "Your problem is simply you have too much Apollo in your life and not enough Dionysus!" I tell her.

For those of you who haven't read Nietzsche, that translates into "You have too much ORDER and not enough CHAOS!"

The words had barely come out of my mouth when a nice young fellow comes up and hands us two fridge magnets of Dionysus! Free of charge too! Some promotional give-away thing! And he wasn't even close enough to hear us talking either, so don't use that as an explanation!

My Dionysus fridge magnet!
Don't know what Our Marg did with hers!

"That's just the Universe's way of confirming my diagnosis!" I tell Margaret as she stands there, jaw dropped, entirely flabbergasted! Although, mind you, I was just trying to be all insouciant and a'la Wodehouse to pretend I wasn't completely astonished too!

STORY THREE

Remember the photo I only showed you yesterday of our nephew Rama?

Aussie Christine saw it this morning out of any context whatsoever and said "Wait a second. I know that guy. I don't recall his name but I think I met him a short while back in Taipei!"

Yee ha! It's a very, very small world indeed, isn't it!

STORY FOUR

All the above stories have happened recently, but I must tell you the single most astonishing one in my life:

Over a decade ago, when we first bought our house in Townsville and were in the process of renovating, our neighbour Old Kevin dropped by for a visit. "Be careful when you get around to doing up the bathroom." he told us. "When I was ten, I helped the family put it in and they used cheap, shonky floorboards. When I asked them why, they said "They only have to last OUR lifetime!"

A few years later, I was in this bathroom cleaning my teeth when, completely unexpectedly and without even a warning groan, the floorboards collapsed beneath me and I went crashing through, cutting myself up quite badly in the process."

That afternoon, once the blood had stopped flowing and I'd finally regained my sense of humour I thought "I should tell Kevin about this. It'll give him a laugh!", so I went over to his place and knocked.

A woman I'd never seen before opened the door. "Is Kevin home?" I asked her. "Sorry, Love. Dad died this morning." she told me.

And the time of death? EXACTLY the moment the floorboards gave way!

Remember that old, old song "My Grandfather's Clock"?




Well, these days, whenever I think of Old Kevin, that song is the one I always start singing.

Fightback!

Hong Kong this week is in Blatant Heroic Mode, being a feisty little terrier and snapping away at Mainland China's ankles. And we all know which side to take, don't we! Go HK! Go HK! Go HK!

What happened is that our HK journalists were up doing various stories about the syringe attacks in Urumqi when they were all gathered up by Mainland China's hideous police - and we know all about them, don't we! - and were severely beaten up. Like seriously, seriously beaten!

Gosh, HK is furious. Everyone here is up in arms and making huge and nobly phrased statements to China about the sacredness of OUR "Freedom of the Press" and how strongly we uphold these values and how we WON'T submit to China's demand for only printing news straight from CCP sources, and ... oh wow! aren't we being amazingly Superhero about it all!

And now we've demanded China apologises! I think it's about ... well, I think it's about forcing China towards articulating its stance on Press Freedoms and ... well, I think it's a hugely important demand that could lead to greater press freedom in China.

Of course, China will just ignore us ... unless the world gets behind us ... so, please, get behind us folks! Together, we just could make a change in China ... and considering how they're clamping down on reportage of things like the highly toxic substances cadre-owned factories are currently put into food, it's so important for the Mainland and the rest of the world too that the CCP finally instigates Freedom of the Press!

So, are you in?