A Santos By Any Other Name!

Still too hot to be in this room, so just a quick one today:

Guess who?

Keith found this rather wonderful Santo in an antique shop in Townsville and immediately bought it as a gift for our friend Lady R. who collects them.  But then he brought it back to our place in Townsville:

"Ewww, get that thing out of here!" said my rather opinionated and seldom charming teenage niece who now lives there.  "I don't mind those stupid Buddhas you have all over the place but having a Christian statue in the house is all pedophile-ish and creepy."

Keith and I exchanged a glance.  "Happy birthday, my love." says hubby as he hands it to me.

Hey, I get it! This Santo is now mine!  It couldn't have been any other way! And I've left it behind in Townsville too.  Get used to it, honeybunny!!!

Anyway, since it was now mine - thank you Keith honey - and NO! Lady R., there's no way you're getting it now - I didn't like not knowing which Saint it was, so both Keith and Richard decided to hunt it down, with quick success.  And you'd never guess who this statue represents?

ST NICHOLAS!!!  

Yup, this is the original Santa Claus!  How far has the image come, la?

I should really direct you to the Wiki-site that has all the biographical information on this real-life fellow, but it's just too too too hot. If you're interested, you can look it up yourself.

But, in the meantime, it must be noted that if this is the way a modern teenager of nominally Christian definition immediately and sincerely views Christian imagery, it shows how LOWLY the Christian Church is considered today, and thus the church genuinely has a LOT of mending and rebuilding to do, doesn't it!!! 

Random NQ!!!

Too hot to think and so I'll go see a movie.  Bridesmaids? In the meantime, I'll shut my eyes and randomly select a photo from this trip and hope it's not so interesting that I want to tell you about it.

Herons out at sunset!

That dastardly delay on my camera meant that this wasn't one of the good shots, so I'll post you a few others:

These were taken on the banks of South Johnstone River ... all very pretty and everything but I should also post you a warning:

 

See this nice old guy out for his evening walk with his ONE dog and a very large stick?  OK, you can't see the large stick but, trust me, he's definitely carrying one.  Well, only a few days before I took this photo, he had TWO dogs ... but then a crocodile leapt out of the river and took one of them.  No, seriously!! It was such a lovely dog too!

 

Mind you, that big stick isn't much use because you're fined A$250,000 if you even attempt to harm a crocodile, so beating one off when it tries to take your other dog isn't really an option!

 

There is something very wrong with this, isn't there!  Here you have a place - North Queensland - where Laws are made by politicians down South who don't have to deal with the reality of the consequences of their abject and arrant stupidity.

 

Mmm, yes, South Johnstone River ...

 

 

... all very pretty ... until the screaming starts!

Back in HK!

Back in HK.  Back to this stinking rotten heat and humidity.  Nonetheless, and despite having the most beautiful holiday - thank you, guys - and despite the fact that Beth is still away and Keith has been here for a fortnight on his own and so our apartment is a mess, it's nice being back.

And here's something wayyy-funny.  Hardly was I back a day before our only-Chinese-speaking neighbours filled me in on the building gossip ... which I think is - and naturally I can't be too sure about this - that the ghastly and mean-spirited Chinese lady - the one we call "Norman Bate's Mother" - who lives/d several floors below us, was carted off to a mental institution. Although I'm just guessing at what I was being told, I can't say I am surprised because, in the weeks before we left, she took up knocking at our door and then being obviously most surprised and angered to see me ... and then she'd rain down this incomprehensible abuse which always looked like it would end up with me being brutally beaten, although it hadn't yet come to that ... but which always made me think it was only a matter of time before I ended up being hurt.

Keith and I discussed this, naturally, at length and decided that the reason for her dangerously angry outburst was that she'd mix up our door for her son's door - he's the creepy guy we call Norman Bates - on a floor below and so would be outraged I was there, in her mind visiting with her son.

So, yes, if I've comprehended this gossip correctly, all I can say is "Yayyyyyyy!!!"

In the days to come, I'll be inserting appropriate photos in previous posts as well as posting stories about the holiday, however, in the meantime, I'll just select a photo at random and tell you the story of it if it's interesting:

 Australian post-bag!

Self-explanatory but still hilarious!

Andy Meets His Master!

Lovely night out in Cairns with Baby Jane and her friend Andy, who is feeling pretty low. "What's up?" Baby Jane asks over drinks, so Andy tells us the story:

It's all the fault of that bloody Tommy Emmanuel!

Should tell you upfront that Andy is Andy Mack, the Cairns local who is often considered absolutely the best guitarist in this entire NQ region, with a legion of fans.

So there he is, several nights earlier, doing his gig at Johno's Blues Bar, when a fellow comes up to him during his break and says "Hi. I have to tell you you're pretty damn good. I'm Tommy Emmanuel, by the way. Mind if I join you for a set?"

Naturally Andy knows who Tommy Emmanuel is - duh! - and is completely chuffed that Australia's absolute and undoubted guitar legend wants to jam with him so he gives Tommy his spare guitar and off they go.

It's Andy's gig and Andy's audience, so Tommy, legendarily humble, takes a lowly position on stage and so it starts.

So there's Tommy, unrehearsed and on an unfamiliar guitar, playing something he's never come across before, and it slowly dawns on Andy that ... well, Tommy isn't just holding his own, he's right there and so Andy throws in his best licks and, slow dawning horror, Tommy can top him ... so he throws in all sorts of complicated moves that he's invented himself ... and Tommy, without missing a beat, picks them up and improves on them!

And so, over the course of a single five minute song, Andy realises he's been humbled and that being the very best in NQ isn't in the big league afterall and that, with Tommy, he's more than met his master and he now can't shake the feeling of sad, sad, sad.

But just to make it worse, lots of folks had been telling him that someone had caught the performance on their camera phone and had posted it onto youtube ... but that he couldn't bring himself to view his humiliation so hadn't seen it.

Andy is a total darling ... but let's not let that get in the way of seeing it for ourselves.  Youtube hunt coming up.  Fingers crossed:



Yayyy!!! Got it!  So let's watch together.

That's Andy in the spotlight, and OMG!!! Tommy has chosen to place himself in the shadows. Definitely the humble folks ascribe to him, yes?

The guy with the feather in his hat?  That's Johno!  Obviously he's seen the opportunity to grab that advertising board and add a name. Tommy Emmanuel playing in his bar?  Definitely a bigger feather in his cap! No wonder he wants everyone to know.

OK!  Seen it through!  Mmmm! Obviously I don't know enough about guitar-playing but I can't see this as a five-minutes-long humbling.  Yes, I can see that Tommy is definitely holding his own, and I can see Andy starting out giving the performance to the audience and then ... well, giving Tommy more and more attention until finally it's really only him and Tommy up there ...  but are we really watching Andy get his come-uppance?

Mmmm, maybe you'd have to be Keith Richards and Eric Clapton to tell!  What do you think?

Damn those Know-All Bird-People!!!

OK, it's funny but it didn't seem so at the time.

Here's what happened:  there's this most incredible and beautiful bird that has begun to hang around Baby Jane's place since Cyclone Yasi and because I'd never seen anything like it before, I spent days trying to get a photo of it - and finally succeeded to take this one ...

... which is actually better than the official and professional shots of it, so I'll be defending the copyright with my life ...

- simply so I could play One-upmanship with all those know-all-seen-all bird-watching people in my life. You know who you are!!!

Anyway I sent a taunting e-mail to the various Bird-Crazy Folk I know saying "I've taken a photo of this most rare and amazingly beautiful bird but you'll have to wait until I get back to HK before I send you the photo. I have no intention of telling you what it is, in the meantime, so ... SUFFER!!!"

Richard wrote back. "You've seen a Wompoo Fruit Dove."

Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! I didn't know the bird's name, hoping it was too rare for inclusion in any ordinary bird-book, but I looked up the name he mentioned...

 

Not my photo.

Mine is MUCH better!

... and he was exactly right!

Now I'm back down in Townsville I asked him how he guessed so immediately and he said "It had to be something you've never seen before but which is now common around these parts, and the Wompoo Fruit Dove has been driven out of the jungle since Cyclone Yasi destroyed all their habitat and so we're ALL seeing them everyplace."

And yes, I'm now feeling very very stupid ... although I have started to laugh about it but only after several days of really feeling it!

Childish, huh!  But nonetheless a superb bird photographer! Yes?

My Dad's Poetry!

Haven't blogged much at all these holidays, but I have been having fun.

Currently in Innisfail with Baby Jane and playing Cyclone Denise with her furniture.  Can't help myself.  Anything I find ugly MUST be done-over.  She says she welcomes it but I think she's merely been tolerant and indulgent.

Anyway, in my downtime, I've been going through Jane's old books and discovered - well, since I always knew this, the word is actually "rediscovered" - that Jane has spent a lifetime gathering up little bits of family writings and putting them into an anthology, and I've rediscovered ever so many poems I wrote as a child ... none of which are worth recording here ...

... however our dad's poetry is a different story.  Gosh, he was so very good, although, like his still-lifes, paintings and portraits, he didn't do it often.  And I must say that some of his poetry is definitely significant and definitely worth recording in lots of places; particularly those he wrote as a very old man and could feel the dementia coming on:  THOSE are definitely worth putting out there because there is a definite gap in that market, however those aren't in this book and I'll have to ask Jane to hunt them down for me.

In the meantime, let me choose one of dad's old poems at random, one from ... mmmm, when he was a young medical student in Ireland?

OK, eyes shut: let's go:

Old Bill

by Denis Murphy c 1933

Old Bill Kelly slipped into the bar

Unnoticed, unwelcomed, unknown,

Too old and too odd to drink with by far,

So he slips to the end where the sandwiches are,

And I saw he tippled alone.

His frock-coat seemed green and its nap is no more

And his hat is far past its best

And he wore the peaked collar our grandfathers wore

And the black ribbon-tie that was legal of yore,

And his coat buttoned up to his chest.

For a moment or more when he first came in

I thought my eyes or my wits were astray

For a picture - a page out of Dickens - he brought

Of an old legal firm from the Chancery Court

And the wine vaults over the way.

And I watch as he lifts up his Guiness tonight

And dream that the bar lights grow dim

As the Shades of the friends of those Other Days light

And the girls who were bright in our Grandfathers' sight

Lifted shadowy glasses to him.

I opened the door as the old man went out

With a short, shuffling step and bowed head

And he sighed but I felt as I returned to my stout

A sense of respect (borne of Guiness no doubt)

For the life that was 60 years dead.

And I mused; there are times when our memory wends

Through the future as if on its own -

That I, out of date before my pilgrimage ends,

In some new-fangled bar, to dead loves and dead friends

Might drink like Old Billy - ALONE!!!

Beautiful, huh!!!

And I'll blog the other ones too - about growing old and fearing the last - if Jane manages to find them.