Saturday, October 29, 2011

Not around? Here's something anyway!

If I'm not around much in the near future, it's because I'm currently writing a novel! A bad one for sure because it's so much more fun writing bad novels than good ones, because ... well, that's the trouble with having a cluster of stupid sodding degrees in Literature! You no longer know what a good novel is, and all you can say for sure is that if critics consider something "a good novel" it just means it has dense concepts, dull pedantic characters, no narrative pull and is unbearably boring to read.

So, in the meantime, I'm still on such a high over New Zealand's win that I'm making my main character a Kiwi in honour.

And also in honour is this parade through the streets of Auckland:



And a lovely note from Queen Elizabeth to the All Blacks!  Let me see if I can find that too:


28 Oct 2011
To the Governor-General of New Zealand:

I was delighted to learn of New Zealand's victory in the 2011 Rugby World Cup. As one of the many who has admired the extraordinary fortitude of New Zealand's people in the face of recent disaster, I am so glad to know how much pleasure the All Blacks' victory has brought to the entire nation. Please convey to the team and management my warmest congratulations on their outstanding achievement.

ELIZABETH R
 Lovely stuff, yeah!   Choice, Bro! (My Kiwi character speaks lots of Kiwi slang, so I'm boning up!) And what makes this exceptionally nice is how she gracefully acknowledges that she's been following the recent series of horrible disasters in God's Own Home - The Land of The Long White Cloud - Aotea Roa - 
1) The two earthquakes in Christchurch! 
2) The Pine River Mining Disaster 
3) The Rena Oil Spill  ...
 ... and knows full well just how much New Zealand needed something to cheer them up!
Shot, Bro! Yeah nah! Good azzz, that Queen Fulla, yeah, ehhhhh!  
E noho ra!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Still Singing the Song!!!

Still on the post-RWC New Zealand win high, as the rest of the world seems to be too.  Even yesterday it was still in the Hong Kong newspapers, although no longer on the front page.

No, seriously, the All Blacks win made front page of Chinese newspapers!  Let me show you Monday's SCMP!

 Front page.  How cool is that?

Also got sent this!



LOVE? And I just love that the announcer says "This is trenchant war" because that's precisely what it felt like. Seriously, it wasn't until 10 seconds before the game ended - in a mad tangle of bodies at the edge of the field as NZ tried to place the ball out while the fighting scrum of Frenchies fought to keep it in - that the pressure let go and we all permitted ourselves the luxury of thinking "We might very well win this?" as it was never a sure thing until that point.  And see the ten second countdown from those fans in the clip!  Oh man, Keith and I did that, right there, surrounded by the French, in Trafalgia! Couldn't help ourselves!

And everyone is now asking "Where did the French dig that up from?" because, apart from Big Fat Smarty Pants Keith, no one expected the French to put up such a fight and, as the French coach said, "to make the Kiwis' tremble" in such a hard won battle. Truly, the phrase 'trenchant warfare' is not hyperbole.

And I don't believe I'm saying this, but Kudos France!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

The Shower Saga!

Talking earlier about the French singing "La la la la la" until the chorus of their National Anthem yesterday reminded me of a hilarious event from 2000, while the Sydney Olympics were on.

Baby Jane was over from NZ and we were on holiday together with the kids, taking a camper van up the East Coast of Australia, when we stopped off in a camping ground in Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast.

Around sunset I took the kids for a shower, and we were all in our separate stalls when the kids started to chat about the Olympics - which we were only seeing bits of since we didn't have a TV - and Ella asked me "How does the Australian National Anthem go?"

I'm from Fiji so I didn't really know, but I'd heard it lots of times so replied with singing what I knew of the song: "Australians all, let us rejoice for we are young and free. With something something something something, something something sea!"

"Oh, for heavens sake!" came an old lady voice from another stall. "Now, you listen up, children! It goes like this."  and she sang the entire song ...

... and then, in the strictest voice, she says "I want to now to sing it with me! Your mother as well!" and, from her shower stall with the shower still running and the sun slowly setting, she gave us each line in turn and we had to sing it with her.  "And now do the whole thing." she said sternly ...

... and we did.  And although we never saw the old lady's face, we and the kids now know all the words of the Oz National Anthem.

And let me find it for you so you too can imagine you're in a quickly darkening shower stall, with the water rapidly cooling, singing this song:

Kudos Kiwis!

I have no fingernails. They are bitten down to the red, raw quick!  It's all France's fault.

You have undoubtedly already heard that the All Blacks won the Rugby World Cup. 8 to 7!

 Friend Luce took this photo. Isn't it wonderful!

Oh yeah! Go All Blacks! Great feasting at the marai last night and for many days to come.

But here's the curious thing: We all knew that France only got into the Finals literally by "luck of the draw" - previously pitted against such weak teams in the earliest matches - and only two weeks ago they were stomped into the ground by the All Blacks, and it seemed like they were being called The Worst Team ever to get into the Finals of RWC for good reason ... so this really should have been a shoe-in for New Zealand!

However you should have seen that match.  Ahhhh! Never has there been a game so closely contested and so ... FRAUGHT! I know I'm never usually generous and fair-minded where the French are concerned - Remember Muaroa!! -  but I really have to hand it to them because this was a wonderful game which could easily have gone either way, always so close that I doubt there are fingernails left anywhere in the rugby watching world.

We went out into Lockhart Road looking for a seat in a sports-bar a full hour before the game started but ...


... there wasn't one to be had anyplace at street level, all packed in like sardines in a tin and already spreading out into the street, so we tried the basement bars ...


... and they were the same, so then we tried the upper storey bars and it wasn't until we got to the 5th floor that we found a single unpleasantly located table still vacant in one called Trafalgar. Yayyy! Since the Haka was about to begin we realised beggars can't be choosers and we were definitely ready to beg.

And it wasn't until we were seated we realised we were packed around with Frenchies ...

 In the middle of our own French scrum!

... but the line-up had started and we weren't moving anywhere.

"Why would any French person come to a bar named Trafalgar?" says Keith, because, as you know, The Battle of Trafalgar had them entirely routed.  "They're already admitting defeat!" I sniggered because I was still then full of confidence ...

... so full I hadn't even lit a candle to Kwan Yin this time.

 During the All Blacks and Wallabies match,
before I realised that the tassels were green-and-gold -
the sporting colours of Australia - so 
I took them off and replaced them with 
black ribbons!  Go All Blacks!

Quickly regretted it. The game started and, right from the start, it was so close and the French were so on fire, there were a great many times when I considered racing home to light that candle.

Prior to the game, in all our excited chatter, we were guessing at a 30-5 win to NZ, but not Keith. He was predicting a hard fight with either team to win and in the end it'd just come down to luck and didn't he nail it!

But the highlights?  What leaps out was just how gorgeous the French captain was. Like, such a seriously beautiful man! Both those team captains were.  It was like they could have been voted into their post on their eye-candy-ness, but then that French captain scored their only try, so there's obviously so much more to him than just that and I felt so mean-spirited that I'd been judging him on his looks alone.

The other big thing for me was that big sookie Frenchie breaking down and bawling his eyes out when he was pulled out of the game, and the other benched French player giving him a comforting cuddle.  Oh for heaven's sake: THIS IS RUGBY, GUYS!!!! THERE ARE NO TEARS AND CUDDLES IN RUGBY!!!  Watching that outrageousness, I kept thinking of that new Graham Norton game where you have to decide if a metrosexual-looking man is "Gay or French?" Close call here but either way it ain't rugby!

What else?  Oh yeah, when they played the National Anthems all the French sang along with theirs but no one really knew the words so there were lots of Lalalalalas until the chorus, which everyone knew and they threw their arms out, with waitresses dodging, as they loudly sang along.  And Keith and I decided we'd stand up to sing the Kiwi Anthem, just to be provocative, but then Hayley Westerna sang the Maori version and we didn't know the words ...



 ...  and although it was so very beautiful, we then and there decided that someone had to tell New Zealand that singing a National Anthem in Maori may be all very well and good down there on the marai, but it really does make NZ look provincial and negligible when they take it out onto the world stage!

Oh, and the only other thing of note among the highlights is that the various Chinese girlfriends of Trafalgar's Frenchies,  all cheered when the All Blacks made their try!  Yeah, you GO girlfriends!

But it was such a good afternoon!  And my fingernails will, now that the Rugby World Cup is over, grow back!

Monday, October 17, 2011

China! China! China!

Many years ago, when we were living in Australia, someone made a racist comment to our friend Ping Ping's four year old son, who came home crying, and so, in a fury, the family packed their bags and returned to China!

Five months later, they were back.  "What happened?" I asked Ping Ping.

She immediately broke down in tears and it took a while to get the story, but what happened was that, back in Beijing, her beloved uncle fell off a ferry into the Yangtze River. He was a good swimmer so was making his way to the bank when a passing boat's propeller sliced off his arm. Ping Ping had viewed the surveillance tapes on behalf of his grieving family and was chilled to the bone that they showed him screaming for help for an hour and forty five minutes with no one on the river bank or in any of the passing boats taking the slightest bit of notice. It wasn't until he was well and truly dead that he was fished out and returned, without ceremony or warning, to his family.  It was all just so awful that Ping Ping couldn't tell anyone, until me, what she'd witnessed.

"I can no longer live among people who behave like that!" said Ping Ping!

We talked about how and why no one cared to rescue a dying man and attributed the lack of action to decades of Communism and their stupid rules on the protocols of rescue, which, if broken, could get you executed ... but then we got more philosophical and decided that it also had something to do with how neither Buddhism nor Taoism have a remit to Charity or looking out for others' wellbeing ... but, if we wanted to be strictly accurate, it actually went back to Confucianism, since Confucius said that if you saved anyone's life, you then had to take care of them for the remainder of their now-extended natural life, which could get rather expensive.

I was thinking about this after watching the news last night and seeing what happened to the two year old girl in China who was run over by two separate cars and left to die on the street, with ever so many folks simply stepping over her.

It was just so awful I do hope something good comes out of this. Apparently the Chinese bloggers are up in arms over it, and everyone across the Mainland is talking about it, but I do hope it extends to proper questions being asked of Chinese Culture and Religions and maybe even to the adoption of a little "Christian Charity", for the want of a better phrase.

It isn't impossible. In Hong Kong, we've had years of the "Show You Have a Good Heart" campaign, with posters and ads everywhere.  It just asks that you show charity to others ... and, yeah, yeah, it sort of works, although ... no, let's not go there!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

UTU France UTU!!!

 The All Blacks beat the Australian Wallabies 20-6!  Yayyyy!!!

It means New Zealand goes on to play France in the finals next week, and even the French guys I was chatting with yesterday simply rolled their eyes, shrugged their shoulders and said "Poor France!" and "We don't stand a chance!" and "If we win, France will be so excited, those players will get a ticker-tape parade through the streets of Paris."

And really, when all is said and done, yesterday's game was the true final, and the France game - although we will definitely be watching next week - is simply mopping up afterwards!

Because that NZ vs Oz game was magnificent. If you missed it, kick yourself! It was truly truly amazing, but, gosh, you have never seen so much blood.  Honestly, watching it, you felt like you were in Ancient Rome watching gladiators at the Colosseum.

And about that game: I wasn't sure about the All Blacks tactics.  First half - which was so relentless you could barely breathe - what with your heart in your mouth and all! - they made all their moves. However, in the second half, they simply stopped the Wallabies making any moves which just turned the game into this relentless steamroller, which wasn't nearly as exciting, but certainly caused a LOT of blood.

Of course, the best moment was straight out of Cirque du Soleil. What happened was this Wallaby had the ball and this All Black went to tackle him, tumble-turned over his back, and grabbed the ball out of his hands on the way down.  Spectacular!  Of course the entire thing was an accident but everyone laughed because ... well, we can all pretend it's a spectacular new All Black tactic.  In fact, it's so spectacular, I'm sure the move will end up on youtube so you will end up seeing it for yourself.

Just checked and it's not up yet, although there is one clip from yesterday already there, but just the final minutes when Oz tried to score and it was so close it really looked like it was going to happen, but NZ didn't let it. Only watch if you're into steamrollers.

However, I did find this which shows you just how seriously cute some of these guys are:




Oh, and the other thing worth noting was that the All Blacks had none of their best players. All The Big Names were out with injuries. However, here's the thing about the All Blacks ... whenever they lose their best players, the others turn into best players. All those guys who are simply wonderful supports for the downright brilliance of The Big Names, without those Big Names on the field, they show their own downright brilliance and it always turns into "I didn't know he was that good!" and "I'm so glad he finally came into his own." It's true talent all the way down!

Oh, and the joke was that they were so low on real All Blacks that they pulled two little fellows off their skateboards and stuck them into the game. One of the little fellows is actually on that clip I mentioned but haven't included here.  Maybe I should get it now so you can see him for yourself:



He's at the end, with full frame at 2.36. And you can pick him out because he's the winsy wee thing getting a big hug from one of the big guys!

Actually, everyone was talking about those two winsy little fellows because it's really stuff of a Disney film. They were both small town players, but someone had spotted them and thought they had something special ... so, without enough REAL players for the semi-finals, they were plucked out of obscurity for the match.  And they both distinguished themselves, the winsy one for always been there in the thick of things, and the other - the little ginger-haired one - for continuing to play despite pints of blood pouring down his face.  This was his big moment and he wasn't going to let a little thing like a broken nose stop him, and it was so charming everyone was on his side.

So that's it!  All Blacks through to the Finals, and it's against France ... so a real trouncing will be a nice UTU (Maori for "Revenge") for NZ.

REMEMBER THE RAINBOW WARRIOR!!!! 

GO ALL BLACKS!!!

Saturday, October 15, 2011

BRING IT ON!!!

Rugby World Cup! Semi-finals!  This afternoon!

Australia vs New Zealand!

And all I can say is ...



 ... BRING IT ON!!!!

Later:  It was so cute!  There I was, last Sunday, hurrying along Lockhart Road to meet Keith and co at our chosen Sports Bar, fighting through the hordes of Gweilos (Foreign Devils) packed shoulder to shoulder both inside and outside the row of sports bars, when the cry started.  "It's the Haka!" and "They're about to do the Haka!" and even Mainland passersby, who wouldn't have known the first thing about rugby, stopped to watch it on the big screens. And then there was a deep hush until it was over, when the entire length of Lockhart Road broke into the loudest cheer imaginable!

The whole world LOVES a good haka, I'm telling you!

Friday, October 14, 2011

GO ALL BLACKS!!!


No need to say more!!!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Honestly!!!! CHINA!!! Just STOP!!!!

Mainland China makes me crazy. Honestly!  It's so grrrrr-ish with all the stupid things it does, like it's not a real country or something! Like it's simply making everything up as it goes along!  Like we're all inane stupid morons and deserve this sort of treatment! Or something!

Like this, right? On Sunday afternoon, we're out and about when, once again, the police are out in force and the main road is cut off.

 Mega police presence!

We're annoyed and saying very hissily "HK is beginning to overdo the protest march thing!" and "What's wrong with a good old fashioned rally in the park or a soapbox or something else that doesn't gridlock the traffic for hours!"  ...

 Backed up trams!

 ... which really isn't like us at all!

And then we start to wonder if maybe this is some sinister Mainland plot, because YES, here in HK, unlike in the rest of China, we are allowed by Basic Law - our mini-Constitution - to march in protest, but whereas, in the past, these marches used to occur only about two or three times a year, it's got so very bad recently it's like it happens every single day!!!  So often, in fact, that it no longer seems paranoid to think it's all actually Mainland China's doing, trying to stop our Freedom of Speech/Protest by having-so-many-protests-all-the-sodding-time that the city says "ENOUGH!!!" and demands it's stopped forever!

And thus we lose our Right to Freedom of Speech and Protest! And is that a sinister evil bwahahahah I hear coming from somewhere up North?

But there's more:

On Sunday, despite the enormous police presence, this march is thankfully a piddly wee thing, maybe 900 to perhaps just under 1200 folks waving banners all in Chinese, which we find a tad odd because usually there's at least a few in English so those-not-Chinese have some idea what's going down! And also because protesters usually know that with a few in English, you could just get international coverage for your complaint.

Anyway, here's the march!

However, not this time, so I ask a few bystanders what's happening and they're all "They're angry about Lam!" and since I have no idea who or what Lam is I decide to wait for Monday's SCMP!

But, on Monday, I'm shocked to my core: the protest is against Stephen Lam's support of HK foreign maids' request to be allowed Right of Abode after 7 years residency - just like everyone else gets - instead of this current situation where they're immediately deported the minute they don't have a job any more, which makes them put up with a lot of really quite nasty abuse - like having hot irons shoved in their face - because they don't have a choice! Either endure or BE GONE!!!

It's a horrible situation and I really do feel for them ... yet this thankfully piddly wee march is demanding Stephen Lam be sacked!!!  What is WRONG with these people?

But there's more:

Sacking a democratically-elected Councillor - oh OK, OK!, a semi-democratically-elected Councillor because we don't have a real democracy - only the super-rich Punti are allowed to vote - for having an opinion?  Seems someone out there doesn't really understand how a semi-democracy works, yes?

But there's more:

Front page story in "China Daily" the Communist Party propaganda newspaper:  "10,000 march to protest Lam" or something!  No, seriously, that's what it says! Kinda! Let me check! In fact, I should take a photo to show you so you can see for yourself!

 See it on the side there!

Meanwhile, here's the same story in SCMP:


Not at all the same thing at all, right?

I can confirm the story in SCMP because it tallys with what we witnessed ... yet here is the Mainland putting things out there that simply aren't true, and such an easily disproved lie too; one that can be easily checked out by an unbiased observer, so WHY DO THEY DO IT!!  Also, HOW can they do this, yet still imagine they're to be taken seriously!

We in the Pacific used to deeply detest the Colonial French because they were forever doing stuff like this, yet here we see China doing it all the time and yet we're not hating them nearly as much as they richly deserve.

Perhaps we need to put a protest march together about it, yeah?  (PLEASE, NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!)

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Poor Beleagured New Zealand

Don't know if you heard, but a cargo ship struck a reef - during daylight hours, so everyone's asking how - off New Zealand's Bay of Plenty and there's been a lot of action trying to stop it ruining those pristine and beautiful waters.

For days, it's been all (and I hope this doesn't offend you!) ...


... with lots of calls to forget the Rugby World Cup now happening in NZ and get dealing with the real issue!

However, last night I caught only the tail end of the news and apparently it's all gone terribly wrong ...


... and the ship has cracked open, is listing almost over, spewing crates, possibly those carrying toxic materials, and the oil slick was heading for the beaches ...


... and Lois, who lives on The Bay of Plenty, is currently touring around the more rural parts of North India and hearing only snippets and is sending e-mails pleading "What's happening?"

I've spent all morning trying to find out and I'm being told by everyone it's looking bad, although I did have a laugh at this:

John Keyes, NZ Prime Minister!

Needless to say, he didn't actually say this and it's just the Kiwi sense of humour in action, but nonetheless everyone I've talked to has been overwhelmed by the awfulness of this "invasion by outside forces".

Horrible, horrible, horrible! Those beaches are ... sorry, were ... so very lovely. Wish I knew where Keith has stored those photos so I could show you.

And the wreck is inside the Exclusion Zone, part of the Nature Reserves for fish life all up that coast so I guess those are done for! And since those reserves were all meant as fish breeding grounds, I guess that'll be a huge dink in the future of the Kiwi fishing industry.  And all those absolutely delicious shellfish all up that coast!!! Guess those are gone too!

Anyway, I'm trying to find out just how bad the damage is, but all I'm getting is "It's bad! It's really bad!" which doesn't really say a lot, does it?, because "bad" covers such a wide, wide range, so what I really want to know is "On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Hiroshima-level entire devastation, what level of bad is this bad?"

But nonetheless, no matter the level of bad, all I can think of is how sad this is! Tauranga was a beautiful beach! No, make that stronger, because it isn't just sad. More like Sad! Sad! Sad! SAD!!!

Poor New Zealand. I know I'm seldom nice about it, but I have never denied that it's undoubtedly one of the world's most beautiful countries - endless "chocolate for the eyes" - with everything so wildly visually lovely and beyond-just-right.  And now this! It's such a GENUINE TRAGEDY!

It's going to take serious effort and serious money to put this to rights, especially considering they're still rebuilding Christchurch after it was devastated by the earthquakes.

And thinking of what it's going to take to mend this - the cost and the technology etc, etc - I'll just put it out there that we actually saw Bill Gates and Tom Cruise together at one of these beaches - Omaha Beach, from memory - several years ago, the Easter after Tom made "The Last Samuri" in NZ. They spent the afternoon wind-surfing. It was a brutally cold day with very blustery winds but they didn't seem to mind. The beach was pretty much deserted, but there were over a dozen folks walking that chilly beach who all saw them ... and we all thought that they were both very nice since they said "Hi" to the beach-strolling passersby, like us, who pretty much left them alone to get on with it ...

... so here are two guys with great wealth and great influence who know this area of NZ ... so perhaps they could get involved somehow!

Just a thought!

Kathy has just sent me some links:



Thank you, Kathy! Most kind of you!

And updates are found here:  http://news.yahoo.com/containers-fall-off-stricken-ship-zealand-002400344.html

Monday, October 10, 2011

The Meaning of Life!

Bernd has so kindly lent me his book "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene to help me make sense of String Theory, so I've been slowly making my way through that - with so many cutaways to Wikipedia to look up things I've never even heard of - and finding it all so interesting that, for the first time in my life, I'm regretting that I didn't take Physics at school (I'm through-and-through Humanities and the obligatory science subject I chose was Biology, a decision I've never regretted), but whoever knew that Physics was so interesting ... except back in our day, it wasn't!  Ewww!

But between reading and Wiki-pedering, I've been racing off to watch The Rugby World Cup - GO ALL BLACKS - and loving it all so much that I've started making jokes that perhaps Rugby is the true meaning of life.  It very certainly makes sense of it ...

... so I really had to laugh when I saw an article in South China Morning Post on Sunday, where a fellow actually made that claim that "Rugby is actually the meaning of life."

Let me take a photo of the page so you can see for yourself:


It's a story of a lost young thug who was given a second-chance by HK police - no jail if he joined a Rugby team - which he did ... and found his life suddenly swung around because this game made sense of the world for him and through it he found his feet and his path and he's never looked back ... and now he's started a team for other troubled youths and working with police to identify big stroppy kids who like to fight, who are at risk of joining Triad gangs, and teaching them to play.

Good one, right?
 
I'm thrilled about this because, in an early post, I wrote about Nathan and his views on "Why Asians Can't Play Rugby!" where I quote him as saying "Every nation produces big stroppy boys who love to fight!" and his suggestion that they should identify these boys and channel them into Rugby, so I'm now thinking that maybe these neutrino subatomic particles picked up on Nathan's ideas and spread them out into the wider world ...

... or - and this one is much more likely - that Nathan also suggested this idea to other patrons at his restaurant and so the idea took fruit!

Or maybe, even, that the HK Police read my blog.  Ewwww!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Then and Now! CERN and Tau!!!

Have been following the CERN story with a great deal of interest:



Am trying to understand neutrinos and coming up with pretty much nothing, except an enormous resentment against Scientific Thinking, and the strong conviction that Science is just guessing with a smug, self-righteous, self-important attitude.

I've always known that my life has been just too damn weird, too full of too many strange "impossible" events, for scientific empiricism to be valid. And I've long been pretty annoyed that I'm forced by scientific materialist constraints to not explore these, to NOT ever admit, often even to myself, that certain things have been experienced by me; that I've been made to feel like I'm either insane or lying whenever, on the odd occasion, I've tried to seek a rational explanation for some of the many "impossible things" I've seen or heard or known or felt, from someone I thought would know.

Like, let me risk you doubting my sanity or my veracity and OUT myself by telling you just one of these "impossible things" that I have seen:

A Tau!  I have actually seen a Tau! And not just once either!

Had a quick look and there is nothing on the net to explain what a Tau is, nothing to link to, so let's change that by actually saying that a Tau is a "mythical" Fijian/Polynesian/Javanese/Madagascan creature, not a ghost but something vastly more strange.

Gauguin painted one too, did you know?  Let me find it for you:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/Paul_Gauguin-_Manao_tupapau_%28The_Spirit_of_the_Dead_Keep_Watch%29.JPG/300px-Paul_Gauguin-_Manao_tupapau_%28The_Spirit_of_the_Dead_Keep_Watch%29.JPG
 See it there in the background?

The story behind this painting - called"Manao Tupapau" - is that Gauguin came home from town to discover his girlfriend hiding in terror under the bedclothes.  Turns out that she'd seen a Tau come out of totem pole in the centre of the room.  So this picture is a mesh of what he'd seen when he pulled back the sheets AND his mental image of what she described she'd seen. (I can tell you that Gauguin's image isn't quite right although he's definitely nailed the colour.)

And if you're after another reference to this, Sir Arthur Grimble reports seeing one in Kiribati in his book "A Pattern of Islands", and I can tell you - with 100% certainty - you can trust him on this because what he says pretty much gels with what I saw.

I first saw one as a child. Yes, with my own eyes, and I wasn't drunk or stoned or asleep or delusional or any other of those usual explanations! And I have to say that, despite me being so young, this little fragment of memory is still entirely vivid in my head and I'm so grateful for it because it gives me a deep insight into what a wee little Aspergic I was back then:

I was about four and everyone else had gone into Suva for the morning, so I was sitting in our home in Tamavua in the breakfast room looking at the pictures on playing cards while Elamita, our maid, ironed at the ironing board next to me.  I was just wondering why the jacks' eyes were looking in all different directions when, without warning, this thing walked into the room and past me.

It was about 6'6" in height, silvery-grey, without facial features, entirely hairless, naked but without genitals or nipples, and looked very like the type of ET now known as "Large Grey". It was like nothing I could ever have imagined so I just froze, eyes wide and jaw dropped. Elamita, still at the ironing board, turned to see what I was looking at, then poked me in the head and said in the most matter-of-fact voice "Bow your head until it passes." And so I did. And she did too, turning her body toward it and folding her arms in front of her in the most respectful Fijian manner.

However, despite bowing my head, I peeked and can tell you that it disappeared into the closed door.  Odd, yes?

After it was gone, I felt exceptionally unnerved, like the bottom had fallen out of the world I was being raised in, and asked Elamita in hushed and reverential tones "What was that? A ghost?" and she said, still most matter-of-fact, "Saga na galoa! Sa Tau!" which translates to "not a ghost, but a spirit" and then she told me that these Taus were powerful entities owned by the most powerful Betes, or witchdoctors, that came through a Bure Lutu (a break between worlds) whenever their witchdoctor called them to do a task for him.

She then told me that our house was built on an ancient Bure Lutu so to expect weird things to happen, but to never be afraid because it really was nothing to do with us, but to just be respectful and always let everything go on their way without speaking or interacting.

I was fine with that explanation so just went back to the cards ... but when mum came home and I tried to tell her, she gave me her usual loving-but-dismissive "Don't be silly, dear!" and when I asked Elamita to back me up, she held up her hands in her usual "don't involve me" gesture.

So that was that, and I'd like to tell you I just forgot it until the next time, except I can't because shortly after this Big Brother went off to England to boarding school and I took over his bedroom and that's how I came to discover where the Bure Lutu was - about a foot inside his bedroom window! And although we've never ever discussed any of this, I wonder if he too can confirm The Shimmerer, The Full Moon Breather, The Soundball and the great many other strange phenomena that happened regularly around me in that room, and which I chose to ignore ...

... but with reverence ...

... although that very annoying Soundball - I have NEVER found anything that even begins to explain it; not even Elamita knew of such a thing - used to be attracted to anything hot and electrical so my bedroom lights were forever exploding, and I was forever getting into trouble for it.  "How are you doing this?"  mum would ask, exasperated, at least once a month, as the smashed lightbulbs were carefully gouged out of the socket and changed yet again! "Are you hitting them with balls or arrows or something?" so I'd give Elamita a "please explain to her" look, but she'd only respond with her "don't involve me" gesture.

So I never said! Never explained! Always took my spanking without complaint because it was so much better than that "Don't be silly, dear!"

However, now and again, something particularly odd would happen, or I'd start to feel betrayed that I'd been promised "Rapid Pass-through" yet so many things lingered, so I'd risk "Don't be silly, dear!" and ask mum about it, only to get "Don't be silly, dear!" or "Perhaps there's an owl nesting above that window!"

But there was the time, during full moon, The Full Moon Breather was being particularly loud and annoying so I marched out to the living room where mum was reading and told her I was sick to death of weird things happening and no one explaining how and why, and when I got that "Don't be silly, dear!", I demanded loudly that she come in to hear it for herself.  And yes, she heard it clearly - very clearly indeed - and looked puzzled for several seconds before exclaiming "Oh, I know what that is.  There's a fault line in the earth and what you're hearing is the echo of Dr Gilchrist asleep up the hill."

I was happy with that! Of course it didn't explain how Dr Gilchrist could sleep without ever breathing in - The Breather only ever breathed out - or why I could only hear him when there was a full moon, or why The Breather shimmered the air around it, but it was at least the start of getting a rational, sensible, sane and scientific view of these bloody annoying phenomena!

So yeah, that's the world I grew up in: sensible, sane and scientific, but I could never get into sync with it because there was always something way wayyy weirder than The Breather happening; things so weird and inexplicable that I knew wouldn't be believed so mostly I kept my mouth shut, although there was still a part of me that wanted someone else to verify and validate my experiences, so ...

... confession time ...

... in the name of validation by outside verification, I sneakily and with malice-aforethought, surrendered my bedroom to a doctor from Alaska who was visiting at dad's hospital. Oooh, I was sooo looking forward to what would happen. And it did! His first night, yup, there it was: an adult running around our back garden, firing the gun we didn't know he had, screaming "Come out! Come out! I know you're there!"

I felt so proud of myself that I never carried on like that, and felt so pleased because I thought that finally I'd be believed and finally we could talk openly about that Bure Lutu and I'd get a full and proper explanation ...

... but no, it never happened. "What did you see?" I asked the Alaskan doctor the next morning, as he hastily packed his bags so he could move into a hotel (with mum's blessing; she was furious that he had brought a gun into our house!)  "Was it The Shimmering Hole opening up that frightened you? Or did you see The Breather? Or The Shimmerer?"

"Don't be silly, dear." my mum said as she helped him pack. "He was just shooting at cane toads."

"Yeah! Yeah!" agreed the doctor, forever losing my respect for not having courage to face the truth, "That's what I was doing!"

Adults, huh!!!  Gosh, I did so dislike them when I was a child.

Anyway, there was a lot of stuff that went down over those years I lived in that bedroom, but I didn't see the Tau again until I was about 17.  We'd just been to see "The Eagle Has Landed", and Larry had taken me home, so I was sitting on the kitchen table having a cuppa with him as we chatted about the film.  Then I saw it. Exactly as it had 13 years earlier, taking exactly the same path as last time, through the breakfast room, the Tau walked out of the wall.  Again I froze, eyes wide, jaw dropped, and Larry turned to see what I was looking at, leapt about a foot out of the chair, shouting "Holy Sh*t!!!" The Tau turned his head, looked at us, turned back and dematerialised through the screen door.

"That's a ghost! That's a ghost!" said Larry in the most over-awed and horrified voice. "No." I replied, most matter-of-factly, "That's not a ghost. That's a Tau!"

Larry, an engineer with a strong scientific bent, was too unnerved to talk about it or even to stay so after "I've got to get out of here!" he raced to the screen door ... and promptly froze. "It's probably still out there!" he said, still horrified.  So, big butch me, used to these things, walked him out into the night to his car and waved him off, thinking "Well, there's someone who'll never speak to me again!" because even at 17 I knew that people who believe in science prefer to pretend YOU don't exist than admit that something so very very strange DOES exist.

But I was wrong.

Larry was TRULY scientifically-minded, and after two days, wherein, as he told us, he tried to get his head around it, rang me saying he wanted to talk, but since he totally refused to come to our house, we met at Rod's house instead. Larry, the sweetheart, had typed out a full report of what he'd seen and wanted me to read it then to sign it, as a witness to confirm he was neither lying nor insane, which I did, willingly, despite knowing full well that nothing anything ever wrote or said would ever be believed, ever, no matter how many witnesses you had, so there really was no point in even trying.

Oh, and here's something most odd.  At Rod's house that day, Larry and I had an argument over whether the Tau was male or female. It was only much later that I realised that he'd registered the lack of visible genitals as "female" - which really says something about his view of women - whereas I was reading that powerful energy emanating off it as "male" - which really says something about me, doesn't it.  My Woman's Group would most certainly be most cross with me, so let's never tell them.

However, before I wind this up, I must also confess that I missed the opportunity for total verification and validation because, when dad got cancer and retired from the hospital, our home in Tamavua was handed over to his #2, Dr Panapasa, and for weeks leading up to the move there was relentless teasing from the Panapasa kids. "It's our house now!" they'd say in singsong voices! "You gotta give it all up because it's now ours!"

Me, I just secretly smiled to myself and when, only about two weeks later, when Rachel P. saw me at Morris Hedstrom's milk bar, she looked very humble and asked which bedroom I'd had, and when I told her, she looked quickly over both shoulders, checking that no one could over-hear, and whispered "Did you ever see anything strange in that room?"  Revenge is sweet, right?  I widened my eyes innocently and said "Can't say I did?  What are you talking about?"  before adding "Perhaps you're seeing things because you're insane!" and walking away.

And then, less than a month later, the Panapasa family asked to be assigned another house in the complex, and I believe that's what happened. They moved out, without any explanation offered. Tee Hee! Guess Rachel wasn't all butch and tough about weirdness like I was!

Yes, I know it was wrong that I, in my turn, denied giving her any validation of what she was experiencing - and maybe even passing on Elamita's advice - but what I most regret is that I rejected my own validation and lost the only opportunity to have someone I could talk to all this about, without being told I was either lying or insane.

I once, as a child, read a biography of Sir Isaac Newton where it talks about him growing up in a haunted house. I found that most interesting and was just wondering myself how he could have come up with Scientific Empiricism when he knew there was so much that was inexplicable and beyond-strange about this material world, when the book actually quoted someone in his family saying "How can you believe in Scientific Empiricism when you grew up in a haunted house?" to which he replied "One is a matter of fact and the other is simply a way of thinking!" and I really liked that explanation.

So actual validation from Sir Isaac Newton himself! Science is simply a mode of thinking separate from 'real life'. It's just a Discourse and/or a Methodology, but, alas, it got all jumped-up and ahead of it's game and began to make godlike pronouncements and doing all sorts of godlike judging and dismissing-because-it-doesn't-match-our-dogma, equally a match for what the Pope did to Gallileo ... when in reality it had no real idea of how the world worked at all.

Honestly, I'd even go so far as to say Science has now set itself up as a Religion with a particularly harsh dogma that any of us who wish to be considered sensible and sane must adhere to. Science always takes itself so seriously and so self-importantly and doesn't allow for anything other than itself ... so I really LOVE that they're now, thanks to CERN and thanks to "String Theory", being forced to admit that they don't really know anything for certain afterall!



Of all styles of thinking, my favourite would have to be scientific, but it's just that Science is supposed to be Empiric but has ignored so much about what Newton himself called "a fact of life" which means it has barely scratched the surface of how life actually works, so I have to say that until CERN manages to come up with an account of the world that allows for Taus, Bure Lutes, Shimmering Openings, Breathers and lightbulb-exploding Soundballs, things I know FOR A FACT exist, it and I will remain on bad and dissonant terms.

Now that I've outed my giant dark secret, I expect to be attacked, but whatever!!!  Just so long as I don't hear from any Crazies, because I really only want scientific answers for this phenomena, and don't want to be forced to say "Don't be silly, dear!"

Monday, October 3, 2011

Honestly! Keith!!!!

Things that make you long to hold your vile husband down and slap him to an inch of his life???

Well, top of my list is the current Sotherby's Art Sale here in HK.  Ooooh, I'm so cross with him!

I've already told you about how, when we first arrived in HK, I fell in love with modern Chinese artists and particularly in love with Yun Ming Jung's painting "The Jesters" that was selling in Schoneli Gallery for only HK$3000.00. I loved it so much I begged him to get it for me for my birthday ... and so, being a big fat smarty-pants and not wanting to spend that much, he got me a Dafen copy from Stanley Markets, which now hangs on my wall!


And then, only eight years later, the original sold at auction for 16 million!!!!  And Keith has the audacity to scream at me "Why didn't you FORCE me to buy it for you!"

Well, this is exactly what's happened again:


When we first arrived in HK, over somewhere near Nathan Road in Kowloon, there was a row of old utility boxes, just stacked up for the taking, that I found so extraordinarily beautiful I was transfixed.  Someone had painted them white and written on them in the most beautiful calligraphy, and I was so taken I stopped a passerby and asked him what they said. They turned out to be a letter to Queen Elizabeth asking her to intervene with the Chinese Government so the writer would be allowed to return to China to die, and they were signed "The King of Kowloon".

The King of Kowloon in action,
in SCMP.

I was so moved by this, I actually tracked down what I could find out about the man responsible, and he turned out to be Mao's personal calligrapher who somehow angered Mao so had to flee for his life and ended up, for decades, homeless in Hong Kong.  Then, when he felt death approaching, he tried to return to China but wasn't permitted entry so started this campaign of graffiti-letters, written all over Kowloon, begging for world leaders to intervene so he could die in peace at his own place on The Mainland.

However, he wasn't successful and died, gosh, somewhere like in a dumpster in an alley, but all that was in the future because, on the day I first saw them, I fell in love and wanted desperately to take just one, but Keith was furious and kept saying "Don't we have enough of your junk?" and "It's stealing!" and "It's garbage. Leave it where it is."

And now those very same utility boxes are selling, as you can read above, for $800,000 each.

Yeah, you agree I should hold down my vile husband and slap him resoundingly for a great many hours?  It's the very least he deserves!

And how sad is it that there's now all this money involved and "The King of Kowloon" doesn't get a cent of it!  And how about those folks in the Art World now making all this money off him, do something about returning his ashes or his remains or whatever to his place on the Mainland where he so desperately wanted to be buried. I think it's the very least they could do.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Shame, Fiji, Shame!

Honestly, Fiji has played so badly in the Rugby World Cup that, during the game with Wales, the commentator called us "Minnows"!  I think it was meant to be a joke - "Whales vs Minnows" - but you have to play pretty damn badly if you manage to make WALES look good!

And if you don't know what an insult this is, "Minnows" refers to those rugby teams that aren't very good so barely count ... and this is US he's talking about!!! US, FIJI, a team that's always been a powerhouse in world rugby.

 Photo stolen from Simon, 
who actually flew from Oz to watch this game!

MINNOW!!! Bah humbug!

In fact, they played so very badly I have to wonder if it weren't all a passive-aggressive punishment to our Rugby Board for sacking The Skewer, the coach, just before the World Cup.  At least I hope that's the case because I'd hate to think we ever play this badly except on purpose!

Anyway, that's us out of the competition - but I don't care because I was like a rat and deserted the sinking ship two games ago! (Although I did watch the match against Wales because I was hoping! But I walked out of the sports bar after the Minnows comment because, well, I knew the commentator wasn't wrong!) (The shame! The shame!)

 Fiji spectators watching this slow-motion train wreck!
Thanks Simon!


But it's hilarious how angry Fiji is.  Like to the very bone FURIOUS! I've been trawling the Fiji chatrooms and the entire nation is up in arms ... but in true Fiji-style they've started being hilarious about it.

Let me share some of the best comments:

1) "I hear Fiji Police are preparing to send a Rapid Responce SWAT Unit Team to Nadi Airport to protect our coach."  Reply: "To protect him or to whack him?" (in Fiji, "whack" means punch!)  "Whack him, Goodfeller's style, right?!"


2) "Everyone's saying how they want to lynch the FRU Board for sacking The Skewer and replacing him so close to RWC!!!" "Fiji citizens should prosecute all the FRU board members who made the decision to fire the Skewer!"  "Yeah, and then we should burn their Fiji passports and send them to the coldest place in Siberia!"

3) "The Fiji Team needs to return from NZ by ship - via the Panama Canal - to give Fiji time to cool off!" "Well, if they come via sea, Fiji citizens will hire the LOMAIVITI PRINCESS and use her to hijack them at high seas!!" "Good plan, and please include in the plan a few large canon!!"

Don't you love?  I guess it's true: in Fiji, rugby is more than just a game for us! It's very like a religion.
And so, yes, I'm not looking forward to seeing what happens when our Team returns.  Maybe we should travel home by rocketship via at least six of the planets because I think that's how long it's going to take for Fiji to calm down after SUCH an all-round humiliating and shame-filled performance!

GO GO ALL BLACKS!!!!