Another Fine Mess

I am often surprised, bewitching and voluminous reader, at the way complete strangers approach me in public to ask me the secret of my grasp of the French language.

 

At other times, similarly complete strangers (possibly even the same ones, I don’t know, you see these are persons not known to me) are agog to know how I became such a competent swimmer.  “How is it, Bigolly, that you are able to carve through the water with such ease and not be all puffed out or red in the face or anything?” they might ask.  “Are you related to Des Renford or someone?” 

 

Well, the polish with which I order a croissant or churn out a quick 110 yards of elementary backstroke is, I suppose, due to hours spent memorising irregular verbs and trawling up and down the big pool at the Geo Bolton Memorial Swimming Centre- often both at the same time. 

 

But that isn’t the whole answer.  Anyone can memorise conjugations or apply him or her self to the soul destroying hours of training it takes to make the under 14 boys’ relay team in the Burnside Southside Swimming Club.

 

The question is not so much how did I it but why?  Was there an influence in my past that guided me in these rather disparate endeavours?

 

Naturally I like to think that it was my own aptitude and dedication to hard work that brought about this slightly unusual “skillset” as the young people would call it.  But if it were a matter of hard work and talent, why was I unable to master other things that I tried, like hammer throwing or the Rubik’s cube? Why did I never perfect the torpedo punt and why, despite Gary Case’s best endeavours, did the progressive jive so wholly elude me?

 

In fact, if I turn my mind back to the early days of my schooling, there stands across my consciousness a colossus of both French and swimming whose influence remains with me to this day.

 

No, it is not as you may imagine, the Geo. Bolton who was associated with the local municipal swimming centre (comprising the big pool, the middle pool – with the viewing windows and the paddling pool).  I assume he was interested in swimming but am not aware of any association with French.  As far as I can remember he sold motorbikes.  At Kawasaki Corner.

 

Of course, motorbikes did become an interest of mine but I would not claim any great expertise.  I went in one race in my early teens at the Burnside Mini Bike Trials Club and came in a distant last.  I should add that the competition was not strong.

 

So no, Geo. Bolton though probably an admirable fellow was not a moulding influence on the young Bigolly.

 

No, the guiding hand and mysterious benefactor was a woman whose name will strike a chord with anyone who encountered her.

 

I speak of Madame Stanley, the swimming/French teacher at my primary school.  A legend.

 

The combination of swimming and French is not an obvious one but there are complementary aspects.

 

The development of the lungs as a result of swimming lent enormous force to Madame’s diction.  When she bellowed “Cold in the nose” at you to correct your pronunciation, you stayed bellowed at.  And all bits of plaster fell down from the ceiling.  I never quite understood whether I was supposed to emulate the cold in the nose sound or avoid it but often due to swimming in inclement weather, the choice was taken out of my hands.

 

I must say, I can’t really remember that French much influenced the swimming lessons, although there was an undeniable continental style in Madame’s presentation.  She usually sported a brightly coloured maillot with lots of bracing around the frontal area resulting in that very pointy look that women so seemed to admire in those days.  She also had very curly hair which may have been natural but might have been a European fashion statement.

 

The hair colour, as I recall, was fair to blond, but that could well have been due to the chlorine in the water as much as to the coiffeur’s art.

 

How fondly I remember being trooped across the road to the school’s small pool in the enclosure next to the cricket nets.  We would be taught mushroom float then the ominous sounding “drownproofing” before moving onto the Australian Crawl and other useful skills like retrieving coloured objects from the bottom of the deep end.  It was only about five feet deep (that’s 1674 nanometres for you metric types) but I do recall once that I had to feel around for the key or whatever it was.  I eventually found it and on resurfacing was met with the delighted shriek “You’ll never drown!” delivered right into my face.

 

It was so loud it made my cheeks puff out like that pilot or parachutist bloke in the series of pictures where the wind is blowing more and more strongly on his face until you can see all his teeth, even the back ones.  You know the one.

 

French was also a bit eccentric.  I may have mentioned this before but Madame Stanley used to go from classroom to classroom with a little red portable record player and a small suitcase with some lessons on vinyl disks.

 

There were pamphlets to go with the records, “Bon Voyage” they were called, and we could follow the writing while listening to the disk.  Plus Madame would help out with “cold in the nose” suggestions from time to time. 

 

I’m not sure from where she got her skills in the French language but I think she lived there for a while.  Quite possibly she called snails across the Loire Valley or something.

 

Anyway, the little record player was not too robust and eventually the belt that made the turntable go ‘round broke.  Madame was canny enough to realise that everything else worked and so the best behaved child was chosen to put his or her index finger on the cardboard label in the middle of the record and turn it by hand, doing their best to maintain 33 1/3 RPM.

 

As I say, I think I have mentioned this before but the memory is a fond one.

 

Of course, I was not the only student of Madame’s.  Pretty much the whole school had lessons in both French and swimming from Madame and I am not aware that many of them went on to great heights in both.  Obviously I was a  sensitive child and absorbed the influences more thoroughly.  The sensitive child was the father of the sensitive man that I have become. 

 

So, lady and gentlemen I beg you charge your glasses and join me in a toast, from Big Olly to Stanley.

 

Though I must say, now that I think of it, I should check up on Geo Bolton.  I might be selling him a bit short. 

 

Of course, it might have been those viewing windows in the middle pool that put me off him a bit.  They don’t seem quite right in this modern day and age, do they?

Imagine Nation

I have never made a secret of the fact that I am different. I stand out from the crowd. I am, it is true, a rugged individualist. Not that you could tell this from my actions or lifestyle. I don’t have a lice ridden beard and a leather waistcoat, nor do I ride a large American twin cylinder motorcycle or make amphetamines in the shed.

No, what makes me different and fascinating is that I am not fond of John Lennon’s post “The Beatles” work. In particular, I dislike his song “Imagine”.

So there you go. For some reason you are quite free to make your own mind up about most things. Generally where there is a disagreement about the merits of a song or a film you can defend your choice but at the end of the day you can’t expect everyone to agree with your choice.

For some reason, this does not apply to “Imagine”. If you don’t like it you are thought to be wrong. Any time that there is a poll for “greatest song ever written”, “Imagine” wins it. Easily.

I just don’t understand. How can that be so in a world that has “Mmm Bop” by Hanson, to name just one infinitely greater song?

“Imagine” is not a musical masterwork. It isn’t peppy and doesn’t get you on your feet.

Lyrically it is smug and a bit embarrassing. The worst part of it is that Lennon seems to think that this odious doggerel will somehow change the world. It didn’t and it won’t.

There is no way that this can be the greatest song ever. It isn’t even the greatest song by a tired, washed up former member of a mega band.

Not when we have “Je Suis un Rockstar” by Bill Wyman. Again, the music isn’t much, but Ah!, the lyric. I give you this;

“She took off ‘er ‘at
And she ‘ad lovely ‘air
Said she smoked marihuana
At the Copacobana.”

I mean to say, who wants to go to the sweat and hard work of imagining, for example, all the people living for today? What good is that going to do? Imagining her lovely hair, on the other hand, is going to be a rewarding and enjoyable experience. Plus you get to imagine her hat. For mine it is a bit raffia one with a bit of a droopy brim such as might be seen at the beach, but equally it could be one with mouse ears or even a bobby’s helmet.

I mean to say, she was sitting in a fountain in Trafalgar Square or something, wasn’t she?

So there you go. There is no doubt in my mind what I would prefer to imagine. I hasten to add that the imagining might have to stop when you get to the part of the song in which Wyman, somewhat ill advisedly given his history, suggests to the girl in question:

“We could go on the hovercraft
Across the water
They’ll think I’m your dad
And you’re my daughter.”

Anyway, there you go.

In some quarters my dislike for “Imagine” prompts people to think that I am a big fan of Paul McCartney’s, which is not quite so. I do like “Live and Let Die” and a couple of others, but would rather have my fingernails pulled out and the sensitive tips of my fingers bathed in rocket fuel than listen to “The Girl is Mine” or “Silly Love Songs”.

My favourite of “The Beatles” was actually George. The only other solo album I bought was “Ringo’s Rotogravure”.

The less said about that, the better.

Roll, Baby, Roll!

In August we noted the passing, thirty years ago, of Elvis Aaron Presley.

As much as I wish that he were still with us, I have regretfully given up hope that he is. But there are plenty of others who cling to the belief and have done so for some time. The fever has died down a bit since his 70th birthday but there are still plenty of people who refuse to accept that on that fateful August day in 1977 Elvis’ mighty heart gave out while he was sitting on the crapper in a big nappy (although that seems to be a contradiction) with a deep fried squirrel or something sticking out of his mouth. People seem to want something more.

Why Elvis? Why not his stillborn identical twin, Jesse Garon Presley? There is nothing much wrong with him. He even sort of rhymes. But no one seems to be insisting that Jesse slipped quietly off to enjoy an anonymous existence blackening catfish and making hominy grits.

No, it is Elvis who is constantly being spotted sniffing around for jobs changing tyres or mopping floors in supermarkets everywhere from John O’Groats to Perth Western Australia (assuming you go through America rather than across Europe and Asia, though I imagine there are sightings in Germany too).

As far as I can tell the only other persons in respect of whom there has been such an enduring myth of a falsified death are Hitler and Mr. Olivia Newton-John, so I assume that it is not a reflection of a widespread and abiding love of the object. It must be something to do with fame. Just what it is I do not know and possibly one of the readerboat might have a suggestion. Actually, didn’t one of Alby Mangels’ mates try it on too?

But that is not where we are going.

I was thinking about Elvis’ unlikely comeback a few years ago, courtesy of some old footage and some recordings that had not previously been released (or if they were, they weren’t popular). In a macabre vision of the other side of the veil, we were treated to Elvis jigging around as though he were still with us. Thus he got a couple more hits under his belt – from beyond the grave. It was a bit spooky but we all knew where we stood.

Contrast the Beatles. Their disintegration was at least as drawn out as was Elvis’, if not significantly more so. They retreated to the studio well before they called it quits, and slowly drifted apart until it all ended seemingly over a period of months during which they didn’t speak to each other, unless it was to ask Ringo to make another cup of tea.

The final rupture was odd and unsatisfying. The public were yearning for more. History tells us that they didn’t get it. Sure, there were the annual “Long Lost Beatles Tapes Found!” type headlines and we even got “Free as a Bird” (I think it was), a release that amply showed us why these tapes had been shoved behind the sofa or given to the cleaning lady for her baby to play with.

For a long time after they had disbanded, there were rumours that they were going to re-form and were planning a new album or a concert tour. There were also regular suggestions that the possibility of a contribution to the greater good might overcome John and Paul’s mutual loathing and that they would perform at a charity concert or something.

More interesting were the constant rumours that the Fab Four had actually already reformed and had either released a new album or performed unannounced at the Coober Pedy Town Hall or somewhere.

Rumours like these seemed to surface every few months during the early and mid seventies. They would go ‘round like wildfire because people wanted to think that the magic was not over.

Of all of them, my favourite was the Klaatu one.

Klaatu released an album in the mid seventies which for some reason was widely thought to be the Beatles. This meant that it got far more attention than it might otherwise have attracted.

I can’t remember what happened to quash the rumour. Possibly the revelation that the band was a Canadian three piece “art/pop” outfit (ie hat wearing beardy-weirdies from Calgary or somewhere) was enough to dissuade the most enthusiastic believers.

Klaatu did have one big song, “Calling Occupants (of Interplanetary Craft)” although in a development that must have been awfully embarrassing, the Carpenters did a cover version which was much more successful.

They broke up after a while and in another odd Beatles like development, have been haunted by rumours that they are planning a comeback. In their case the rumours of a planned reuinion are true.  They do want to get back together.   In their case the actual comeback seems to be prevented by lack of discernable interest from anyone else.

Anyway, if that was the best of those rumours, I think the worst was to come a few years later. Those of you who had a lot of time on their hands during the Eighties might remember Doctor and the Medics who did a cover of someone or other’s hit, “Spirit in the Sky”.

I believe that the rumour surrounding that group may not have been worldwide like the Klaatu one. In fact I would not be surprised if it was restricted to one or two adjoining Adelaide suburbs.

The rumour was that Doctor and the Medics were in fact none other than The Bay City Rollers.  

Yep, you got it.  Derek and Eric and Woody and Alan and Les. 

This was a great rumour.  Doctor and the Medics were a glam band with all makeup on them doing a cover of an old song.  Just between ourselves, it was OK and had the sort of beat that the kids could dance to.

The Bay City Rollers were a different proposition.  What they lacked in makeup they more than made up for in tartan and as far as I can recall sang songs that sounded as though they just found them somewhere.  Like in a skip or somewhere.  

They were a big hit with girls of about 10 to 14 years of age who would get around in “Roller Strollers” -baggy jeans cut off midway down the shin and with a sort of broad tartan stripe down the leg.  Classy.

Still, the rumour arose and lasted ages.  I think it was because it could easily have been Derek or Alan under that makeup.  Or Les.  Or Woody or Eric.

But it wasn’t.

It would be remiss of me to leave any discussion of the Rollers without recalling that Peter Nicholls’ sister was supposed to have been found climbing up the drainpipe of the Royal Coach Motor Inn when they were in town.  It seems that she was hoping to get into their room for some reason.

It seems unlikely that a big act would have stayed there, particularly in the same room, but who am I to argue with rumour? 

Percolated Karma

I was recently enticed into a cinema for the first time in a while, tolerant and forgiving reader, to see a French film depicting the life of the late Edith Piaf.

Coo, if I might make so bold, what a life.

I had rather expected a happy-go-lucky childhood in the French countryside, a gradual rise to fame during the pre war years, some time as the French equivalent to Vera Lynn or Betty Grable followed by a gentle decline surrounded by adoring fans. You know the sort of thing. A bit like Sir Donald Bradman or Janice Joplin (probably).

But no. Far from an idyllic French childhood spent crouched in the cheese shed gnawing a clove of garlic, it seems that she was plunged pretty much straight into the harsh realities of life and pre-war French plumbing.

Without wishing to be accused of what my nephew could call “soiling” the plot of the film, I should say that with the tension of wondering whether she would emerge from the mire before she had suffered long term damage combined with the uneasy feeling that Gerard Depardieu must not be far away, I could hardly concentrate on my choc-top.

And a choc-top is an item that demands your concentration. My pants got all chocolate and ice-cream on them.

Anyway, I consoled myself with the reflection that these so called “biopics” are not always as icily accurate as they might be. For example, “The Jolson Story” was pretty much complete bunkum. I think Jolson may still have been around when it was made so they did not want to offend the megalomaniacal psychopath, but the film did not contain a single shred of truth.

Similarly the various depictions of the lives of Eddie Cantor, Red Nicholls, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman all lacked any depiction of the gritty drudgery that suggests real life.

In this case, perhaps Piaf’s life was not as bad as depicted in the film. For example, it was strangely silent about her time in Paris during the Second World War. Presumably she led a determined resistance to the German occupation, which must have been fun and rewarding. I am sure that all those stories about collaboration were made up at the time by the British to ensure her safety.

But the really odd thing about the film was that I left the cinema with a yearning for instant coffee, a beverage I generally avoid if possible. “Why,” I wondered, “this odd desire seemingly from nowhere and after all this time?”

It took much further thought before the answer came to me.

One of the great hits of Piaf’s later career was “No Regrets”. It was not much emphasised in the film but it was pretty big and you probably know it. She sings about how tough things had been for her and what a lot she had been through and how crummy her life had been and what a poor hand she had been dealt but how she’s not complaining.

You may think that you don’t know it, but I’ll wager that you do. It was used in an ad for instant coffee some years ago. You remember the one, it had all Parisian street scenes and the tune was played on an accordion (or what my anglophile uncle was given to calling a “discordion” but there I digress).

There were two policemen wandering across one of those distinctive bridges, a mother and daughter stopping at a café for a long loaf of bread, some blokes sweeping the road with witches brooms. Stuff like that. It was all very atmospheric and I think was linked to a contest along the lines of “if you buy sufficient quantities of our vile coffee dust we might send you on a trip to the cafés of France to show you just how wrong you were in so doing” or something like that.

Just thinking about that ad took me right back and I am not ashamed to say that a manly tear rolled down my ruddy cheek. I say “ruddy” as in “red” not as some sort of mild swearword.

Then, perhaps as a combination of the smell of coffee from the snack bar, the wave of nostalgia and the adoring gaze of my beautiful companion, I remembered another campaign for the same company.

Perhaps you do too, sentimental and compassionate reader. Allow me to try to paint an word picture.

I can’t really remember how it starts, but am pretty sure there were some pan pipes playing a lilting and uplifting bar or two. A rural scene. Possibly a moving van or something. Cut to a sweet little cottage. An attractive woman, early thirties. A girl’s voice over saying something about how, as a result of the failure of her parents’ marriage (or possibly of her father’s death or something) she and her mother were seeking a change of scene in the country.

I don’t really remember how it went from there save that there was the inevitable appearance of a tall dark and handsome neighbour or local vet or something and that over a series of these ads, each culminating in a cup of instant coffee, a relationship warmer than that of mere neighbours ( or vet and client) grew.

I am sure that you, the readerboat, can provide further detail because it was a reasonably popular series. It seems that the same storyline had been filmed in many different countries. Presumably in, for example, the South American version it was a neighbouring Gaucho with big chaps on his jeans and in New Guinea it might have been a local headhunter with a friendly twinkle in the eye of his giant mud head.

Anyway, the relationship developed slowly over a series of ponderous ads. I remember reading that the English version culminated in a wedding or something which was one of the most watched television events of its day.

All I can say is that the English version must have been made with a bit more punch than the Australian one. I can’t even remember if they bothered finishing ours off. If they did, I could not tell you what happened. Presumably there was a country wedding complete with yodeling and rope tricks but it passed me by entirely.

Perhaps coincidently, I date my abandonment of instant coffee from about that time. I would not say that I have not had a cup since but generally the only time I do is when I awake in an hotel room with a cracking hangover and no proper coffee available. If you dump two or three sachets of the dust into a cup you can nearly get a whisper of what a coffee is like. If you close your eyes and imagine. It will sustain you until you can get out of your room, at least.

What I would like to know is, does anyone remember the series? How it ended? Or was it just a beautiful dream?

Unkindly Refrain

I recently read somewhere, most excellent and genteel reader, about a contest in England to choose the worst lyrics to a song ever.

I don’t really know about this sort of thing. It is a fairly obvious effort to cash in on a less appealing aspect of human nature, the propensity to sneer.

Having said that, the winner did seem worthy, being from a song called “Life” by Des’ree.

For those who did not hear, the offending lines were:

“I don’t want to see a ghost,
It’s the sight that I fear most
I’d rather have a piece of toast
Watch the evening news.”

Now I don’t want to sound negative, but really could anyone come up with the above then put down his or her pen and think “that’s a good day’s work”? Surely not.

I understand that it has become something of a joke and generally gets mentioned in “Worst Lyrics Ever” discussions, so I suppose that is some sort of comfort for the writer.

Another one that I have trouble with is John Schumann’s song “I Was Only 19”.

Most Australians are familiar with this very popular song and it would take a stronger man than me to listen to it without being moved by the plight of the Vietnam veterans to whom it is a tribute.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that the song itself shouldn’t be held up to artistic scrutiny.

I ask you to scrute the following lines:

“Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon,
God help me. He was going home in June.”

Presumably Schumann is suggesting that it was a bitter irony that Frankie should have been seriously injured, probably killed – it is not made clear, at a time that his departure was imminent.

Unfortunately that doesn’t quite work.

Man landed on the moon on 16 July 1969. I can still remember getting the day off school. Mum bought me a chocolate doughnut for lunch.

That being the case, Frankie had almost a whole year to wait before he was going home. The tour of Vietnam was one year. In other works, Frankie had practically all of his tour to wait before he got home.

That is not really what troubles me. What troubles me is that Schumann has used artistic licence to strain history and good taste in order to rhyme “moon” with “June”. Again, one cannot imagine a feeling of achievement flooding through him after that effort.

That pitiful rhyme has long been the most tedious cliché in verse. In this case “soon” would surely have been a far preferable rhyme.

Finally, I draw your attention to the perennially problematic “Macarthur Park”. There is practically no line in the song that could not be held up to ridicule by anyone who wished so to do. I don’t really need to do that here.

I was listening to it recently during a quieter moment. I blush slightly to confess that it was not the deliciously cracked Richard Harris version, but the slightly spicier one by Donna Summer. When pain and anguish rack the brow, I find that electric drums do a lot to ease the pain.

Anyway, the song had just started and I knew that the pinging of the electric drums would be with me soon. I was half dreaming but for some reason the following lines from the first verse penetrated my consciousness:

“..Between the parted pages and were pressed
In love’s hot fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pants”

I won’t dwell on what this means, I don’t have the slightest idea. I don’t understand how being between the parted pages would work, I have no experience of being pressed by love’s iron and although I can accept that such an appliance might be hot, I don’t see how it can have a fever.

What really struck me, though, is that I thought Donna was singing “..a stripy pair of pants”. That would have been ludicrous enough, but it turns out that the word is “striped”. To make the song scan you have to give it 2 syllables by giving full value to the “e”. Stripe-ed.

What bunkum. Surely when the lyrics don’t make any sense at all, you should at least be able to pronounce them naturally?

There is not really any point in suggesting an alternative. The song is too well established and is already surrounded in sufficient controversy. All I ask is that in future a little more care is taken. A little more care and a lot less chemical stimulation.

Organ Donor Kebab

You will be gratified to hear, learned and winsome reader, that I am, and for some time have been, an organ donor. Well, I don’t suppose that I can really describe myself as and organ donor until I have actually donated an organ, and at the moment I don’t have any spares but I have had my driver’s licence endorsed ( or should that be indorsed? I think either one will work) to the effect that, upon my demise, any of the less shop-soiled bits of me that might still be useful to anyone may be harvested and used.

Were I so minded, there are many jokes I could make at this point about the state of my organs, but they have all been made at other times and places too numerous to enumerate. But there is, I believe, a serious side to the issue of organ donation and I would like to deal with that here.

I speak of course of the issue the transfer of characteristics from the donor to the donee.

For example someone goes into hospital for, say, a new kidney and comes out liking blue vein cheese and Gilbert and Sullivan, which were never to their taste before. Invariably, upon checking up they find out that the kidney donor was prominent in his support of operetta and liked nothing more than to settle back with the latest recording and half a block of Blue Castello on water crackers.

It isn’t always cheese and musical comedy. It could be marmalade and orienteering or bicycling and “The Railway Children”. There is no restriction. It isn’t even always two things. It could be something as simple as a slight aversion to pigeons, or as all encompassing as a commitment to the Collingwood Football Club.

As unlikely as this seems, it has been well documented in the scientific sections of any number of women’s magazines and even, on particularly slow news days, in the daily press.

So we need not concern ourselves further with the question of whether this dubious sounding occurrence is a fact.

This being the case, those of us who are public spirited enough to have offered our bodies for the good of others presumably have an obligation to ensure that our tastes do not cause problems for anyone who may need to avail themselves of that offer.

What a cruel trick it would be to pass your yearning for bacon to someone whose religion forbids them to eat it? How ironic if one were to transfer a liking for Dom Perignon to a lifelong teetotaller along with one’s liver?

So it is not good enough smugly to sign up as an organ donor and enjoy the warm glow of having rendered a public service. We need to ensure that our tastes are identifiable so that they don’t get passed on to someone for whom they would not be appropriate.

As I see it, there are 2 main problems with this. The first is identifying our “tastes”. It could be that you have a predilection for Cow’s Hoof Jelly but were not aware of it because you had never encountered the substance. After the transplant of your heart and lungs into an apprentice butcher, he finds that he cannot keep employment as he keeps dipping into the profits. There is no way that you could have known this beforehand.

In addition, what qualifies as a “taste”? Is it restricted to preferences and leanings or does it encompass phobias and pathological states? I don’t know.

The other problem is that of notifying the health authorities of our tastes so that they get a chance to discuss them with the recipient. Given that most of the organs appropriate for donation become available after a quick and often violent demise, the donor would really need his or her tastes marked on his or her person somewhere.

In my case, I suppose a small tattoo somewhere discreet such as the cleft of the buttocks would be fair, but not everyone is in favour of ink.

Anyway, should I be taken and you receive my gall bladder or something, be prepared to develop a taste for Cooper’s Sparkling Ale and professional darts. Perhaps it would be fun to include the Cooper’s Ale logo in my cleft tattoo. Possibly not.

Icy Concentration

I am sure that you will remember, perceptive and thoughtful reader, the discovery of a so-called “Ice Man” some years ago.

Without trying to give a lot of technical detail he was found sort of stuck in a glacier and had been frozen since prehistoric times complete with some hunting equipment and other bits and pieces. Because he had been frozen for so long he was pretty well preserved. You will perhaps remember that some Russian scientists once found a wooly mammoth carcass that had been similarly preserved but due to some bungling at head office their baked beans didn’t get to camp in time and they had to consume the whole thing. I too have been on camps and know how they feel. I understand that one of them has been reported as saying that it tasted like chicken.

The scientific world was all excited by the iceman because it gave a chance to do slightly unlikely things like study the markings on his teeth to determine his diet. What fun! Long scrapes – he has been eating a diet rich in grit. Hmmm. Cavities. Too many lollies. That sort of thing. Rather useful for those who really need to know what people ate before baked beans or frozen mammoth were available.

There was one thing that struck me as a bit odd, though. Archaeologists also wanted to study the contents of his stomach.

Now, I am not queasy and as interested in hard science as the next man, but really, what is the point of looking in the bloke’s stomach?
Let me put it this way.

The fellow was a hunter. He tracked and killed game for a living. He had a bow and arrows and some sort of axe with him. He got an important part of his diet from chasing down red deer or pterodactyls and things and killing and eating them.

I know that the whole thing smacks a bit of “nature, red in tooth and claw” but you need to remember that there were no kings in the land of men at the time, so you can’t expect our ice bloke to have had a lot of guidance in what was and was not acceptable in polite society.

He probably slurped his soup, too.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that he relied on his cunning and agility to get food. But he was so cunning and agile that he got trapped in a glacier. A glacier. A big chunk of ice that moves about three metres a year.

He got outrun by a glacier. The chance of him having been able to catch a deer or anything else tasty is remote. At best he might have had a bit of one of those giant sloths which are difficult to digest and couldn’t really tell much about the life and times of our prehistoric iceman.

In reality I don’t think he would even have that in him. The most likely contents of a stomach attached to such a slow hunter would contain some sedges and a bit of moss. All probably a little bit stale. This is not going to help anyone.

I say Hey, Science, Leave The Iceman Alone.

I know that I will be accused of being a troglodyte, perhaps fairly, but what about human, and thereby iceman, dignity.

Who can tell?

I apologise, humble and devoted reader, for the lateness and lack of content in this musing.

I have reluctantly dragged myself from my foetid sickbed and am ill equipped to grapple with any of the really big issues.

What I do wish to canvass is the recent grab for musical stardom by Australian test cricketer, Brett Lee. 

Mr. Lee, a tall fair haired fellow, has long cherished a hope to be recognised for his musical talents.  Good luck to him, I say.  Fairly recently he released a song in the subcontinent and I understand that he hopes for substantial sales by reason both of his high profile there and his canny teaming with Indian teen idol Asha Bohsle. 

Again, well done.  A canny move.

Unfortunately, like so many modern “Pop” stars, he has let a golden chance to contribute to good English slip through his grasp.

The song that he recorded glories in the title “Can You Tell A Girl You Don’t Know That You’re The One For Me”.

Frankly I have no idea what the man is talking about.  What does he mean?  As far as I can see, he is asking another person whether that person can tell a third person who they have not previously met, that the second person is the girl for me, being Brett Lee.

To try to make it clearer, let us imagine that Brett is addressing his question to a friend of his, say Kylie Minogue.  Let us further assume that Kylie does not know, say, Nicole Kidman.  Whether or not Brett knows Nicole does not appear to be germaine.

Thus Mr. Lee’s question might become, “Kylie Minogue, are you able to tell Nicole Kidman that you, Kylie Minogue, are the one for me”.

If that doesn’t make sense, try it again using say, Britney Spears and Germaine Greer (assuming that Britney and Germaine are not acquainted).

The point is that it doesn’t really make any sense.  Why couldn’t someone tell someone that they don’t know that someone else holds them in high regard.  No, I think that Brett is asking a different question, but what on earth can it be?

“Can one tell a girl one doesn’t know that one’s the one for one?” is not helpful.  Is it?

Possibly the construction makes some sort of sense in Hindi, but it’s telling me nothing.

Anyway, back to the sickbed.  I can smell bread baking.  Is that you, Grandpa?  I’m moving toward the light, wait for me….

A Feast of Film

I was sitting around with a few friends the other day, having a quiet beer. It was nice. There were about a dozen of us at a long table. I was at one end and couldn’t quite hear what was going on at the other.

I could discern that they were talking about food. We often do and as usual there was talk of getting a dinner party up. It never actually happens because everyone is a bit twee about food. Well, not me. I have been known to eat sandwiches out of the bin, or just cut the mouldy bits off cheese and eat the rest. But the rest of them are pretty fancy and too threatening to cook for.

Suffice it to say, I was sort of half listening to the conversation up the other end of the table while I nursed a pint of ale and thought beautiful thoughts. You know the sort of thing; would “The Mouse That Roared” have been better with Bobby Helpmann? would the butts of all the cigarettes smoked in Australia between the hours of 3.00 and 4.00 pm fill up the Victoria Square fountain? what is the girl who played “Punky Brewster” doing now? That sort of thing.

I was jolted from my reverie (much like Coleridge while composing Kublai Khan) by what sounded like a dinner party theme being suggested at the other end of the table.

“Did you say ‘Cool Hand Luke’? “ I squealed delightedly.

All I got was stony stares.

“No. We said ‘Cordon Bleu’.”

There was a pause of a couple of beats then we all dissolved into fits of laughter. Fits I tell you.

But tell me this, cherished and discerning reader, wouldn’t a “Cool Hand Luke” dinner party be great?

I don’t claim to be a student of the film, but no-one who has seen it could forget the scene in which Luke (a young Paul Newman) bets that he can consume some ludicrous number of boiled eggs. It might have been fifty at a sitting.

The film is set in a prison farm and the contest excites the imagination and sporting instincts of his fellow inmates who bet heavily and gather around barracking and offering a wide range of suggestions.

As I recall he does get the eggs into him, though I may be wrong. What I do remember is the pacing around and massaging of the stomach needed to achieve it. I also recall one of the senior prisoners who has bet on Luke, proffering one of the eggs and falsely insisting that “it aint nothin’ but a little ole pigeon’s egg, Luke”.

What a great dinner party theme that would be.

Everybody could bring eggs which could be boiled then consumed to the point that people’s stomachs all stick out and they feel like they have swallowed a football bladder then had it inflated. I’m not saying it would be pleasant but it would certainly give you something to tell the grandkids (unless it rendered you infertile).

I don’t know if anyone else remembers an ill fated attempt by the Egg Marketing Board to shift part of the Egg Mountain or whatever the glut was called back in the seventies. They suggested that grown adults could enjoy themselves by taking an electric frying pan to a party and dance around while they made glorified omlettes. The resulting mess they gave the scintillating title of “Egg Combo” and the mystifying gatherings at which one was encouraged to produce same they called a “Combo Party”. It didn’t work.

How much better would they have done to promote “Cool Hand” parties. Introduce an element of competition and I am sure that people would have moved heaven and earth to get as many boiled eggs into themselves as possible.

What other movie themed dinner parties could there be?

Who could forget that enchanting scene from Die Blechtrommel (“The Tin Drum”) when Oskar’s mother gorges herself to death on fish? One could start with herring then move on to fried and salted fish of various sorts, move to pickled sprats and finish with a couple of litres of the oil out of sardine cans. All followed up by a quick visit to hospital. Delightful.

Alternatively one could just pop a horse’s head onto the table and guests could pluck at live eels as they writhed from the nostrils and eye sockets. That would get the Vogue Living editors talking.

There is also the Lardass Logan scene from “Stand By Me”, or a ‘lock in’ style gorging session as seen in “La Grande Bouffe” or whatever it is called. That would also be good though it might be hard to find the necessary Bugatti.

Hmm. I like this. I would be interested to hear other people’s suggestions about movie themed dinners.

Magical Spell

I love a song with spelling in it. I don’t know what it is but spelling out a word to music seems so clever and satisfying.

There are a couple of ways of doing it. You can do a sort of lyrical acrostic like Nat King Cole in L-O-V-E. For those who, by reason of old age or infirmity don’t know what the hell I am talking about, it’s the one that goes “L is for the way you look at me, O is for the only one I see, V is very, very extraordinary, E is even more than anyone that you adore” etc.

This is good, but tortures sense a bit. I have trouble with “very extraordinary” let alone very very. It smacks of tautology and you, gentle reader, know how I hate that.

The other kind of spelling in a song is the simple sort where the letters are just strung out. My earliest memory of this type of spelling is probably VACATION by someone. A fifties sort of surf/girl singer. Maybe Annette Funicello. There is no point in setting out the relevant lyrics ‘cos they are just the letters. There is a challenge to getting them to scan but it can be quite satisfying.

A slight variation is where you link double letters but still manage to keep the scansion. I humbly submit the timeless classic “Beer Run” by (I think) Todd Snider:

B, double E, double R, U, N
Beer Run
B, double E, double R, U, N
Beer Run
All we need is a ten and a fiver
A car and a key and a sober driver
B double E, double R, U, N
Beer Run. (reprise. Ad infinitum)

Do you see the the clever way that by saying “double E double R” the songsmith has managed to get a couple of extra syllables for scansion, plus has run the last letter of “Beer” with the first letter of “Run”.

It is nothing short of majestic.

I am not sure if it is in the original version, but there is a cover of “I Feel Like Making Love”, the George Benson classic, in which, instead of singing the lyric as it is written –

That’s the time
I feel like making love, to you

the artist renders it thus;

That’s the time
I feel like making L, O, V, E, T, O, Y, O, U ooh ooh ooh

It doesn’t look like it would fit, but it does and has a lot of impact.

HOWEVER it has recently been drawn to my attention that Fergie, in her signature piece “Fergalicious” indulges in quite a bit of spelling. She personalises it by, for example, spelling thus;

I’m the F to the E, R, G the I the E

I have no problem with this idiosyncratic approach. All are welcome under the warm umbrella that is spelling in songs.

What does irk me is this, a little later in the song:

T to the A to the S T E Y, girl you tasty. (reprise)

What the hell does Fergie (or the evil puppetmaster who writes her lyrics) think she is doing? Modern youth are so busy learning crap like life skills at school that they don’t have time for grammar and spelling. It is quite likely that this is the only spelling they will hear during their impressionable learning years and it is wrong. The malleable young mind is no doubt having trouble with the idea of dropping the “E” when you add “Y”, which is not obvious, so there is no need to toy with them.

Until they bring back parsing and analysis in primary schools I demand that lyricists check the dictionary before they spell at us. And not send flawed material out. I mean to say, how is it clever to spell out a work if you are allowed to make the spelling up so that it fits?

Assuming that it isn’t an honest mistake.

Having said that, those of you who are devotees of the haunting lyrics of Jonathan Richman, as I am, will be eager to point out that in his song Girlfriend, he sings;

I’d have found a thing that I understand.
I understand a girl- friend.
That’s a girl. Friend.
A G I R L F R E N
Yeah a girlfriend baby, that’s something that I understand.

Well, that may not be exact but it is how I remember it and the spelling bit is faithful. So isn’t my hero Jonathan as guilty as Fergie?

Let me explain.

It’s different when it’s Jonathan. So get stuffed.