Fool's Paradise – Infinity on a Shoestring Gender: Male (last time I looked); Writer; Thinker; Studier of the Human Condition (and chickens' entrails); Wonderer; Laugher; Listener; Character; Recent Optimist; Part-of-the-Solution Aspirant; Sarsaparilla, Cocoa, and ex-White Black Tea Imbiber (no sugar - plenty sweet enough); Twenty Eight Thousand and Twelfth Living Wonder of the World; Amateur Worm Farmer Extraordinaire and Professional Worm Admirer; Humus Assist and Humorist; Play Up; Yes-Hoper...
And I reckon: Reality is actually far better than the best any of us can imagine, the universe is friendly and funny, laughter is a powerful medicine as well as an efficacious antidote for self-importance, and the best is yet to come, despite any and all appearances to the contrary...
Thursday: What a wonderful day! Way too tired, I forced myself up, having been working on another edit of 'Man's Best Friends' aka 'After the Rain' in the wee smalls, after Baby Peggletter kindly gave me a whole hour and a half of critiquing advice by phone till after midnight last night. I set to and applied the majority of his suggestions, which were really helpful.
Janny had organised the local Mormon elders to wash our car, bless their cotton socks, and so at about ten Elders Tindel and Weber duly arrived and did so. We enjoyed a lunch with them later, and they left with a small mountain of goodies that Janny created in the kitchen. (A huge proportion of the billions of long termer daily visitors to Fool's Paradise – Infinity on a Shoestring could be forgiven for thinking that we or Janny are/is /a Mormon/s, but if so, they'd be mistaken. We simply have no fear of any sincere religionists, while holding no allegiance to any particular flavour. Myself, I am known for being a cherry picker among the orchard that is organised religion, while delighting in hiking among the breathtaking mountains of non-organised religion, feasting upon the abundance within the invisible realm of the spiritual economy.)
Before the elders arrived Baby Inkletter arrived, and spent till mid afternoon with us, which was a blessing.
And shortly after the elders left there was knock on the door, and lo and behold none other than Reeve Chocson, a geek bearing gifts: four potted Herb Robert plants, their bitter little leaves bobbing about in excitement at coming to a new home.
Now to apprehend one Reeve Chocson, alone and free of his little green bag, dear and matchless though she is (like all wives, Chocci keeps Reeve on a shorter leash than he would choose), is an opportunity too good to pass, so we lured him in with a cocoa made the way it should be, Lindt chocolate of two flavours, and several sweet baked offerings from the oven of my irreplaceable affectionate pretty tailed Jayne Coon, the greatest cook in the southern hemisphere. For those wondering, that title for the northern hemisphere is held by one Cumbrian known as Gladys Hobson, not known as 'slick cook-draw McHobson-Graw' for nothing.
Reeve remarked today that he has scientifically proven that he gains about one kilogram after every visit to our place.
The More O’Kerry (O’Brien) Volume: I greatly enjoyed Kerry O'Brien's interview with James Wolfensohn this evening on The 7.30 Report. Both men presented themselves with an excellent sartorial aura – old men can look so damn good! (And I am firmly rooted in the heterosexual camp, mind you.)
Mr Wolfensohn has a wonderful clean and precise manner of expression, and he used this talent as he explained his side of his work as special envoy for Gaza disengagement for the Quartet on the Middle East.
He also gave a brief negative but doubtless close to the mark assessment of the current economic woes of the United States. I don't share his "enormous faith" in one of several things he mentioned, namely the "university system", but I won't give up hope in it yet. Throughout the Western World it can turn out experts in narrow fields, but is still failing badly at producing balanced sensible broadscoped global citizens.
I could not stay awake after 8, but of course once in bed it took me ages to fall asleep. And of course, I was awake a few hours later, and back, insomniac that I've become, writing, reading, titivating about, walking, canoodling Cadbury, all after midnight.
My niece Elizabeth's baby Indi May was due yesterday, but is still keeping us all guessing. Oh, and speaking of babies, Reeve and Chocci Chocson became 6 times grandparents two weeks ago with the arrival of Brontë, and 7 times grandparents yesterday with the arrival of Ryder.
Friday: To bed this 'morning' at about one this afternoon, and up at five; yes, another day night day blurring.
Before hitting the low thread count polycottons, I found Cadbury killing a dove she'd caught out the back door among the bamboo. I am aware of the irony of loving the natural world and owning a domestic cat that has still got outdoor freedom, and if and when it becomes feasible, I'll set up a large outdoor enclosure that will prevent such sad happenings. I cannot quantify how much joy this little Maine Coon has brought into my life since finding it abandoned early this year as a kitten. And my word the killer instincts of spoiled domestic cats are alive and well.
The delicate dormouse and I drove to Adelaide Terrace and began an evening with The Babies Ink&Peggletter. We got there about seven, and then went to Victoria Park to ChiRestaurant, where we treated them to a meal as a reward for Baby Inkletter getting through her recent ten week horror practical teaching stint, with the mentor teacher from hell.
It is our (we wrinklies) second time there, and we are very impressed with the standards, from the very nice Chinese food to the friendly and professional staff, topped off by the relative inexpensiveness of the cuisine and service.
After this we went for a walk along the Perth foreshore, before dessert and a board game back at The Babies' place. It wasn't till about midnight that we got home, with a fuel stop locally.
I settled in to watch recorded current affairs till almost four a.m., with killer Cadbury on my lap, bless her fat little heart.
Lateline: The Tick(y Fullerton) Check Mark: Ms Fullerton looked lovely in her simple long-sleeved coral red blouse, and subtle-effect makeup, her only jewellery small pearl earrings, her hair appealingly convex flaring and tucked behind her ears:
How nicely Ticky Fullerton sets off her coral red blouse!
She conducted a riveting long interview – 21 minutes no less! – about today's Murray Darling Basin Authority's announced plan, with Water Minister Tony Burke, splendid in his grey jacket white shirt and blue shades striped tie combo, Professor Mike Young, resplendent in a pastel-coloured combo grey jacket white shirt and yellow shaded tie, and Rob Black, who was the most colourfully attired, minus a jacket with a striped light shirt and zingy blue and red striped neck strangler.
Ms Fullerton was the ideal journalist to conduct this discussion, given her personal extensive knowledge of the water challenges facing the Australian nation. I was impressed with the civil contributions of each of the interlocutors, despite some very serious financial consequences for Mr Black's stakeholders, the valid environmental solicitude of Mr Young, and the political concerns of Mr Burke.
Mr Young's contributions stood out; he was a delight to listen to, with a very positive outlook and preparedness to pay praise where praise is due.
Well done all of you, and thank you Ms Fullerton for how tightly you kept your guests on subject.
I went for a walk about half four, and the eastern horizon was lightening on my return.
I spent many hours at the keyboard, with the sun heading to midday before I retired.
Tuesday: 'Yesterday' blurred for me into a typical evening, night, day, and it wasn't till noon that I finally lay down to sleep. And so, come half six in the evening, I was not well rested, when I arose to do my first 'job', and deliver hot vittles to The Dear Leader., fresh from being phlebotomised this morning.
It had been a warm spring day, and Cadbury is certainly in molting mode, with a long winter coat that is of reducing use to her. I must use the Furminator again on her tomorrow in daylight and outside. Anyway, with minimal fur ruffling, she spent over two hours on my lap watching Aunty with me, until her meowing messages convinced me she needed a spell outside, about half ten.
I always enjoy Tony Windsor interviews, and Kerry O'Brien gave us another on The 7.30 Report. What a dream if every politician in Australia, state and federal, had his restraint, composure, and bearing. Both men looked excellent in their dark suits and boldly striped ties.
Pictures coming…
The one point I'd highlight from that interview is Mr Windsor's calm observation that Tony Abbott is "missing an opportunity to be constructive", in his leadership of the Opposition for our 43rdParliament.
I could easily be persuaded to call Tony Abbottthe incredible shrinking politician, due to just how small minded he is behaving. I'll say more on this in my Lateline observations below.
Lateline: The (Leigh) Sales Graph: Leigh Sales chose a casual look tonight, and looked wonderful, in a double pocketed longsleeved dark blue shirt, her only jewellery a set of gold ring earrings, subtle-effect makeup, and attractively flaring hairstyle. Her eyeshadow strength and shade was ideal.
Picture coming…
Her long interview subject was the first day of our new Parliament, with the finely tuned numbers and their consequences. The sucker from the Opposition who fronted up, on-screen from Canberra, to discuss the day's developments, was Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, whose dark pinstriped suit and white shirt, enhanced with a white tie with medium width black stripes, cut him a handsome figure.
Picture coming…
This interview's mood was sombre. And that was the right tone, for here we had the Shadow Treasurer giving away the sad truth of the state of mind of his side of politics, with regard to the recent election and their failure to form a government. I don't believe that even Mr Hockey believes that the non-cooperative stance his side has adopted, under the leadership of Tony Abbott, is the best thing to do.
It became evident through Ms Sales' thorough and researched questions, that Mr Hockey was the latest harbinger from his mob that this Opposition has not got sufficient goodwill towards the Australian nation, to help make this latest Parliament as productive as possible.
Tony Abbott is demonstrating that he hasn't got the greatness to accept that, according to the rules we've been running on for a century and more, his side did not form government, and he did not become Prime Minister, which sadly, might be as much the point.
I reckon Ms Sales is very aware of the smallness that is oozing out of the Opposition from all angles, and her questioning indicated this. She thus let Mr Hockey indict himself and his colleagues. How spot on Ms Sales was with the spirit in the following question: "Is there a risk that that (the 'wrecker' appellation) will resonate with the public if the Opposition does pick fights over comparatively minor courtesies like pairing?"
His lame comeback included the following non sequitur: "And how ironic it is, Julia Gillard accusing us of breaking a deal, whereas before the election she promised the Australian people there would no carbon tax." Mr Hockey and your cohorts, listen carefully to Tony Windsor and, if necessary, get someone with more intelligence than you are displaying to the public to explain the implications of the following: IT'S A HUNG PARLIAMENT. Thus, many campaign commitments are thrown into doubt automatically. The Coalition would be in an identical situation if it had formed a government under the current balance of numbers; some of its promises would doubtless have to be purged.
How easily most of our politicians are prepared to keep insulting our intelligence with irrelevancies, redundancies, and falsities. Give us more Tony Windsors, Rob Oakeshotts, Bob Katters, Nick Xenophons!
In years to come, I would not be surprised if Mr Hockey looks back to these days, even this interview, and cringes. He, at the bidding of the small-spirited leader he works under, demonstrated that he can talk and defend smallness also.
However, I am not confident that the Australian people will punish the Coalition for its tactics born of bitterness, formulated through the distortion of their smarting eyes. That remains to be seen. I hope the Coalition is punished electorally for its ongoing puerile and nasty behaviour, only to impress upon our politicians, and aspiring politicians, of every flavour, to behave with a far higher level of maturity towards the honour they are awarded to represent and lead us.
I was impressed with the fact that Ms Sales had a good grasp of the history of the situation 70 years back when we last had a hung parliament. She is a studious researcher, and it shows. I wonder when she sleeps.
Thank you Leigh Sales for an interview which had Joe Hockey exposing as much of what the Opposition doesn't stand for and which it should, by omission, as for the same by commission.
Lateline Business: The Tick(y Fullerton) Check Mark: Ticky Fullerton looked great when she anchored tonight's program. She wore a dark jacket and a simple Carolina blue camisole, with subtle-effect makeup and just tiny earrings for jewellery, her new shorter hairstyle suiting her very well, with its full forehead exposure and convex flaring at the sides.
Picture coming…
I get a chill whenever I think of big foreign businesses buying food production assets in our country, and so I was not the most comfortable I've ever been during the long interview Ms Fullerton had with Sunny Verghese, the Managing Director of Olam International. Mr Verghese looked like a new dollar, billions of them to be precise, but with a dark blue theme to his jacket and tie.
Picture coming…
The topic was about the plans by Olam International to double its business, already a $2.6 billion enterprise. I cannot help but think that this business and most like it are not first and foremost dedicated to feeding people while being profitable, but rather to make profits first and foremost, and all else being secondary. I hope I'm wrong with Olam International.
Ms Fullerton did raise the concerns of the various countries about their farming assets, including water rights, being sold to overseas interests, with Mr Verghese, and while he spoke a lot of words back, they didn't amount to addressing the basic problems of local insecurities, in my opinion. He interestingly gave a reply including this line: "…for us the more important licence that we need to seek and get is the licence from the communities and where we operate."
Well, that prize will depend on the greatness, the character, of Olam International, and will best be evidenced over time and under duress. Specifically I speak of the duress of the locals in the countries his business operates in, when food prices rise above manageable needs for the poor. Just how his company behaves at such times will be the acid to determine the above mentioned licence of which he claims he seeks.
It's a big issue, and a big problem. We've all got to eat. And of course, agricultural business has to be profitable, and – especially – sustainable, ideally continuously improving the health of the ecosystems in which it operates.
Monday: I tried to surface at two, having written till 8 this morning on my short story, 'After the Rain', but I couldn't manage it. And so, less than an hour before sundown I arose. I must say I am glad of the writing time last night; it is too rare these days to devote time to purely fictional prose.
And so, all I managed was a bit of weeding up the back, accompanied by Cadbury, who likes to try to grab the weeds from me as I pull them out. Last job was to squirt Missus Inkletter's legs, by accident (that's my story and I'm sticking with it), when I watered the motherinlaw tongues out the front. She got a fright and called out loud, for the neighbourhood to hear, "What are you doing to me!"
I then spent the whole evening, but for a short break, in front of Aunty, with Cadbury on my lap.
Lateline: The (Leigh) Sales Graph: Ms Sales looked beautifully turned out with an ivory jacket set off nicely with a full ellipse ruffled collar, and black camisole, avoiding any lack of contrast issues with her skin, and crowned with a convex flaring hair style to finish the superb effect. Subtle-effect makeup, especially the eye shadow tint, conspired to support the effective appeal of professionalism and beauty. And the only jewellery was a set of tiny pearl earrings. She is a rather blessed woman.
Picture coming…
Her first interview, on-screen, was with Senator Christine Milne in Canberra, who also looked beautiful in, no, not a green jacket, but a vivid pink one. They discussed the climate change committee that the Labor Government is putting together, and Ms Milne's role in it.
Picture coming…
Ms Sales' long interview (12 minutes) soon had me paying attention. She was speaking in-studio with Grover Norquist, the President of Americans for Tax Reform. Mr Norquist was immaculately attired in a dark grey pinstriped suit and pale blue shirt with a silvery gold dimpled tie.
Picture coming…
Let me start at the finish: Ms Sales ended with "There are many more things I'd like to ask about, but we're out of time." I only wish she could have had him for another hour, to investigate whether he has anything profound and intelligent to say about some of the other interesting causes he's involved in, because he certainly didn't treat us to much along those lines in this interview.
Ms Sales struck me as having the holes in Mr Norquist's arguments, which were largely about the role of and size of government in the U.S.A., all worked out, if not before she met him, certainly on the run with him in the studio.
Now while I think it's a bit strong of people who think Mr Norquist's a conservative nutter, whose output with regard to taxation and governmental activity has a quality bearing an uncanny correspondence to the quality of thought of George W. Bush, that is, low grade, I can understand how they arrived at such a view, if this is how he always presents his arguments. However, Ms Sales valiantly tried to pin Mr Norquist down to delineate specifically what he would have the US Government do to reduce its tax take and its size, and, embarrassingly to himself, without (doubtless) him realising it, his ideas were so simplistic, he sounded like a fundamentalist religionist quoting scripture.
It is dumb to try to to solve the many excruciating problems of the US Government with equally silly, simplistic, and stupid, not to mention dogmatic, 'solutions'. Many of Mr Norquist's prescriptions, as brief as they were, gave away their naiveté. Take this: "We've wasted almost a trillion dollars and nothing has happened." Mr Norquist, any thinking person would admit that the recent stimulus and emergency spending in the US has involved great waste, but don't insult our intelligence and make a fool of yourself by claiming 'nothing' helpful has happened. I again refer to my previous religious fanatic reference.
Ms Sales gently confronted Mr Norquist with the fact that the market "doesn't always operate efficiently", and tried to keep up a focus on the minutiae of his answers to the problems faced by his nation. She properly brought up the little problem to his arguments regarding the superiority of the Republican side of politics concerning smaller spending of the Bush Junior years, and his reply bumbled on and finally landed on the line that it's now a different Republican Party. I would ask, And a different basic philosophy?
Now I wonder if Mr Norquist, and I suspect he might, would have some enlightenment to share with us concerning his laudable interests in building economic bridges between ethnic and religious minorities and the greater market.
I can say that he didn't do his small government cause much justice with the arguments he used tonight. Maybe we caught him on a bad day. He should take a sabbatical, and formulate a credible method for transitioning his nation, any nation, from big wasteful government, to better government, and practice describing it clearly in a few minutes.
I also wonder if he is aware (I doubt it), that many of the things he believes in, with regard to small and non-intrusive government, belong to a far off era when the average citizen is so advanced in character and intelligence that he/she is essentially self governing.
I do hope Ms Sales can get him again and explore his efforts with his other causes, to see if he can redeem himself. Maybe an on-screen interview from his part of the world might be able to be arranged.
I took a walk about half three, and the breeze put a slight chill into the night that otherwise wouldn't have fazed me.
My time at the keyboard was interspersed during the night with three loadings of the dishwasher; I had not kept up with Janny's cooking for a little while.
I picked up The Dear Leader at 8 a.m., and took him for blood tests locally. It took an hour, so I read from Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'while waiting. I was very tired by the time I returned him to his place then me to ours. Yet back to the keyboard it was for more writing.
Wednesday: Yes, another day night day blur. The catnapping after dinner last night, literally, with Cadbury on my lap while I tried to watch Aunty's lineup, gave me some tiny recharge, but it sufficed to keep me going till almost midday the next day.
Chocci Chocson called in about half eight a.m. to pick up a hummingbird cake from Janny for a colleague's birthday at her work, and we chatted for a considerable time together. Poor Chocci looked mighty tired. She was not surprised to learn that I hadn't slept yet, that I was walking the suburb about half three to four last night, that I saw a flurry of cars leaving the mosque at that early hour during this Ramadan.
I slept from midday till half six, and during the evening, when Cadbury was on my lap while I was watching Aunty's great Wednesday evening lineup, she began making agitated meows, which Janny immediately recognised as a warning that she needed to go outside to poo or wee. I hopped up and put her out the front door…
And then she distressed me as I saw her cough, and vomit up a large lump of moist cat biscuits, poor thing. I worried about her all night, but have come to the conclusion that it was probably a matter of not drinking enough, although she has water and milk available every time she eats, and outdoors at all times. And so my theory goes that this time the biscuits began to irritate her by not being moist enough, or far enough down her alimentary tract, or some such.
Anyway, the fact that much later, about half four, when I was searching for her by torchlight in the backyard, on my return from my walk, that she was nowhere to be seen for ten minutes, this had me dreading that she had died from poisoning or whatever. But the dear little angelic feline turned up quietly, and I took her inside with joy.
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