Misandry, look it up
A common misconception by female GenX journalists is to jump aboard the misandrist bandwagon. While it was probably an attractive, even admired, trait in women the age of Germaine Greer, it is now viewed, felt, by most women to be an exaggeration of reason and emotion that has no place in 2010. While the inroads made by such pioneers are important, to continue with such rationale is both damaging and destructive in today’s society.
Men aren’t the enemy, just as women aren’t the cause of all men’s woes. Belabouring the claims made by Greer and cohorts serves to stir up imagined discontent with today’s gender relations. Gen Y have only history to show them the feminist struggle; they have grown up accepting the world as presented. Their view of men is vastly different to that of their mothers.
Today girls play the same sports as boys, often they play them together. This was unheard of in Greer’s day. To compare the conditions that feminists then faced and girls and boys today face is chalk and cheese. We’ve come a long way baby, and we shouldn’t need to bludgeon society with our out-moded concepts of gender equality. As much is as practicable, it’s a done deal.
Yet we still read articles by Gen X journos, in the interest of selling papers, or attracting eyeballs, that belie belief. Men are the enemy, they can’t look after themselves, they can’t look after their partner, they can’t iron a shirt. Much fun is made of this fact. This from women who demand respect, yet show little outward respect for the man in their life, or the man who could be in their life.
Is it any wonder why some men choose not to join the club?
A Walk and a Cuddle
Will I love the iPad? I think so. Not because I’m a gadget freak, or an Apple sycophant, well I am that. Apple could market a blunt stick and I’d seriously take a look at it. But a 9 inch iPod Touch, an overgrown iPhone without the phone? Now that’s overblown.
But is it? I have hands-on experience with this technology, thanks to nextbyte and their give-away promotion of an ipod Touch with every Mac purchased.
It’s an ipod that looks like an iphone, it even works a bit like an iphone if you are in Maccas or Gloria Jeans, but anywhere else it’s a slick looking ipod with some useless apps. Well not quite useless, to my (searching quickly on my ipod dictionary for an antonym of) chagrin.
It’s got funny little apps that allow you to tabulate your expenses while actually out and about. (as well as email, internet and e-books). PDAs, I know, could do this years ago, but this is fun, especially when you get home and this cute device synchs right up close and personal to your desktop.
Calendars, to-dos, Quicken finance data, all migrate effortlessly to the big motherboard on your desk, thus keeping your accountant happy, your inner nerd satisfied and your natural inclination to assume the couch potato position as soon as you walk in the door unfettered.
Obviously I could take the next step and upgrade to an iphone, but given that I never answer my phone this would seem extravagant. As the soldier who approached a WAAC back in WW2, only to be told that it meant ‘a walk and a cuddle’, said, ‘I think I’ll wait for a WAAF’, I think I’ll wait for an iPad.
The Raggedy Skirts of the Telegraph
Perhaps I should go back to buying the print version of the SMH, or decline altogether. The online SMH, at the moment, has a headline about Brad and Angelina splitting up, or something equally vapid. More stupid is it’s a feed from the Telegraph. Are they not competitors for our eyeballs?
I suppose as soon as one tabloid gets it, it’s now open slather. Well the tabloids have won, they seem to have taken over the content management of the once vaunted SMH. Is this just the online version or is this a harbinger of what we can expect from Herald journalists in the future?
The Australian hasn’t yet doused its integrity, the NY Times surely never will, yet the SMH seems intent on chasing the raggedy skirts of News.Ltd in a concerted effort to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I’d suggest to the editorial powers that be, that your number is up. Ambulance chasing is never a pretty sight and even less a reason to read your site or newspaper.
Guitar Lessons
Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington, cried Noel Coward. Don’t send your son to guitar lessons was probably more apt for my mother. She didn’t, and I wouldn’t have gone, being of that rebellious age, determined to decide my own musical career. However, after a year or two of bashing barré chords, and attempting to play punishing pentatonic solos, I acquiesced. I’d heard that an old guy who once played guitar in Sydney had arrived in town.
Like moths to the flame, every guitarist in Townsville made an appointment to see Charlie Lees. My first encounter with Charlie consisted of me turning up at his house, his wife calling out to him, and him appearing in shorts, t-shirt and thongs. The second lesson I made the mistake of asking him about diminished chords. He launched into a diatribe such that to this day I haven’t heard the likes of. It took me many years to understand what that lesson was about.
I went back to my rock’n'roll band with nothing more than a high and mighty impression of a bigger sort of music. It took six years on the road, from Townsville to Perth and back to realise that Charlie had held all the clues all along. By that time it was too late. He’d gone out fishing in his boat, and whether it was too many beers, or too rough weather, or divine intervention, Charlie checked out and went to the Jazz Club in the sky. He was a trooper, an original, possibly the first real jazz guitarist in Australia. He was also the resident guitarist in this long-serving band at the Trocadero.
I later studied with George Golla and Don Andrews, jazz guitarists of the highest calibre. They remembered Charlie Lees. As they opened my eyes musically, I realised that Charlie could have taught me the same stuff, if I’d been ready for it.
Telstra Wins the War
Talk about losing the battle, but winning the war. Back in 1996, Telstra contemplated charging local calls by the minute. This suggestion wasn’t even been shouted down before it disappeared like Dad’s trousers on a Saturday night. So unpopular was the decision that even the telcos realised the error of their scheming ways, and reverted to the flat rate, circa 1950, and kept charging a basic cost.
A decade or more later, and it seems that Telstra has won the war. Yesterday I put my landline phone in a drawer. I needed more desk space. No one rings me on it anyway. I take calls on my mobile; I prefer to do business and social interaction on the net or email. When I do reach for a phone it is invariably a mobile phone, after all my land phone is in the drawer.
Telstra has won bigtime on this transaction. While us old fogeys remember tuppenny phone calls, pressing Button A then B, today’s generation will never know a life without paying by the minute. What was chewing gum and soft drink pocket money must now be poured into the ever gaping maws of the behemoth that is Telstra. It is minute by minute for our youngsters, no time to chat with the girl next door, credits are all the go. Have you got any credit? If not, you can’t chat.
Life hinges on how much credit you have. It sounds like a sci-fi movie. Our love of technology, while being a postive, is costing us dearly at the check-out. Whereas Telstra could once provide flat-rate calls, they now charge for every minute, no matter that you are a pensioner, a teenager, or a disadvantaged person. The free phone call is on the run.
They have won the war.
Happiness: doing or having?
Happiness is doing, not having. It has long been said that the journey is more rewarding than the destination. I suppose if you’re flying to London for a holiday, that doesn’t really hold true. Physical journeys aside, the striving, the learning and the doing are often the crème de la crème, whereas the achievement, while at first euphoric, can tend to leave you feeling flat. Having, not doing. Depressing isn’t it? Why strive, only to feel flat?
I think there are levels of flat. Each level achieved offers a new flat space to rest on, to restructure, or re-examine. The more we aspire, embark on the journey of attainment, the more our flat times become places of rest and solace rather than places of refuge. The more we aspire, the more we appreciate downtime as necessary to further growth.
In years past, fallow farmland, one year untilled for two planted, ensured a healthy crop. The wise farmer, over generations observed this. We are as much part of the planet as the soil. It makes sense that we need such fallow periods, both physically and mentally. While the athelete acknowledges that rest is needed to sustain a healthy body, we of the mental persuasion often forget this vital detail. We wake up, we are thinking, so it’s all systems go!
Not so the farmer of old who understood the need for fallow times. It must have been hard to accept that his field wouldn’t produce anything for a year, although having a good stock of mead would have lessened his concern, but the wisdom was ingrained that if he did, the next two years would be bountiful.
Today, instant gratification being a high priority, we don’t have to lie low for a year. As the religious tenets teach, a day off once a week is necessary for mental well-being. I always wondered about priests. When was their day off? Seems the stringency of the Sabbath and the Christian Sunday wasn’t designed for all walks of life. Yet while the wisdom of such teaching is irreproachable, it is the meaning behind the message that applies to us today. The land must lie fallow.
So as we enjoy the challenge of the journey, and reap the rewards of attaining the destination, we can also recognise that downtime, the having, is a restorative place to live.
There are exceptions to the rule. Parenting seems to start with the having, and then the doing never stops.
First Cab Off the Rank
In thirty years of living in Sydney I can honestly say I have never met a bad cabbie. There was one, once, back in 1978 who scared the heck out of me by driving at breakneck speed from Bondi to Kings Cross, but in all fairness he was just trying to get me there on time.
These days, with the influx of Indian and Sri Lankan drivers, you would expect a certain lack of local knowledge, yet that is not the case. If anything, these drivers are more polite and knowledgeable than their Aussie counterparts. As I said, I’ve never met a bad cabbie.
Well there was this one, once. It was early in the morning, and I’d called for a cab to take me from Ryde to Roseville. The driver was a big bloke, he seemed friendly enough at first, but as I began complaining about the early hour he related a story which curled my ears. Seems it was his first day back on the job. He’d been disqualified from driving for some time. I asked him,
‘what did you do that was so wrong?’
‘I hit a passenger’.
I unbuckled my seat-belt and got ready to run.
$1.50 entrée
Along the lines of the Spanish Omelette comes the $1.50 entree. Yes, you guessed it, Mussels in Olive Oil, anointed with, as usual, a brisk chablis. Depending on how much chablis you drink, the price could vary.
This isn’t a recipe so much as a caveat wrapped in a Woolworths docket. Mussels come in all types, fresh, canned, and those you use if you’re a caterer. However, before you write off this entrée, let me explain the vast range of mussels on the market. At the top end of the culinary experience is Nick’s Bar and Grill on Darling Harbour. This superb seafood restaurant employs a dedicated oyster shucker. At last count his name was Henrí. He also shucks clams and mussels. It’s worth a visit to Nick’s to see him in action.
Having partaken of Nick’s wonderful seafood you may be asking,’but does it have to cost me a mortgage payment just to enjoy food like this?’ Well, no, it doesn’t. You could go to a local seafood restaurant and order mussels, but really, you’d be better off choosing the beer-battered fish.
However there is help at hand, and as usual it comes from our friends at Homebrand. They have come up with the brilliant idea of bottling the magic of such restaurants as Nick’s and making it available to ex-pat Nick’s customers like myself. For the price of a toothpick you can buy a can of smoked mussels, pour some olive oil over the top, add chopped onions and salt, and for $1.50 you can almost see yourself at Darling Harbour, without the crowds and the parking problems.
Toilet Training
Phil Gould, in a rather lengthy diatribe says that “It’s time for the clubs to take action and end the farce being orchestrated by the ARL.” He’s got that half right. It is time to end the farce, but that farce is allowing NRL players to walk the streets of Sydney while not on a leash. Latest in a long line of misdemeanors isn’t a horror story of underage sex or rampant violence, it’s another indication that while their training on the field may be excellent, their toilet training is somewhat lacking.
Whether in a 5-star establishment such as the Crowne Plaza or on a popular street corner near the King Street Wharf, it seems these highly trained gladiators can’t be trusted to observe the most basic of social skills. Perhaps they should be confined to barracks after games, fed raw meat, and only taken out for a walk by the NRL Executive. At least then perhaps they’d find a tree or post to cock their leg on rather than the head of a fallen mate.
Carlton vs Abbott
When it comes to political comment, Mike Carlton’s theistic thuggery shows all the finesse of a washed-up footballer. Why theistic? Because Carlton is a believer in one true God, and that is the Labor Party. Any other political belief is anathema to him. No matter the sins this economically inept organisation may have committed, no matter even the sins of the fathers of the current administration, like a Cyclops poked in the eye with a blunt stick, Carlton is myopically blind to any weakness in his chosen deity.
As a result, he has been remarkably quiet of late. Rudd’s emissions trading shambles and much vaunted mass apologies seem to have left Mike on the back foot as a commentator. However with the elevation of Tony Abbott to the captaincy of the Liberals, this one-eyed, wrong-footed, former football thug seems to have found his game.
And for once I agree with him. His target, the Liberals of course, and in particular Abbott’s pecular and worrying choice of ministers for his front bench. What was Abbott thinking, was a question you probably asked when he flaunted himself in Speedos on the front page of the newspapers. What is he thinking, is a question we all should ask.
He has resurrected a team that puts him very left of centre. Is there method to his madness? Carlton doesn’t think so. He is gleefully rubbing his hands in anticipation of the next blunder by the mad medieval monk.
