Beans in my ears

 In 1964 I recall listening to a song that commenced with the lines:

My mother said not to put beans in my ears.

Pity Tony wasn’t around to learn the lesson as a youngster.

It was originally written to satarise the fact that adults did not listen to children. Its cover in 1996 by Pete Seeger urged LBJ not to put beans in his ears in regard to the Vietnam war and the rising anger of the people. 

I have been left over the past near six months wondering where all the dried beans have gone from the  supermarket and my growing conclusion is that they are bought up by all the politicians who fly in here for parliament.

Increasingly the direct dialogue between the elected and the electorate has closed down as if we had woken from a nightmare into some despotic dystopia.

The current government has decided:

•   there are things they will talk about and things they will not (sic: treatment of refugees seeking      asylum; defence related spending) 
• they can bend and twist the rules to the edge of legality regardless of ethics (When is special access to parliamentarians tied to party membership fees - Oh, isn’t that a political donation?);   
•  their guffaws, misdeeds and corruptions will be glossed over by the mainstream  press;  (Take Christopher Pine’s asides in the house whether words or gestures)
• public servants will be directed not speak in criticism of the policies of the government;
•  that they can they treat the general populous with disdain as though we are just too ignorant to really understand what is going on and have redefined so many words in the lexicon that I am losing count.(When is a levy a tax? What does it mean when Tony says it’s not what he said that is the problem, but what we heard?) I’m sorry Tony but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then there is no point telling us it is a giraffe. Beware of growing noses and pimples on your tongue.

Through all the angst this is causing me, and just about everyone else I talk to, I have been puzzling about just what is the purpose of government. It seems to me that this mob think it is about money and balancing budgets only. They have forgotten that they have an absolute responsibility to ensure that all people in our society can access a good life in this prosperous country - and that means making policy that ensures fiscal responsibility AND cares for the people. They have forgotten the latter with their mean and despicable imposts on those who can least afford to pay.

The cigar toting, $50 000 Washington dinner for 60 treasurer needs to get his head out of his dark nether regions and walk in the shoes of  some of the people who live so close to the bone from week to week that a $7 co-payment for a trip to the doctor is a choice between eating today or not. This is just cruel policy. And as for suggesting that $7 is no more than two middies of beer or a quarter a pack of cigarettes- that’s just arrogant elitism that suggests all people who are in lesser circumstances than him are there by their own choice and just need a good kick up the bum. 

I note the inclusion of funds for school chaplains in the budget. I have to say, if being schooled in a religious faith delivers the bunch of arrogant, hubristic, oligarchs that are currently in charge, that’s reason enough to eliminate it from the curriculum.

Do I sound angry? You bet I am!

The song I quoted to start this post has an additional line that says: 

You can’t hear the teacher with beans in your ears.

I’m the teacher Tony. Get some cotton buds!

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No ART WORK this week - just too depressed and flaberghasted by government machinations!

Knitting a one eyed view

I have been out of action for the past week fighting off the flu and recovering from eye surgery. I’ve been accused of being a one eyed leftie Collingwood supporter, but I have to say that being a Libran that is a hard act to juggle. I think I am unfairly accused – passionate: yes; myopic: not from where I  am looking. 

The upshot of my acquired afflictions has been a return to the knitting needles and binging on Season two of House of Cards.

The first activity has taken inspiration from the forthcoming Beaniefest in Alice Springs, the yarn bombing being prepared to commemorate the anniversary of the release of the Beatles Yellow Submarine, and a friend request for a tea cosy to accompanying their travels around the country. As a result I now have: a ‘ To the moon and back’ beanie and a ‘blast off’ tea cosy; the plans to knit a yellow submarine; and knitted caravan to go on top of the grey nomad teapot.

The second activity of living in Kevin Spacey’s world as the American Vice-President  may in fact be clouding my judgement about Barry O’Farrell and the 1959 Grange caper.  If Barry had watched the series he would have known that politics is duplicitous, cut throat, treacherous, deceitful, dishonest and unfaithful. He would know you can trust no one, you must be enormously narcissistic and ambitious and prepared to mow down anyone in your way regardless of the consequences. Even if it comes to literally throwing someone under a train. 

So, given that lens (and I have a new one thanks to the cataract surgery), there are a few questions that I still can’t fathom:

• Why would Barry be so adamant that he had never received a bottle of Grange, that he would remember it if he had, and that it just didn’t exist – especially when it appears he had been asked about it by a journalist some weeks ago?

• Why not say: I was asked about this a few weeks ago, I have conferred with my wife and my staff and none of us can recall such a gift. If I did receive it in those hectic first days in office then I have obviously forgotten about it?

• If he knew in advance that there was a question about a bottle of Grange, why didn’t Barry just call his mate Nick and ask him whether he had indeed sent such a gift if Barry couldn’t recall it himself?

• Did Barry think that his mate would not provide the handwritten note of thanks to ICAC?

• Why did Barry not record the Grange on the gift register

• Do new Premiers get so many congratulations gifts that they forget what they got?

Tony has been quick to defend his good, honest bloke, state colleague in a gesture that reminds me of the protests made by many bosses in the early days of the NSW Royal Commission into accusations of child abuse by teachers and child care workers.

If Barry O’ Farrell has some medical condition that results in memory loss then I feel sorry for him . But what comes across is an arrogant, self assured, definitive denial one day, and the next an: oops sorry, I forgot, and you obviously have a piece of paper with my signature on it.

Sorry…it just doesn’t add up. 

Or have I been watching too much HBO?

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PS.  Kevin Spacey was born in 1959 too…spooky!

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Art Work of the Week

That caravan I was talking about above

Use your words people

I’m a sucker for a good cooking show. I’ve been all over India with Rick Stein searching for the perfect curry, floated on the Mekong with Luke Nguyen, surfed the Menu, ridden with Hairy Bikers and meandered through cottage gardens and woodlands with two fat ladies. 

Lately I have been inside the instant restaurants, food truck and kitchen HQ  of the latest My Kitchen Rules contestants with their flirty Nana flutters, witchy Cheshire grins, shoulder charging for the ‘best crate' and general self promotion that defies any notions of humility. I get that it’s all cast and cut for maximum dramatic impact, but that’s not why I watch. I love seeing the results of a meal cooked under pressure, or the décor selected for a pop up dining experience.

So while I am bemoaning the focus on poor character traits, what gets up my nose more than the assumed aromas from the dishes, is the hackneyed phrases that have become part of the genre. I know every industry has its jargon, but I swear that if I have to hear any more of the following I will stuff my ears with olives - only those macerated in the finest garlic and olive oil of course.

Take it up a notch: I know that means do it better than before – deconstruct that lemon meringue pie. Crumble the  buttery shortbread into a million tiny pieces like it has been living at the bottom of the kids school bag for a week -we call this edible sand-, put a dollop of lemon curd in a test tube and lay it on top, and add yellow stained rice paper cut outs of three meringues on the side. 

What I should really read into these words  is that if I continue to sit on that couch watching shows like this and then experimenting with the recipes, those jeans I fitted into last year will never get past my crotch .

Take it to the next level. I’m inclined to think that this really describes the act of walking up the stairs to take the dishes to the judge’s table – or is it just another way to say take it up a notch. 

Again, I know I’m supposed to believe that as the competition ramps up everyone will do better and better starting with a tin of baked beans on toast (cheating because the contestant didn’t grow and process the beans and didn’t make their own bread) and culminating with a Heston like, larger than life, desert sculpture of beans made of honey puffs dipped in strawberry coulis sitting on two gigantic slices of marshmallow bread dusted with toasted coconut. 

The hero of the dish.  I can’t see how the pig’s tongue in this dish gets to be a hero. It can’t do deeds of great strength- unless it has some magical properties I am unaware of; is not a crusty roll with meat and cheese (sic the American hero sandwich), nor is it the offspring of a Greek god. 

It’s a bloody pig’s tongue, and it’s on a plate!

You’ve nailed it. Oh no I gasp as the judges bite into the dish . I really hope those little silver sparkles are the dragees that I put on the top of my cupcakes not the brads I buy from the local Bunnings.

The beef needs to shine. So, here is where my imagination just loses it. Does that actually mean that if I had gone out in to the paddock before this beast became steak I would have seen it emitting a radiant glow like Homer Simpson’s fluorescent fish? And, if so, is shining beef better than matte fish, or do I care?

It has to be perfect. If one more contestant says that and then delivers a plate of beige mash topped with bleating lamb followed by a flood of tears for letting down their team mate I swear I will take all my toothpicks and pin my fingers to the floor so I can’t use the remote control to turn on this drivel any more!

And finally aliments – you know: How many aliments can I get on the plate? All the aliments have to shine.

Pa…lease!  

If I ever get polled about this what will I say?

Use your words people. Use your words.

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Art Work of the Week

 Just a little cupcake I nailed recently

 

The thinks you can think up if only you try

I am of the view that you definitely do learn something new every day.

This week I’ve learnt a heap of stuff about spline, priming pumps, giggling teenagers, dorito eating goats, idiot pop stars and embarrassing politicians. But for all that, the things I have mostly learnt are related to my body and what I can do to look younger and fresher if I use a particular range of cosmetics. 

I just have to share:

1. Eye mites.

I have eye mites- everyone does! I should never use waterproof mascara as I cannot cleanse my face properly and the eye mites will just continue to live on in my eyelashes causing me problems. For the same reason, I should change my mascara every three months as the eye mites take up residence in  the tube and I just wipe them back on every time I use it. 

And all this time I thought my eye problems were caused by hay fever.

2. My skin has friction.

Now I don’t know how it gets its friction as my understanding of the term is that it is the force produced when two things rub against each other. So my guess is it must come from the eye mites falling off my eyelashes and skating around my face. But I can fix it by using primer -  not the stuff you put on your walls before painting, but the stuff Napoleon Purdis says is a crime not to use.

3. I can buy a product which is 10 products in one, one of which is a mattifier . 

Is that the same as permeate free?

4. I should take collagen caps which gives me collagen from the inside out.

It puffs up your skin and blows out the wrinkles - sort of like injecting silicon into a sponge so it oozes out and fills up the holes and wrinkles. I can feel it doing me good already!

5. My skin has muscle memory.

Does that work like brain memory?

6. I need exposure to  vitasphere molecules.

I had NEVER heard of vitasphere molecules so I Googled them. The only sites that mention them are for one particular cosmetic company, but it’s described so nicely:

Vitasphere Technology helps to deliver antioxidants, vitamin A, C and E to the cellular layers of the skin. As these tiny time-release capsules come in contact with your baby skin cells they lock onto the cell. 

If the cell is thirsty the molecule will start releasing vitamins, oil & water to your cell until it if full.  Think of it like a little sprinkler nourishing your skin cells – they release oil or water depending on your skin’s requirement at any given time.

Ah ha…so it’s a sprinkler system that nurtures my baby cells. I wonder how they have been surviving for the past 60+ years? It’s a wonder that my skin didn’t soak up the entire swimming pool contents every time I jumped in.

7. I have glue on my skin

Well, obviously, because if I use a particular cleanser it will dissolve the glue that holds my dead skin to my face and I will be able to scrape it away in a white visible layer.

I wonder if it works with egg?

8. My skin ages 7 years each time I sleep with my make-up on.

That makes my skin approximately 163,520 years old. I think I look pretty good for my age!

9. I need optilight technology.

Funny, again Dr Google only finds me references that lead to one cosmetic company. But if I use it I will not have glowing skin when I have my photograph taken as optilight will absorb the excess lighting and make me even more beautiful.

10. Bacne
That’s back acne  in case you haven’t heard of it before. It’s the stuff you get when you wash your hair and the animal fats and fillers from ‘other’ shampoos run down your back and create a layer of acne forming matter.  We’ve all got it, it’s just that you can’t screw your head around far enough to see it, so better switch to this better stuff today.

I’m reminded of Doctor Seuss (real name Theodor Geisel- there’s another thing I have learnt this week):

Oh the thinks you can think up if only you try!