No Disruption to Services

So, what’s been happening for the past twenty years?

Nothing it seems, given the tacky photographs being widely circulated involving a latterday Windsor on holiday in a secluded chalet belonging to a cousin-in-law.

We obviously still have shock jock photographers peering through bushes, disguised as bower birds, looking to collect all the sparkling blue bits that they can use to feather their nests.

But the thing is: 

I don’t care. 

I don’t care if Harry flashes his ginger bits and wobbles around like a pubescent teenager. 

Nor do I care if Kate sunbakes topless behind a green bush, behind a tree, behind a wall, behind a bus shelter. 

If I really want to see naked bits I could surf the net and find anything that took my fancy. But the thing is, the police would come knocking on my door and accuse me of downloading porn. 

I’d really rather look at the bodies of the Bangarra Dance Company and watch their sinuous, lithe bodies transcend the divide between traditional and contemporary dance in a fluid expression of Lake Eyre. 

I’d rather look at the bodies of the Collingwood footballers whose hours and hours of training produce finely tuned athletes, and if luck has it a place in the Grand Final.

I’d rather look at a contorted Picasso, a wrinkly Bacon, a magnificent Michelangelo.

And I’d rather read Murray Bail.

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This week's Art work

I'd rather be edified by Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus 3: After Murray Bail.  Acrylic, tissue, graphite and fishing fly on paper

 

How much more could we want

How much more could we want

In May of this year I visited Kenya. I was lucky enough to visit a Masai village. The women own and build their houses. Sure they are composed of twigs and cow dung, and the three rooms are dark and smoky. They are thrilled with their issue of mosquito nets- a government initiative that I read is significantly cutting down deaths and instances of malaria.

Kids go to school for part of the day. They study a basic curriculum including English, and are very thankful to Australians for the aid that has allowed this program to strengthen.  A Masai warrior tells me that they have not done well with educating women and that this is a priority they have to turn their efforts to.

Their diet is cow - milk, blood and meat. I ask over and over- what about vegetables- but I am assured they are not part of the diet.

One of the men I speak to has a university education. Not particularly useful in the village he says, but it allows him to go off to work and earn for the community. They are a proud people determined to maintain their culture and seemingly content with  life. 

Meanwhile back home, I am being bombarded with things I need.

There’s permeate free milk – what is that?  I appear to  have been drinking non permeate free milk all my life with no obvious side effects. Mind you, I have tried at times to focus on my third eye.

When I passed menopause I thought I was out of the reach of the feminine hygiene product market. But oh no - they have found something else I need: snug little pads for LBS. That’s leaking bladder syndrome. Apparently I can expect that to develop some time soon. 

I obviously need a better education system because Gonski says we have  to strengthen and reform Australia’s schooling system. Mind you, I, my daughters and my granddaughter have all had perfectly good education under different Australian schooling systems, regimes and philosophies for over 60years.

Gina Rinehart thinks I need to give up drinking and smoking (I did the latter light years ago) and work for less than $2 a day because then she can have even more of the things she wants. 

What I want is for her to come and dig in my backyard for $2 a day so I could have even more vegetables planted for summer.  She could even help spread some mulch.

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This Week's Art Work

Here's one for Gina...If I take your advice and give up drinking do I have to give up drawing anything to do with it as well?

 

Pen, ink and acrylic wash on paper. 

560x760 cm

I'm not sitting around waiting to die

Clovelly Surf Club looking back to Coogee. August 2012

I’m not sitting around waiting to die.

In July of 2010 I walked out of my job – not the way I had planned to go after 40 years of full time work.  But that’s another story.

LAW – Life after ‘work’- has been a surprise. I never worried that I would have nothing to do, or that I would be bored or lonely. But the TV channels have me dead already.

Every time I switch on during the day – and that’s never before midday- I am bombarded with advertisements for funeral and life insurance. It is absolutely relentless  - Clive Robinson and his fey props and attempt to make it look cool by referring to relatives selling your stuff on ebay;  the weeping widow and his granddaughter  so grateful to the insurance company for providing cash on the wife and grandmother’s demise; the couple  not prepared to ‘risk the trip’ without the funeral insurance; the dilemma  about leaving one’s family to ‘clean up’ after you’ve gone.

The advertising companies have made a token gesture at doing some homework. They have discovered that older people:

Essaouira Tweeter August 2012

•   know there is such a thing as the  internet and eBay – der
•  have close relationships with their extended families- der
• are sometimes  grey nomads  - der
• can be made to feel guilty – der
• may not be as cashed up as they would like to be – der
• don’t want to be an imposition on their families – der… der… der.

What they have failed to realise is that if one is a ‘retiree’, one is not sitting at home anxious to be constantly reminded of his or her mortality. 

The worst of it all is that if I bought their product, the ads wouldn’t stop!

 There are so many things they could be promoting that might relate to my new lifestyle and its surprises, but they take the lazy option.

So, instead of thinking about funeral insurance, in the last ten days, here is a list of what I have been up to:

·         Provided technical advice to a start up business

·         Sewed a sample skirt for a new label’s winter 2013 collection

·         Planned and began promotion for a memorial function for 60 people

Kioloa tweeter Acrylic on canvas. August 2012

·         Catered breakfast and lunch for a group of 20 people

·         Tutored in maths

·         Attended the Russian Ballet

·         Completed a 16km social bike ride- mostly uphill

·         Walked from Coogee to Bondi

·         Participated in a Webinar

·         Read a book on blogging and planned my own blog

·         Mowed the lawn and attended to my winter vegetable patch

·         Started an Etsy shop- Wattleplace

·         Finished two paintings

·         Celebrated a friend’s Birthday

·         Managed the administration on our website www.thickerthanwater.com.au

How many of those things were provoked by TV advertising ?– only the ballet.

Have I bought funeral insurance? Absolutely not.