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

Righteous indignation

I’ve been contemplating why it is so long between blog posts, but I think I have figured it out.

Over the first one hundred days of the current Australian Government there has  something every day that has me in an outrage. I circle newspaper comments with big red loops, grind my pencil under words that nark, draw devil horns and moustaches over seemingly innocuous portraits and send for the thesaurus to find more vituperative words to describe my antipathy. 

There is so much to be infuriated about that I despair I will sever the TV antennae, shred my daily newspaper before I read it, and block all current affairs access on my phone.  I am at risk of becoming a hermit, but I loathe sackcloth and dirt, and really couldn’t grow a post menopausal beard to speak of even if I wished.

I’ve had it with:

·         Inhumane refugee policy

r    Orange lifeboats

·         Lack of transparency

·         Lack of information

·         Cuts to everything

·         Demonising of workers

·         Destruction of the environment

·         Debunking of science, and

·         The general tendency to mendacity and deceit  that tells us we have had it too good and now we need a little Presbyterian austerity, or Catholic penance.

So, I’m taking a well earned emotional break away. I’m off to Rutherglen for a bloody good slurp of the best vintages I can find. 

If I fall of my bike enroute, then someone cover me in righteous indignation and let me sleep it off.

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 ART WORK OF THE WEEK

Nothing is quite like it seems

Detail: Fruit flies.  Acrylic on Canvas

 

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

 

A long time between drinks

It’s been a long time between drinks – to speak metaphorically. 

On every front the nation we knew is under attack – not from some foreign invader, but the anti-bodies within that seem to be misreading the health of the nation and crying wolf.

One of my right leaning friends asked the other day what it is about our current leader that raises my hackles so – it made me think. There are a myriad of one off irritants that bite at my ankles.  Words have become entities of their own with no connection to my reality. There is a basic belief in politics that if you say something often enough it will become true. There is no future vision, no leadership, no original thought, no learning…need I go on.

 I feel like I am in a Dr Who episode where the human disguised space aliens are gradually eating me away while trying to tell me it is for my own  good.  

There is  a pervading atmosphere of toxic negativity bought about by the constant message that the economy is in trouble, we expect too much, we are under attack from invading Indonesian boats, that unions are evil – every part of our national fabric is being unravelled to re-knit the pullover into a good ole 1956 model.

And as a result probity, humanity, ethics and morality- if they ever existed within the hallowed Capital Hill walls - seem to be leaving the sinking ship. 

Look at the rhetoric:

Stop the boats

The whole catchcry focuses on the fear of being overrun by people who are ‘illegally’ arriving. Even Operation Sovereign Borders reeks of invasion. Occasionally there is a hint that this measure is to save drowning at sea, but essentially it includes no reference to the fact that desperate people, made more desperate often by our well intentioned interference in their county’s dilemmas (for right or wrong) need somewhere to be safe. Clearly  the death of Reza Barati on Manus Island should send a message to the human side of politicians that something is wrong with the policy – something absolutely wrong!

Governments don’t create jobs, business does.

Well, clearly that’s unfounded – who does the business bidding of government if not those people who are employed in their departments and who are all too dispensable when things do not go as politicians wish.

We don’t speak on matters of national security.

Clearly the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection should have headed his own advice before misleading the Australian parliament and people in regard to the Manus Island tragedy.

And in the meantime Transfield picks up an enhanced  contract for work on the island (no tender required); Craven and Donnelly score the Australian Curriculum Review (no tender required) and a myriad of other cronies fall in to line to head up reviews of unions, pink batts, and the next bright retro idea the PM lands on. Oh- that will be wages, conditions, welfare, health, education……………………. (add other areas here!)

What is all this for?

Budget surplus – the economic god factor.

And how does that work?

1.       Minister asks department to identify their costs for the coming 12 months

2.       Department provides costs

3.       Treasury halves the request

4.       Minister gets 2/3 of ½ of the original request

5.       Department allocated funds and expected to do all work identified in original request

6.       Minister requests 20 more things to be done to fulfil mad, ad hoc election promises (eg give every engaged couple $250)

7.       Department told to fulfil request ‘within budget’

Last night I watched Q&A. Apart from the ludicrous inference  from the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development that young people could successfully negotiate individual working conditions on an equal footing with employers, there was some sunshine. 

 Clive Palmer’s response to the question of a young man about what more could governments do to address the problem of depression and mental ill health:

Paint a positive picture of future.

I hear cardinal Pell is moving to the Vatican to manage the budget. With his background and proclivity Tony would make a perfect right hand man. 

But, no. I recall being told that when Tony wanted to study for the priesthood he was rejected because the Catholic Church can only cope with one person at a time who thinks they are infallible.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------No  No Art Work of the week – more importantly a link to the March in March website.

https://www.facebook.com/MarchinMarchCanberra/photos/gm.225978640919786/611950788874269/?type=1