[well, i will not try inserting a photo into this post this time - a link will have to do. but then...]
the thing is, we made the trip over here to adelaide (again) from sydney last week. if you go the shortest route, the drive itself, i.e. actual drive-time, takes 18 hours. usually we drive about 6 hours every day, stopping for lunch and a wander in the middle. and, since we do not like driving at night (nothing to see), we usually take about 3 days and two nights to get here. but, also it is now winter and the days are shorter, and as well we decided to go via broken hill and check out various backwaters along the way, and seeing as this entailed using some unsealed roads and also stopping regularly to take photographs, this time the trip took us about 5 days… lessee, we left on the saturday, and arrived in adelaide on the following friday… OK, 6 days.
so far i have uploaded some of the recent shots to my flickr ‘photostream’, but i have not really had enough time to edit properly, hence it is a little untidy. i tend to take a few shots of the same objects at different angles and distances… oh yeah, now, this has been occasioned as well, by my trialing of the lastest acquisition, a fixed focal length 50mm lens. it takes me back to college days and the 35mm pentax, sigh. now i have a digital SLR camera though, and use a canon EOS body. yes, but normally these days, with the lens that comes with the camera, i can stay in virtually the same place and merely adjust the focal length to get diffferent framing options. now, i have to walk about the place. the benefit is apparently cleaner crisper shots, so i had to test this out. also, there are some shots i’ve uploaded to flickr that are pretty similar in content but i’ve wanted to test-change the aperture. so later on i will delete some of the repetitious ones.
earlier i wrote a very nice succinct blather about what i have done in the interstices of ‘not posting here’, and this post was meant to be a pointer to the fact that i have not been entirely idle. at the same time, into this post, i also wanted to insert a advertorial shot, a teaser, but this ole theme did not like that at all, and not knowing that i would be treated to a blank screen upon attempting to insert, i blithely tried to do the inserting after an easy upload as usual… after which, the blank screen and no recourse assailed me. my photo? or wordpress 3 and this theme combined? nobody knows.
meanwhile, perhaps a link to the photo in the medai gallery will sufiice… also i’d better “save draft” first….
the pogues didn’t make a video clip that youtube will play – but anyway, this is the best version of a pretty dolorous anti-war song written by scottish immigrant to australia, eric bogle. it’s pretty much a ‘country music’ song, and those that sing it usually are country singers. there’s even a version by joan baez, but i really can’t stand her voice.
today, here in australia, and over there in NZ too, it’s anzac day, a national holiday which is meant to honour the veterans of war. when i was a kid a lot of WWII vets would be marching all morning down the main street of sydney. i remember watching it on TV with my grandparents who were really into the anzac day march. they were also scottish immigrants just by the by. i guess you could say they lived through the war, with my father’s sister marrying an american soldier who was on R&R in sydney from the pacific theatre. one of my cousins was born in the same suburb as i was born… after the war, they all went back to the US and settled in pontiac, detroit. we are no longer in contact with our five cousins and their families. which i spose is a pity.
today is sunday, but in compensation, tomorrow will be a national public holiday…
after the marches – which now include vets from vietnam, afghanistan, and iraq as well – most of the guys (and gals now i guess) will go and do some drinking. in the past, they’d play two-up, a gambling game that was banned in the old days, but very easy to set up with just a flat stick and two pennies. it was already old hat by the time i was a kid, and i never actually saw it played. but it was a type of anzac day ritual for the survivors of the 2 world wars it seems.
the song clipped here plays around the popularity of what many people think is our real national anthem, “waltzing matilda”, strains of which can be heard at most patriotic celebrations. well, traditionally, australians of my generation are not ‘patriotic’, the word rhyming as it does with ‘idiotic’. we have a national day, called funnily enough ‘australia day’, but in my youth it was just another holiday, and a good time to go out and do what one would normally want to do on a summer day – go to the beach, or have a picnic, or visit friends. certainly no need to fly damn flags. nowadays, after 11 years of jingoistic government encouragement of pap and empty ceremony, we also indulge in so much flag waving and burning of highly-priced multi-coloured gunpowders with the best of them on ‘australia day’…
but anzac day is the other ‘australia day’, it seems to me – building as it does on the legend of mateship and courage in the face of terrible odds, etc, etc.
the song ‘waltzing matilda’ deserves an exigesis in itself… a set of words in a story which no longer applies to any of us at all, but pointing to both history and a type of cultural psyche that compels us (i believe) to travel far afield searching for good ole freedom of some sort, coupled with a healthy, extreme sense of distaste for and antipathy towards any sort of authority, and not minding the underdog putting it to the man in a good cause: the hero of the song, a thief, a vagabond needing food, preferring to die rather than be taken prisoner for his ‘crime’… written when? there are arguments about its origins, and its tune. some say henry lawson wrote the popular version we hear these days.
and so, eric bogle, another vagabond of sorts, arrives in australia and writes this song many years ago now, a story of the empty glory of war, through the eyes of one veteran of WWI and the gallipoli ‘legend’. it’s possible, being scottich, bogle had his own anti-english axe to grind, but certainly the history of gallipoli causes teeth-grinding against the poms on the part of australians when the full story is learnt.
here, anyway, is bogle’s song sung by an irish folk-punk band from the 80s. it’s longish, but the lyrics never fail to do their job….
When I was a young man I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover
From the Murray’s green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in 1915 my country said: Son,
It’s time to stop rambling, there’s work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When the ship pulled away from the quay
And amid all the tears, flag waving and cheers
We sailed off for Gallipoli
It well I remember that terrible day
When our blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he primed himself well
He rained us with bullets, and he showered us with shell
And in five minutes flat, he’d blown us all to hell
Then he blew us back home to Australia
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When we stopped to bury our slain
Well we buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then it started all over again
Oh those that were living did their best to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire
And for seven long weeks I kept myself alive
While around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit
And when I awoke in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, Christ I wished I was dead
Never knew there was worse things than dying
And no more I’ll go Waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me
They collected the wounded, the crippled, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind and insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And when the ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
And the Band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
Oh nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then they turned all their faces away
Now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Renewing their dreams of past glories
I see the old men all tired, stiff and worn
The forgotten heroes of a forgotten war
And the young people ask me “What are they marching for?”
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer the call
But year after year, their numbers get fewer
Someday, no one will march there at all
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong
So who’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
almost a year had gone by since the precious boy-cat died before i began to look at cats again with a view to adoption. eventually my desires for the royal tortie mackeral tabby type were put aside and i just took home two from the possible bunch i was introduced to at the RSPCA shelter for cats and dogs out at yagoona. they were busy out there on both saturday and sunday. but i could not choose on the saturday, and indeed left there with my hands against my cheeks in the horror of it all. too many cats all looking keen to come and stay with me. indeed, too much choice is not conducive to feeling fine – what if i make the wrong choice? the horror of being the ~selector~ when some are passed over in favour of others. so i needed to sleep on it all and go back the next day.
i tried to avoid selecting a pair that looked like creepy and precious, but now i have them home, i feel i have failed miserably in reaching that goal. meanwhile i have had bad dreams in which i have left creepy and precious in the care of someone else while we leave them permanently, but we do not get far when i burst into tears and insist we go back and get them….
it’s the link to the me that has gone.
but now our lives are a little less sedate since millie and willow have arrived. millie is older and wiser and a little nonchalent – except when she pounces on willow and makes her cry out. willow is a ratbag little tabby monster who wants to get into everything, climb everything, and eat all on her plate. they may need be called princess and punksie before long.
here they are in a rare moment of recumbancy:
mildred pierce and willow the witch aka princess and punksie resting between bouts
Gather round people let me tell you a story
An eight year long story of power and pride
British Lord Vestey and Vincent Lingiarri
Were opposite men on opposite sides
Vestey was fat with money and muscle< Beef was his business, broad was his door
Vincent was lean and spoke very little<
He had no bank balance, hard dirt was his floor
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
Gurindji were working for nothing but rations
Where once they had gathered the wealth of the land< Daily the pressure got tighter and tighter
Gurindju decided they must make a stand
They picked up their swags and started off walkin
At Wattie Creek they sat themselves down
Now it don’t sound like much but it sure got tongues talking
Back at the homestead and then in the town
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
Vestey man said I’ll double your wages
Seven quid a week you’ll have in your hand
Vincent said uhuh we’re not talking about wages
We’re sitting right here till we get our land
Vestey man roared and Vestey man thundered
You don’t stand the chance of a cinder in snow
Vince said if we fall others are rising
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
Then Vincent Lingiarri boarded an aeroplane
Landed in Sydney, big city of lights
And daily he went round softly speaking his story
To all kinds of men from all walks of life
And Vincent sat down with big politicians
This affair they told him is a matter of state
Let us sort it out, your people are hungry
Vincent said no thanks, we know how to wait
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
Then Vincent Lingiarri returned in an aeroplane
Back to his country once more to sit down
And he told his people let the stars keep on turning
We have friends in the south, in the cities and towns
Eight years went by, eight long years of waiting
Till one day a tall stranger appeared in the land
And he came with lawyers and he came with great ceremony
And through Vincent’s fingers poured a handful of sand
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
That was the story of Vincent Lingairri
But this is the story of something much more
How power and privilege can not move a people
Who know where they stand and stand in the law
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
after all this time, i’ve just signed up to flickr. so far i am having a lot of fun. hmmm. it is simple and easy to use, and has a lot of features i want to use for organising photos.
this shot was taken as we were speeding back to catch the ferry to return to the mainland on our last day on kangaroo island. i had to hop out of the car and quickly take the shot, so i used the IXUS. it performs OK in most circumstances i think.
it’s one of my favourite shots – mainly because the composition works, and the grass looks good. also, i did not notice those two stones when i took the shot originally, but now i think they make the picture.
i used picasa to gather a few related shots into an ‘album’, and exported the album contents to the desktop so i could easily upload them. the export facility, by default, makes the images smaller, so a lot of the information is lost, but i’ll try out a non-reduced image shortly just to see whether any difference in quality is noticeable.
the boundary between inside and outside is sometimes hard to determine. where is inside the house and where outside? i say the boundary lies at the flyscreen. insects not welcome past here. but insects and arachnids and other creatures do not abide by my rules occasionally. most people merely get out the killing apparatus of one form or another, when creatures cannot undertsand or will not acknowledge boundary-setting, but one of the abiding philosophies of eldon could be summed up in the prosaic aphorism, live and let live.
this rule is not adhered to in several specific instances. in the case of biting or sucking creatures on my person, or one potentially biting/sucking creature anywhere near me or my animal charges. i refer to mosquitos in my immediate hearing, ants biting my person, leeches anywhere on my person or any animal charge, and fleas in our immediate habitat. you will note the absence of spiders, snakes, and flies. actually i will swat a fly in the house if it keeps drawing attention to itself. a bee can sting me if i am careless enough to catch it on my arm or hand – but generally they do not bother me, even if i am cutting stalks in their vicinity.
here we are back in adelaide for the xmas-new year period. as usual i get sucked in to local things, and so i just registered to adopt the street tree out the front of our place. it has not looked well for a few years, when all the other ironbarks in the street look quite healthy. i think it is dying of thirst. since there are water restrictions in force, i need approval or assistance to lay drip hoses out the front of our property.
next door, all the trees have gone. people moved in, cut down all the trees and bushes higher than head height, and now do not live there but come occasionally to do renovations.
it’s a peculiarly australian failing, what robin boyd (1960: The Australian Ugliness) called “aboraphobia”. or, as the old aussie motto (sardonically) says: “If it moves, shoot it. If it doesn’t, chop it down”. two doors up, we have a vacant lot. when we moved here in 2005, there was an old stone double villa, built about 1870. after it was sold to notable local developers, there was consternation about the house being demolished and also the trees being cut down in the back yard. i have detailed the story of the trees elsewhere…
