MLK day

​​​Today is a national public holiday – The anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. I was not aware of this and was so bemused by the desolate major roads in the city – so desolate as to make Adelaide on an early Sunday morning appear as congested as a Catholic Church at midnight mass!

I politely asked a passing pedestrian if it was indeed Sunday?  She was in a severe degree of,  I presume drug induced brain fog and shrugged! The iPhone came to the rescue and having already automatically set the date and time to  American central time informed me it was in fact Monday and moreover MLK day! 
There was a picnic in the park and the entertainment on the stage included this offering.  Vivienne may well be invited to join the band – if she can send off her saliva for genetic testing and confirm her Afro-American roots

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Why the Recorder is not an instrument of the orchestra!

Great social get together at home on 23rd December, 2016. its the end of my fourth year of learning to play a musical instrument from scratch! – the Alto Recorder. In the brief video, captured on an iPhone 5 – an unashamedly way of suggesting that this method may be a contributing factor to any perceived amateurish hiccups – the ensemble comprises Wing on piano, Caryl on Bassoon and Charles and Jonathan on Oboe. If your complaint is that you can’t hear me , that is in truth a good thing. Let me explain – if the Recorder is not sticking out like a sore thumb, it means

  • I am in tune
  • I am playing all the notes correctly
  • I am ‘on time’ … and of course there is a fourth and final explanation
  • I am not really playing it at all but mouthing it.

make sure then volume of your device is set at around 50% as the sound distorts on maximum volume!

 

for those of you who are interested , it is part of the First Movement – Larghetto- of The Sonata No 4 in F major for Treble Recorder and basso continuo.

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Yasmin and me

 

NO …I have become a grandfather again….OR perish the thought, a GREAT grandfather. This is Yasmin, the daughter of Charles the oboe player! The moist spot on my trousers is nothing to worry about.

Finally this is our dessert and what must it be for an Australian Christmas?  Made by Margaret with 10 eggs…. she did not disclose the volume of cream.

 

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A Breakfast Lesson

It is here at Monsanto that I have come across my first “tourists” -a couple from Ireland. I am well and truly off the beaten track! 

At breakfast I chatted to one of the Irish woman. We were only two in number at that time. She in fact was English but had lived in Ireland for 43 years. I guessed she was in mid 50s. Rather solemn, in fact severe, in demeanour. 

My gaydar sensed she was gay. I have an opinion that my gaydar is mostly very accurate, although it failed the test when I first met PJM at the shallow end of the Norwood pool all those years ago! I recall I commented that I admired how he had coordinated his speedo trunks and flippers which were in a sort of matching pastel. In retrospect it was obvious my antennae bombed big time. He grunted, moved to the far lane and backed himself into the corner. Adjusting his goggles he set off on a lap of some sort of butterfly…. On his back! To this day I am still unclear on what this unique stroke means! Unless it’s messsge was “take note, all you poofters, I swim bum down, NOT up! 

We (the Irish woman and I) made small talk and as the TV news was showing obvious images of the plight of the refuges in Europe I commented on this humanitarian catastrophe and how the world in general was sinking morally into the abyss! She became animated and explained that it was all “contrived “. I was stunned. Please explain I asked diplomatically . All the world’s destruction and wars are instigated and perpetuated by… America.

 Now I am not by any means a “yankophile” but I needed clarification. What about Russia and surely Syria is a country ravaged by civil war? No she was adamant. Was it oil I enquired? Good heavens no she exclaimed it is “because of the Rothschilds.” She realised from my expression that I had lost the plot. She took me by the hand figuratively and gently yet firmly stated that Syria was the ONLY country in the world where there was no branch of  Rothschilds Bank! The obvious implication being that the only way that the Americans can establish a branch of the Rothschilds Bank was to contrive this self destructive civil war. 

My head was in a spin! Red flags billowed and I knew instantly that I was sitting opposite a classic case of American Psychiatry Association DSM  “Madness”. 

I have a well developed sense of “accepting where a person is at” in life and I knew instantly that any further attempt at meaningful intelligent conversation was futile. So I withdrew to my coffee and Portuguese tart… 

But I had opened Pandora’s Box! Without provocation she launched into a monologue on GSM food, possibly because we happened to be staying at Monsanto ? She changed tack to refugees terrifying me with the claim that the African refugees were subsidised by….. you guessed it, The americans in the hope that they (the refugees) would invade and take over the whole of Europe! 

I sat catatonic and silent appearing calm but my brain was in turmoil. If the black hordes took over Europe what would happen to all those Rothschilds Bank branches or worse McDonald’s? Could it get any worse? 

Well indeed yes…… “what about vaccinations”  she admonished. I kid you not! Arsenic, mercury being injected into innocent infants and destroying their immune system. Without disclosure of my profession I asked matter of factly about the common knowledge that smallpox has been totally eradicated from the earth? She agreed and like a primary school teacher she shared with me the additional fact that it still existed in test tubes. Moreover warming to her subject she informed me that smallpox is related to cowpox. The milkmaids were protected. The implication being that this was the “natural” way. I had visions of infant school kids being lined up to milk a cow! 
I demolished a second Portuguese Tart and excused myself, escaping to my room and the comfort of my Recorder practice contented that I will sleep soundly tonight knowing that at least in Australia we still have Rothschilds Bank, McDonalds and iPhones. 

A few pictutes to bring us all back to  reality. Mostly of the Monsanto castle.