The Bed and Breakfast man

Hiatus

Once in a while I write things on this blog that are actually reasonably readable. Sadly of late instances of readability have lessened and I have started to fill the gaps with what I can only describe as utter tripe. Either that, or I shove in a photo. So to stop the rot I'm taking a break and concentrating on this for a while. (Although I will still do the quiz each day). When I have something worth typing I'll be back.

EAD

One thing I like about the Commonwealth games is that the less able bodied athletes compete at the same meet. There is no paralympic style games after the main event has finished. The EAD, or elite athletes with a disability, get to compete in front of the same crowds, the same dignitaries on the same track and same day as their more able bodied brethren.

Watching on Monday night, Mat Cowdrey competed in and won the 100 metre freestyle. His left arm has been amputated just below the elbow, making the medal all the more rewarding.

I'm not sure if he has a wicked sense of humour, or if it was a badly timed faux pas, but I couldn't help laughing when during the post race interview he said, "I knew I had a little something up my sleeve".

Devil Cat.

If anyone reading this bumps into Satan in the next few days, let him know I've found his cat. I imagine he's wearing out a fair bit of hoof leather putting up signs on telegraph poles in an attempt to get him back.

LOST. Grey cat, answers to the name Beelzebub, or Baal. Last seen in the Northbridge area where I recently picked up a soul in exchange for a Ferrari and a nine handicap.

Cat speaks with voice not dissimilar to James Earl Jones, is reasonably large and can be identified by revolving head and glowing eyes. Cherished member of the family.

Please call +61 02 6666 6666. Eternal reward offered.

Apparently he is living across the road. A few weeks after we moved in Mrs A. and I were sitting on the front deck enjoying a summer evening and a bottle of wine when a whirling dervish of feline fur screaming obscenities in tongues erupted up the steps and into our midst. Spotty Monsta was one half of the dance, so I advanced towards them making my best "pppffffssstt garn get outta here" noises. The blur stopped in a nanosecond, separated into two separate entities, and I met Baal.

I walked towards him. He walked towards me. I made shooing motions. He started to swear at me and sing the praises of his Dark Lord, (which surprisingly when played backwards told me to go to church and read the Bible), and then he went for me.

He was facing two humans and three cats, but he advanced towards me and took a swipe. Since then he has attacked me on three separate occasions when I have gone to the aid of my bruised and beaten feline family. Yesterday I hosed him. He stopped walking towards me, but he didn't actually run away. He sauntered off to the bushes and sat their inviting me to come in after him. Mrs A. is a church goer. I'm thinking she may have to get me a vial of holy water. Or have the church font plumbed to my garden hose.

Maybe I can call the RSPCA exorcism unit. I think they have a dog service called Out damned spot, but whether they do cats or not I don't know.

The pink bits on the map.

I'm a patriotic sort of fella. Last night the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games was on the telly, and every time the Simpsons had an add break I immediately switched channels to have a gander. The first time I did they were showing the velodrome and right there in front of me was the sort of Aussie ingenuity that makes me proud to sing Waltzing Matilda. A guy..., very obviously in the lead...., because he was on a motorbike. I'm not sure how it will go down with the judges, but the concept is gold. Good old Aussie thinking using good old Japanese technology to beat the good old Poms.

Apparently there are fifty three Commonwealth countries. Before I added that link I tried to work out on paper what they were. England is a given. I assume Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are included under the United Kingdom Banner. I know Canadian cub scouts would have given the picture of the Queen on the wall of the scout hall the same three finger salute as I did back when I wore a woggle, and that their equivalent of RSL clubs would probably have a picture of her as well. But after that I was a little stumped. I know America handed in its membership card a fair while back, so maybe they forgot that Federation was the rage in Australia in 1901, and were still counting each state and territory as separate entities. The link opened my eyes, and now I feel that I have brethren in places I have never heard of, but thoroughly intend to visit and exploit as soon as possible.

The flying tram was a little like the love child of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and a bus, and wings or no, public transport never in my experience could be said to fly.

Anyone up for a wager on the outcome of the games? I'm going to back Australia and see if the trend continues.

Lovely to see Her Maj in Gods own country too. Now there's a woman who can plant a tree. Be you of republican or monarchist bent, I have to say that in a world where technology renders new purchases out of date from the moment you buy them, being linked to something as steadfast and historically important as the worlds most famous monarchy, and being included as one of the countries on the globe that is still rendered in pink as was all the Empire at one time is special. And I say that as one who wears a tattoo of the Eureka Flag on his arm.

So good luck to all of the athletes. Watch out for mass transport devices plummeting from the sky, throw a wildebeest or other animal local to your country on the barbie, and as the national advertising campaign requires, ask yourself every day.

Where the bloody hell am I.

Housewarming.

"You burnt the sausages" said my 10 year old.....cousin once removed?, or second cousin twice brought back? I pointed out that providing food at a gathering was never any good unless you also provided entertainment, and watching the drip tray burst into flames and thick acrid plumes of black smoke clouding the suburb to my mind provided said entertainment making up for my second rate and somewhat rusty guitar skills. "Where did you put my shoes", she asked. "On the roof of the shed". She went out to the back garden, confirmed my statement and then stole my cap.

Her younger brother had brought a cricket set, so the backyard series was on. All the blokes and a fair few of the girls joined in as we donated tennis balls to as many neighbours as we could reach. I am somewhat chastened to admit that I bat like a girl. Actually that's not really fair as a couple of the girls, Mrs A. included managed to visit tennis balls to more neighbours than the rest of the blokes put together. I managed to drop three out of four catches, and was immediately offered a place on the South African Cricket team. The only one I did catch was left handed whilst drinking a beer at the same time. Mrs A. was not amused that I had got her out.

I sat with Flashman watching "The Bed and Breakfast man" and "Johnny the Horse" by Madness on DVD, and was a little surprised when other members of my family, with understanding dawning on their faces, admitted that they assumed that JtH had something to do with me making a statement about my sexual prowess. Not the sort of thing one generally hears from ones Aunt, and I'm glad it's been cleared up.

Most of the generation around my age had to head off to relieve babysitters at a reasonably early time, but the oldies, uncles, parents and cousins stayed till the death sitting on the deck singing Beatles tunes to the accompaniment of my Uncle and my guitar until I expected the police to turn up. Either the neighbours like the Beatles or the cops don't, and as the last people staggered down the stairs in the early hours of Sunday morning Mrs A, my hangover and I stumbled off to bed leaving the cats to do the washing up.

They didn't.

Back to the Future.

I remember the day I came back to the city after being on the farm during the school holidays to find that Mum and Dad had bought a video recorder. When all the other kids parents were embracing cutting edge audio visual equipment mine were still reeling over the advent of colour television, and as a teenager keenly aware of the need to keep up with the kids of the Joneses, having a rickety old turntable and no video player when others were listening to the digitally sterile offerings of shiny round discs that disappeared into the unit in an electronic draw full of lasers, was in a nutshell shameful.

Of course in retrospect, the five years of living in Europe and visiting every historical site of any significance from ancient Greek to Medieval with a mother who actually knew the importance, significance and relevance of each probably made technology both uninteresting and possibly difficult to afford, but as a teenager I had built up very little in the way of retrospect.

And in their favour, my parents were never seduced by beta.

That would be twenty years ago give or take, and I am reminded of this by the staggering amount of technology I have either invested in or come by in the last twelve months. Culminating last night in Mrs A., no, not me, signing up for the new Foxtel digital on demand service. The set top box that comes with it, besides making the set top box I just bought worthless, has a hard drive. My entertainment unit is beginning to look like a museum of comparison.

The DVD player, the video player, the cassette deck and the CD player in reality could sit comfortably in a list that includes Morse code tapper and Bakelite telephones. The Foxtel set top box replaces the first two, and the ipod the last two.

The record player is interesting. It seems to be enjoying something of a comeback. My vinyl is currently on holiday at my uncles house, but the recent acquisition of the Denon, including turntable, has me searching for records and realising that they are in plentiful supply and sound fantastic. Although the sound quality may be enhanced by memories of picking up records to fill my K-Tel record holder, and listening to every scratch I put on them whilst in my bedroom pretending I could dance.

Being a gadget lover who is getting older, I am finding myself torn two ways. In some instances I can easily reconcile the fond memories of the old and the joy of the new. In some I cannot.

For example.

On one hand I have an i-mate jam. Modern, convenient, dead sexy. But the ring tone I use is that of an old Bakelite phone. I have a nice hi-fi and five or six hundred CD's, but I am seriously getting back into vinyl. My digital SLR camera is the modern manifestaion of the old film camera, and even looks like one, yet I have no urge to print the photos and store them in the top of the wardrobe. I'm beginning to reacquaint myself with the way things were, just with better equipment.

On the other we will have the on demand foxtel service and my Uncles chain of video stores will most likely soon find its way into the history books with black and white television. I can get music from i tunes, but I like to be able to physically pick up the cover of the CD or record, read the words, see the release date. I want to feel the ownership that just isn't there with an mp3 file in a small electronic box.

I suppose it's just a more physical manifestation of the feeling we all get. There is, to me, no really good music after about 1986. For my mother music ended with the Beatles, and my Grandmothers feeling that the disappearance of Glenn Miller changed the wireless for ever for the worse.

The reason that this all came to mind was, as I said, Mrs A. signing up for the foxtel service. It struck me how much things have changed. I pointed it out to her and asked what she thought of it all.

"Foxtel" she said, "and a big T.V mean a better Rugby experience".

Well, I suppose she is a seventies child.

Simple as LCD

Looking something like Angelina Jolie in a white pantsuit, the representation of good as expressed by my psyche and supported by my left shoulder said yes. On my right her opposite in the skintight red with the little horns, but also Jolie-esque lent her support to the argument with affirmation as well. Under that sort of pressure what could I do?

Even I am a little stunned at the ease with which I spent more money on a television than I would on a car. (I'm pretty cheap when it comes to cars. They bore me, and should never cost enough that you cannot afford to insure them easily, nor walk away whistling when they are stolen).

Especially as I watch a sum total of about five hours of television in a week.

I think what got me was the ambient lights. When Amy the sales girl told me about them I realised that more than anything I liked the idea that lights illuminating the wall behind the television that changed colour depending on the mood of the scene on the screen seemed such a delicious waste of good engineering common sense that I had to have them.

And now I do.

Somehow I managed to get the box into the back of the car with minimal effort. I drove home with no idea of who was behind me, the rear window being blocked from view and my seat pushed forward so that my knees and chin had a chance to reacquaint themselves in a way they hadn't since the womb. The laws of physics at the loading dock of Harvey Norman however are obviously different to those in my street. Either the box became larger, or the car smaller. Removing the rear passenger door to get something out that went in whilst it was attached must have something to do with quantum aspects of the space time continuum and the properties of velour seats when in close contact with ambient light giving televisions. Or something.

The extra two remote controls are a welcome addition to the family as well. (The second one is for the digital set top box that I bought). Actually the whole digital experience added to the big screen is mind numbingly mind numbing. Mrs A. and I  had to move further away from the screen to avoid sudden blindness, and found that the optimum viewing distance was Latvia. If I can work out how to plug it into my Denon HiFi I should be able to hear it from Latvia as well.