Parallel Importation: Cheaper Books for Aussies, or a Big Con?

A friend and fellow writer asked for Facebook comments on parallel importation of books to Australian shores. I started to comment, only to find I'd written that much I would fill up every friend's Facebook Home page with my answer. Instead I decided to post it here:

I don't want to be a scaremonger here, but I cannot see how Aussie authors or small publishers are going be able to do anything than be caught in the middle of this vice (squeezed even tighter). While the big boys slug it out over the next 100,000 copies of the latest Dan Brown or Stephenie Meyer, our local artists and their support may well need to find other jobs.

Will Aussie book lovers benefit? I doubt it. I think we had better get ready for more pallet loads of titles that cannot be sold (this time from overseas) dropped on our bookshelves (wow, I can't wait!) But that's only presuming we are actually going to get cheaper books, not necessarily cheaper books that we want to read.

I think Dymocks and the Coalition for Cheaper Books have summed it up beautifully with the following excerpt from their e-mail to Katie Eberle and the Productivity Commission*:

“Dymocks and the Coalition for Cheaper Books believe Australian booklovers deserve better. Dymocks believes that lower prices will enable more Australians to read more and as a consequence Australian literacy levels will improve. Dymocks believes that the Australian book industry should be driven by the Australian book buyer and not the local subsidiaries and agents of overseas publishers.”

What a lot of poppycock folks! Do you take us for mugs? Those that cannot afford to read now, for whatever reason (financial or otherwise) will not benefit from your most 'magnanimous' actions. If you cannot afford a $35 book, you cannot afford a $30 book. I can only see parallel importing filling Dymock's and the Coalition for Cheaper Books financial reports with more zeroes. Who are the Coalition for Cheaper Books? The benevolent literary benefactors of Australian booklovers: Woolworths, Target, Big W, K-Mart and Coles. I'm sure you would agree that they must have our reading interests at heart.

So we save 20% on the latest bestsellers, or whatever. I would like to ask you: it is worth damaging (or worse, killing) our local industry for? Easy answer huh?

Don't just listen to me, have a quick look at the submissions from authors and publishers at:

http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/study/books

*Dymocks excerpt taken from:

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/87656/subdr293.pdf

Planes, Trains, Automobiles (and Buses and Shanks-naigs)

I have a confession to share: I'm in love with Jane. It's okay, Christine is fine with it. In fact Christine loves her as well. Jane, or Jane TomTom, is the voice in our newly acquired GPS. But more about her later.

This is my last post about out UK travels and I hope you have enjoyed their irreverent and un-geeIsawTowerBridgeanditwasreallycool nature.

To get anywhere in Australia you often drive a long way. To get to the UK it means two to four very long trips, hurtling through thin air very, very fast. We flew with Singapore Airlines and we can thoroughly recommend them, but this does not mean the trips themselves were particularly pleasant. Fourteen hours trapped in a small seat, bolted inside a large aluminium can is a long time. Christine is not known for being a keen traveller, whereas I have always been busting for an overseas adventure. So it is probably a little strange for you to read that Christine handled the travel really well, whilst I handled it rather badly, having to recuperate at a transit hotel in Singapore in both directions. To prove what a travelling stalwart I am, I managed to suffer a vasovagal syncope (women faint, tough Tulloch men have a vasovagal syncope) on the very first leg to Singapore. Christine woke me after a couple of hours sleep and I managed to get my head off the backrest about 20cm before I passed out. A combination of a stressful few weeks beforehand, dehydration, an overly warm/stuffy atmosphere, and rising too quickly, was probably to blame. I felt like lukewarm death for the rest of the trip, despite Christine's wonderful attentions. A note to those who wish to attempt long air travel: dress lightly (they supply blankets if you get cold), take an empty water bottle with you (they serve you water in thimble-sized glasses), try to exercise regularly whilst on board, and don't accept hot towels from well-meaning cabin staff after you've passed out.

Our metropolitan train travels were far more fun. The London Underground, or The Tube to the locals, is an antique Victorian system that has carried over a billion passengers in its life. The demands of a populous of around 8 million people and the haphazard design of an ancient to modern city morph should spell disaster for this vintage public transport system. I believe that the individual lines have their moments, but in the four days we were in London we used the trains around two dozen times and it went like clockwork. Only once did we wait more than two minutes for a train (and that was a suburban line), within a half a day we'd worked out the system, and the Oyster card system (a version of Melbourne's bloated white elephant ticketing system, Myki) was a dream to use. Connex please take note, it is possible to provide good public transport in a big city.



Different again was the nightmarish bus system the English have delicately designed to be the bane of London commuters. We only travelled on the bus twice and the London trip was once too often. To be fair the trips themselves were fine, although a little stressful (the double-deckers get bumper-rubbingly close to just about anything on, and next to, the road). The system itself is a complexity of alphabetised stops, inconsistent timetables, confusing routes, and coloured maps that seem to, chameleon-like, change colours from stop to stop ("I thought we were on the blue line, now it's green"). I doff my lid to the bus drivers in London. I have no idea how they do it, but please excuse me if I take the train.

London cabs and a single rickshaw ride finished off our vehicular travels in London, but they were an expensive alternative to public transport.

Of all forms of transportation I think I most enjoyed what the Scots call shanks-naig, the English shank's mare, and us Aussies shank's pony (quite simply: walking). This allowed us to experience the UK like locals. Although we didn't really look the part with Christine snapping photos (around 5,000) of anything that moved (and many things that didn't), and me with a stupid leather bushman's hat and lairy backpack. Somebody asked us what part of Australia we came from and when I wondered later about this, Christine returned with, "well if you continue to say g'day mate to everybody they will probably get a hint about where you come from".

We hired a car for the Wales and Southern England part of our journey. It was a wonderful Volkswagon Passat with so many buttons and gadgets that we managed to work out a full 10% of them by the time we returned it. The one gadget it didn't have was a GPS. It was offered as a £10 per day option that I chose not to take, thinking I would rely on a road atlas and street signs. Which, with 20/20 hindsight would have been fine for the motorways, but a different matter in the cities/towns we visited.

Our friends Michael and Libby joined us on our way to Cardiff and Michael brought Ken with him. The only Australian voice on his TomTom portable GPS is titled Ken, hence the name (I was disappointed that wry English humour hadn't been employed and TomTom used the name Bruce instead). With Michael and Ken's help I managed to navigate through some reasonably tricky roads and roundabouts (some roundabouts have traffic lights, for goodness sake!) We were so impressed with Ken's expertise, and polite nature when I failed to take his directions, that we bought our own TomTom unit before we left Cardiff. We chose the pleasant female English voice TomTom calls Jane and, after several weeks of using her voice in the UK and Australia, it would be unfair to use any other (we even like the cute way she refers to Aussie freeways as motorways). Michael e-mailed me the other day a told me he had downloaded a Dalek voice for his TomTom, but I bet he's taken it off already.

Putting together my stalling of the car on more than one occasion (trying to get used to a ridiculous 6-speed manual gearbox) and the fact that I set off the windscreen wipers every time I tried to indicate (they are on the other side of the column from ours), I managed to keep Michael entertained in the front seat for the whole weekend.

Jane, the new love of my life, didn't once put us wrong, and she saved my sanity in the towns and cities. On the other hand, when I second-guessed her or misunderstood her directions, I wound up in hot water. None warmer, than in Eastbourne when I failed to take her left and took my left (in my defence there were two lefts). I ended up driving up a 'bus only' street, in peak hour, with several double-deckers up my clacker. Jane was madly trying to recalculate a way out of this idiot's choice of route, when I second-guessed her again, only to drive the wrong way down a one way street. Fortunately British motorists are a reasonably patient lot and allowed me to do, what seemed like a forty-point turn, to get the Passat pointing in the right direction.

I think this gamut of transportation gave us a pretty good idea of what civilised travellers might use; and like or dislike the various forms I think we chose them well for the entire journey (especially the aircraft bit, as they tell me it is a long way to swim).

Lost in Translation (from English to English)

"An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him.
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him.
One common language I'm afraid we'll never get,
Oh, why can't the English learn to

set a good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scots and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely disappears.

In America, they haven't used it for years!"

Henry Higgins, My Fair Lady

Isn't it funny how we all speak English, but our geography (or generation) makes communication a little difficult. Whilst living in Tennant Creek I once commented to a sickly American tourist that it was unfortunate that he was 'crook'. He took offence thinking I was accusing him of some felonious act. As with Professor Higgins above I put it down to the Atlantic (in our case the Pacific) gap in civilisation.

But on our trip to the UK I found similar issues. The English language is murdered even in its originating country. Not that I have the authority to pick (I have an infuriating habit of using 'me' instead of 'my' when using the possessive pronoun) but Christine and I did find it a little hard to communicate on the odd occasion. I had to ask people to repeat themselves, with me feigning a hearing problem, just so I could have another go at translating.

Of course accents don't help. It seems as though you can be born twenty miles away from your neighbour and speak differently. We loved the Welsh, but many of them may as well have been speaking Latin (actually I might have understood a bit of Latin).

Also, technical terms take on new connotations. As I was picking up the hire car I felt I needed to query why I needed to pay a deposit when I had already pre-paid . The incredulous reply was "You always pay a deposit when you hire a car" (thanks for the clarification lady). After a little to-ing and fro-ing I found our this was the money held as insurance in the case of a late drop off. Maybe we call it that in Australia too, but I'd never heard the term used that way before.

The local vernacular is a little hard to come to grips with as well. How the heck do you get "hello and how are you" from "ay oop"? Although some colloquialisms like 'sweeties' are not too far from our 'sweets' and cabmen obviously drive taxis (cabs). Christine picked up the lingo quickly which saved her from some of the embarrassment her husband faced with his Aussie ways.

My best English faux pas (I know it's French, work with me here) was in Cardiff. All holiday Christine and I had been sampling the best of British packet chips (Pipers' West Country Cheddar and Onion win). In the UK they are referred to as crisps, leaving the term chips for the hot fried variety. Here I am, standing at a dimly lit Cardiff bar with my mate Michael, two pints of Brains Bitter in my hands, and I spy a long line of crisps behind the barmaid. As I intently study the different labels, debating whether we should spoil our dinner with a couple of packets, the barmaid enquires if I need anything else. Deciding we don't need pre-dinner munchies, I reply: "No," I'm just checking out your chips." With that, Michael leads me away quickly from the bar. He was nearly bursting with laughter. Not 10 degrees away from my line of vision was the barmaid's ample cleavage (what some Englishmen would call a great set of Bristols). Michael told me later that her face went from shock to comprehension, which possibly saved me from getting thrown out of the pub. Those in my family will understand what I mean, when I say that it was definitely a 'Roger moment'.

So in Professor Higgins' words "Why can't the English, learn to speak?" (like me).

Do the Brit's Suck at Service? (Not Likely Guv'na)

Before we left on our big adventure, we were told by several people that we should not expect any level of service whilst travelling in the United Kingdom. This immediately brought forth visions of Ronnie Barker as Albert Arkwright or Dylan Moran as Bernard Black (or dare I mention the hotelier in Torquay?) Although an entertaining thought, this was not our experience and we enjoyed a reasonable to excellent level of service almost entirely across the holiday.

Now I must admit that during our time there we did not have one person fawn over us (maybe the sycophants were on Summer holidays) or become, in any way, gushy. But, with only one exception (which I will explain later) we found the Brits and the huge amount of foreigners working there very friendly and pleasant.

Now this may have been due to the fact that Christine and I were friendly and not demanding or impatient. We always greeted people with smiles (we were on holidays, why wouldn't we be smiling?) and used the manners that our parents taught us (thanks Mum and Dad).

In Portobello Road we met one of the funniest men on our trip. Guiseppe (try to pick the nationality) ran a gift shop in the road and was one of the warmest crazy people I have ever met. I swear that if we had stayed in his shop five minutes more we would have been invited to his niece's christening. We left with some lovely souvenirs, a discount, a gift for "The beautiful lady", and very nice shopping experience. Hey, we were probably ripped off, but is was Portobello Road. We finished off our Portobello Road trip with possibly the biggest waffle I have ever seen, and (up until then) the most drinkable cup of coffee I'd had in the UK. The Spanish lady behind the counter even did a little curtsey when we complimented her on her fare.

The mad pseudo-Cockney* driver on our nightime open-topped bus trip found out that Christine and I completed a passenger list full of Melburnians (travel halfway round the world and share a tour with people from Coburg and Mt Waverley). He spent the entire trip taking the good natured mickey out of his wife ("Five foot six of green-eyed Irish monster") and Melbourne. As he had spent some time in Melbourne and he was so much fun we let him get away with it.

(*Dave, the driver, admitted to being born in Fulham. To be a true Cockney you need to be born within earshot of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church in Cheapside.)

Actually, it was on a bus tour a couple of days later where we had our only showing of shoddy service. We spent an hour and a half on two buses to travel the distance that we could have directly walked in 15 minutes. After another hour of being herded on to, and squeezed into, a third bus we got off and took The Tube. I understand that a mixture of lost Arab, Asian, and North American tourists, speaking limited English (yes, I know what I wrote) must be extremely frustrating. However, I think that maybe you shouldn't work for a tour operator in London if these things bother you.

A lunch in Covent Garden market provided us with some personal entertainment regarding 'true English service'. Christine, like myself, grew up in Adelaide on a steady diet of British culture. Given many people working in hospitality and retail in London are Eastern European or Asian, she was somewhat disappointed not to see Caucasian characters out of Coronation Street, or The Bill, dropping rhyming slang and talking about "Our 'arold's 'ernia". Christine lamented this fact at lunch and ten minutes later we walked past a fruit cart. Not wanting to miss out on nectarines months before I can eat them in Australia, I bought some from the lad at the cart. He was just the ticket: about 19, thin, Caucasian with freckles and blond hair, and short striped apron. He spun the nectarines in the brown paper bag to seal them and said, "There you go guv'na". I turned around to see the look of delight on Christine's face only to find she was (yet again) off taking photos somewhere and had missed the whole episode. I'm sure she believes I was making the story up.

People in the hospitality and retail industries in Wales and Southern England were the same and we really did enjoy conversing with them. The bloke in the Premier Inn at Cardiff left his post to help me with bags I was handling quite easily. We had a great conversation on the way to the car that, unfortunately, due to his incomprehensible Welsh accent I cannot share with you. This is because I have no idea what he actually said, except for something about rugby. While a woman in Eastbourne, who had sold us tickets to the Bandstand the day before, tracked us down across the foreshore to ask if we had enjoyed ourselves (which we had immensely).

The poorest service we had on the entire trip was on the shuttle bus at Sydney airport. The driver openly berated me for not putting our cases, back to back, in the storage shelves, remarking "Obviously some people can't listen to simple instructions". In my defence I a) can swear that he did not offer this gem of storage advice; b) did actually store them back to back, but in a way that would make them fall over with the movement of the bus; and c) had just lost all of Friday shoved in a high-speed tin can and had left my brain somewhere over Pakistan. I was too tired to even respond and let it ride. Now that I am fully cognisant: Mr Sydney airport shuttle bus driver: I wish you corns on the toes of your accelerator foot (there, I feel vindicated now). His attitude is one I am finding more and more here in Australia.

Maybe we should rebel against the level of service we experience at home before we worry too much about what the Brits are doing.

Back in Good Old Blighty

Upfront I need to state that until last month I had never set foot in the United Kingdom. However, since I was about six I have had a hankering to visit England; London specifically.

It is possibly due the Victorian family and social codes that pervaded our society in Australia during my childhood. Or maybe it was my love for English books and comics like The Magic Faraway Tree, Paddington Bear, Professor Branestawm, Jack and Jill (and later Biggles, Hornblower, Battle, and Valiant). It could have been British history threaded into the primary school curriculum, or the plethora of BBC and Thames television found on the family's favourite channel, the ABC. It is most possibly a mixture of all of these, and more, that has left me with a tie to a small island stuck on the top right-hand side of the North Atlantic.

On a reasonably balmy Sunday evening in September, this new-to-town traveller alighted on an unfamiliar Paddington Station platform, with a strange sense of familiarity. I bought Cornish pasties with a twenty pound note and thought nothing of it. I used the crossing on Praed Street in front of a black cab and red double-decker bus with a feeling that I had done it before. I was briefly lost in the back streets of Hyde Park with a sense that I really did know (roughly) where I was. It may have been jet lag, but I didn't have the sense of awe or bemusement I thought I would feel. I felt comfortable and at ease in this sprawling city.

In fact I spent the entire trip marvelling at the similarities of our two societies, governments, advertising, morals, et cetera. This seems to be irrefutable proof of how integrated British culture is in the Antipodes. In contrast Christine saw the differences, wowed at the new, and aahed at the counterpoints of our new location.

Please don't think I was unimpressed by London, as this was not the case. I was struck by the beauty of the city at night; amazed at how it never seemed to sleep, no matter what time you were out; captivated by the history steeping in its roads and walls; as well as being intrigued by its well deserved self importance. I continued to be impressed by Wales and Southern England on the rest of the trip.

So even though I had never been to the UK, some part of me felt as though I was returning to something familiar.

In the next few blogs I would like to share with you the wonderful travels and the feelings Christine and I gained from our newly adopted Mother Country.

I'm back to work next week, so don't expect them in a hurry.

Iechyd da!
TT

Physiognomies and counternances (show us yer kisser)

"At the sight of that placid and bland physiognomy, when he sits in the sun on the vicarage wall" Old Deuteronomy, T.S. Eliot.

Old Deuteronomy is one of my favourite poems and thanks to Cats, also one of my favourite songs. I can just imagine his furry old face relaxed in a deep sleep behind the vicarage, while burly workmen tip-toe past him in fleecy shirts and clunky boots. Eliot has so poetically allowed me to open this blog with my current topic: faces.

I have just finished sorting almost 20,000 digital photographs, many of those framing faces of those I love. Some of them are of me in all sorts of poses and contortions. This is because I decided last year that I would post a new profile photo weekly on Facebook (those of you on this social networking site would already be aware of Christine's jibes about me taking photos of myself in the bathroom). I did this partly from creative boredom and partly to keep my hand in Photoshop; that incredible piece of photo editing software in which the advertising industry makes Penélope Cruz and Giselle Bündchen (and others without grave accents and umlauts) even more gorgeous than they deserve to be.

Kirsten has the face bug too, and is madly completing her third pencil portrait for her schooling. Elle McPherson and Halle Berry now grace her folio and I am trying to encourage her to look at craggier, and less Photoshopped (yes it is a verb) characters for more interest. In fact I believe that Kirsten has a latent artistic talent that she may well unleash on the world if she feels the need.

I think the prize for best fizzog goes to the woman I met on the train on Friday. Not only because she had such a fantastically interesting face, but because she lightened what is normally the equivalent of sitting in a dentist's waiting room: train travel on the Pakenham Line. For those unfortunate enough to travel it, you know exactly what I mean. For those who don't, it is a cramped, rickety and soulless journey that takes place for an hour, generally twice every weekday. Trains are regularly cancelled or delayed and the manners and/or tempers of some of my fellow commuters might have rivalled Genghis Khan's disposition if he had access to Methamphetamine in the 12th Century.

The best way to describe this woman would be in a single name: Yoda. I'm not trying to be funny or cruel, this woman looked just like the Jedi master in the Star Wars saga. She was extremely short, wizened and very old looking. If she had sported a green complexion I would have placed my bets on a light-sabre in her handbag. The shape of her ears was in question as they were covered by a shawl, although this gave her that hooded robe look to complete my bizzare mental picture.

She originally sat across the isle from me with two very pretty, bored and vacuous looking gum chewers (how come they are always pretty? Is it their accessorised and make-up versions of Photoshopping?)

I must admit she caught me looking at her amazingly Yoda-like countenance. The best I could do to cover my guilt at being so rude was to smile. A reasonably toothless grin was returned and she moved to the seat across from me (I was waiting for "Ooh, take this seat I shall" but it didn't eventuate). Maybe she felt I was better company than the 'Buffys' she first sat with.

I need to digress for a moment and explain the term 'Buffys', so named after the Sarah Michelle Gellar character Buffy Summers, in Joss Whedon's clever series about a beautiful young vampire slayer. My friend Ivanka coined the phrase in regards to several very pretty girls in our TAFE Editing class. They were all fashion model material, but their only interests were: themselves, boys, themselves, the Herald Sun gig guide, themselves, oh and themselves. If they ever learnt anything about editing it would have been through an accident.

My new commuting friend and I shared a brief conversation where neither understood a damn thing the other said (but nonetheless felt happier for the interlude) and then she promptly fell asleep mashing her almost toothless gums in the process. I am reading an interesting text at the moment, but I had my friend to engage my attention this trip. This woman's face was straight out of National Geographic with crags crisscrossing her face in every direction. Her skin was like leather and her Asiatic eyes were jammed into tight slits in her repose. I would have loved to have the courage to ask to photograph her. In black and white I believe her portrait would have been award winning.

A young man sat next to her. Tall, slim and slightly pale, he served as great visual contrast. Furtive glances in their direction kept me amused for most of the trip to Clayton station, where this woman departed from us. However the thing that clinched it for me, and really made my day was when she fell asleep on the man's arm. She really snuggled in and in desperation he tried to concentrate on his graphic novel. In the end it was too much for him and he started giggling. Silently, but almost convulsively. Of course this woke the woman up and she sat bolt-upright. Rather than outward embarrassment she opened her mouth into a wide grin and giggled as well. Both myself and the guy next to me nearly lost the plot and all four of us ended up, nigh on hysterical at the situation.

After Clayton I put my nose full-time back into my book, but I really couldn't concentrate on British history. All I could think of was the lines:

And the oldest inhabitant croaks:
"Well of all things,
Can it be really,
Yes, no, ho-hi, oh my eye..."

I don't know why, I just did.

In the Spotlight

I love stageshows, big, small, Lloyd Webberesque, or amateur. I found this out when I was about fifteen and my sister took me to see Evita at the Adelaide Festival Theatre.

Jennifer Murphy and John O'May lit up the stage as Eva and Che. Andrew Lloyd Webber described this coup for the AFT as the best Evita he'd seen. I can neither deny or confirm this, however I was definately transported to a Rice / Lloyd Webber Argentinian parallel universe for two hours. The vibrancy, colour and movement mesmerised me, while the emotive lyrics and evocative music stirred something basal within me. I once knew all the lyrics by heart and would secretly play the soundtrack when my mates weren't around (It was a staple diet of Acca-Dacca and Cold Chisel in those days). My girls and I joke about this having something to do with my 'gay genes' that come out in the presence of New Romantic music and Hollywood musicals.

Since then I have seen many productions, both big-ticket and small-time. I have loved them all: oohed at the heroines, ahhed at the heroes and booed at the baddies. I have whistled, clapped, woo-hooed at each and every one. If I knew the words, and as quietly as possible, I would sing at least the chorus (and sometimes not quietly, but always off-key). Actually there was one exception and that was Mamma Mia. I think it had something to do with the ABBA overload in the seventies (here I must apologise profusely to my friend Flash, who was kind enough to buy us the tickets).

In April I shouted the girls to see Billy Elliot. I would have gone myself, but for three reaons: 1) I could see the $109 being put towards a new camera bag; 2) I liked the movie soundtrack for music of The Clash, The Style Council and other great British bands of the time, all of which would not be present in the stageshow; 3) I'm not a big Elton John fan (my 'gay genes' don't extend that far). Instead I gave the ticket to our house guest at the time; although I'm not too sure it was money well spent as when I asked her if she enjoyed the show, the reply was: "I liked Wicked better". Anyway, my three girls loved it and I got a great new backpack for my camera gear.

The latest foray into the theatrical universe was to see Annemarie's school's production of The Wiz. As much as I cringe at the thought of school Christmas concerts, I've always looked forward to school productions. I think it is because they weed out people such as myself, that is: those totally bereft of any musical or dramatic talent. Unfortunately the audiences of Christmas concerts are not given the same courtesy. Fortunately both girls have taken after their mum and have been involved in theatrical productions. Annemarie prefers crew, but Kirsten will get up on the stage and is quite happy to be the 'third stormtrooper from the left' or a hapless plumber in the midst of a murder mystery.

The entire cast and crew of The Wiz put on such a grand performance that Kirsten went back for an encore at the Saturday matinee. We were very proud of Annemarie's efforts in keeping the backstage running to the exacting timing demanded by the troupe. I hope other parents were as proud of their offspring, as the kids deserved them to be. The girl that played Aunt Em punched out a tune with a voice far beyond her years and Dorothy bravely sung an entire song alone on the stage without musical accompanyment. Sharnika, aka The Cowardly Lion, who I was fortunate enough to meet on the Saturday, had a comedic talent akin to Amanda Bynes; not bad for a girl who has been nowhere near a Broadway coach. The Tinman had the coolest attitude and the scarecrow had us in fits. The Wiz himself delivered a monologue that I would have been lucky to have remembered the first paragraph of, before searching for the prompt cards. Of course, the supporting cast played their parts beautifully and the whole show was a complete success.

So whether you've splashed out on an $850,000 budget (Evita 1980) or run on a shoestring, the heart and soul of a production lies in the talents of those who put so much into it. As an appreciative audience member I thank you all (and will continue to sing your songs off-key).

Boys Being Boys

As many of you already know, boys never really grow up, they just grow old. No matter how old the boy there is some sort of toy that will give him back a little wonder of his youth. They also learn very slowly about the machine that keeps them going and how to treat it properly. I am told that the sporting helmet was invented 100 years after the sporting codpiece and I'm not surprised.

I'm a bit of a machine nut, even though I am mechanically inept. Twelve months back I had the opportunity to view machines that made feminine hygiene products. There are several gratuitous jovial pieces that I could use here, however the important thing was: they were machines. Pieces of metal and plastic ingeniously cobbled together to make whirrs and clunks and allow us boys to have our eyes glaze over in childish rapture. The best in factory was a terminator looking device (or at least the arm thereof) that packed 'outer' cartons quicker than Sarah Connor could reload a shotgun.

The best machines for me are the ones that defy gravity and launch themselves and their occupants far into the blue void. My brother feels the same way and on very rare occasions we have a boys' day out.

This started several years ago when our father was still alive and the three of us would selfishly shun the rest of the family and saunter around boys things, often ships and aircraft. My brother still organises days like this and even added an extra day to a medical conference last year for us to visit Point Cook Museum, on the hallowed ground that was the birthplace of the Royal Australian Air Force, RAAF Williams.

Peter stayed the night at our house and after one-too-many medicinal reds (and a couple of Scotches) I woke up decidedly seedy. Not one to usually feel too sorry for self-inflicted wounds, I set off early to pick up a parcel waiting for me at the Post Office. The idea was to walk off the fog in my head. Once I returned and had, had the obligatory greasy breakfast I should have been set for the day. Unfortunately I felt worse. In fact, on the way to Point Cook I thought I was going to pass out in the Domain Tunnel. A stop at the service area and a couple of aborted ralph-calling trips we decided it would be better for Peter to drive and I would attempt to gain composure. The corrugated road towards RAAF Williams almost destroyed me and while Peter attained the World's fastest museum visit I sat, slumped in the passenger seat, shaking like a Parkinson's sufferer.

I'll be honest and say there are less times than I could count on one hand that I have ever felt worse. On seeing my condition Peter rushed me to the emergency department of the Werribee Mercy Hospital, where I sat like a green moron wondering how a heck a hangover could get so bad. I was cognisant enough to let a woman through ahead of me who was wailing like a harpy about her lacerated thumb. Peter has taken the mick about me being a gentleman, however if she didn't depart from my earshot I felt my brain would explode. As it was she drove me to the loo and, not to put too fine a point to the description, I managed to purge the demons temporarily. Peter drove me home and I crawled into bed for three days. As it turned out I had contracted a virus, although Mr Merlot and Johnnie Walker did me no favours.

So there was Peter, sitting at Tullamarine airport, staring at large passenger jets, feeling a large boyish-wonder gap where there should have been Phantoms, Sabres, Vampires and other adventurously named aircraft of our boyhoods. At the time I didn't care, mainly because I didn't care about anything except shutting out any malicious light trying to get past my eyelids. When I felt better physically I felt fraternally worse, as it was a crappy day all round, especially for Peter.

This trip to Adelaide I tried to make it up to him and, at his suggestion, we headed towards Parafield airport to see the Classic Jets Fighter Museum. For a small, privately run affair, the CJFM is a very impressive show. It is also very casual and you are allowed to get far closer to the toys than you can at Point Cook.

Jostling for pride of place was an Avon Sabre and, albeit not a jet, a P-38 Lightning. A Sea Venom, Tiger Moth, Wirraway and a slightly out of place Chinese Warbird all hustled around the hangar with bits and bobs of aviation history filling the holes. We had the opportunity to see a short documentary on WWII fighters and were socially mature enough not to make Brrr and Rat-a-tat noises (although I got close when the Spitfire came on).

Peter is really in his element when it comes to the more human side of these things. He has an interest in uniforms, rations, webbing, and he goes kind-of queer when any headgear is around. It is a delight to be able to talk pure aviation rubbish with him and he has an inexhaustible wealth of information on this stuff. I'm more than happy just to soak it up and snap away at anything that seems to have photographic merit. I have a reasonable knowledge of aviation matters, especially military warbirds, but on pure trivia I need to bow to my brother and his photographic memory for this stuff.

Peter's wife, Paula, had made lunch magic (I kid you not, Paula is Hermione Granger with food) and we hit this with gusto. I know this sounds inconsequential, however even wolfing down homemade lunch has boyish charm and helped seal the day.

Signs that say WARNING DO NOT ENTER COCKPIT, SOME DANGER are, of course, to be ignored and the Avon Sabre became Peter's domain for some time. He even contemplated a $20 donation to be able to wear the circa 1960 'bone-dome'. However, I did not encourage this in fear of never getting him out of the damn aircraft ("Sorry Paula, he pulled down the cockpit perspex and kept yelling 'Mig-15s at 11 o'clock'. The police are still trying to talk him down").

As it turned out there was a Mig-15 (actually a Polish variant Lim 2) next door in the restoration hangar, along with a Mirage feeling a little dejected in the dust (no way to treat a French lady) and a partially restored Airacobra. There was, what appeared to be an airworthy Mustang tucked under many tarpaulins. It was a shame that CJFM don't have the space to show all of these worthy exhibits to their full advantage. I thought of climbing into the Mirage seat, but even the more modern aircraft are a tight fit and I could see me wedging my girth in so tight the local fire brigade would have to cut me out with the jaws-of-life.

I left the CJFM with my wallet only $6.50 lighter (Peter got senior's discount, a fact I forgot to rub in) and a chest full of boy-toy bravado. Of course we returned home and downloaded the photos onto other boy's toys, but I'm sure they'll feature in another blog.

CJFM is not Point Cook (it also doesn't get large amounts of Government funding) but I think it went a little way to filling the gap punched into Peter's visit by a very untimely virus. If not, then I suppose we'll just have to suffer another boys' day out in Melbourne sometime.

Cultural Heritage

Maybe it's the fact that I spent the first twenty years of my life in Adelaide that it feels so right when I return. The city is clean (relatively, in urban terms) neat, ordered, and lastly: not too big. The North-east air is fresh (again, relatively) and the view of the Adelaide Hills at sunrise pleases the soul immensely.

I have enjoyed just walking or driving around some old haunts and savouring all the good things Adelaide has to offer. A fellow church city ex-pat has just written on his Facebook profile "...is in the magical city of Cooper's and Vili's", but this place is just more than beer and pies (and the best lemomonade made, and honey ice-cream). This I was about the re-discover because of a promise to my Mum.

In all my years of living in, and travelling back to, Adelaide I had never visited The Cedars, the residence of not only two of SA's, but two of Australia's finest artists, the father and daughter Hans and Nora Heysen. I rectified my very un-South Australian attitude by bundling my Mum and my kids in the car and heading through a cold and frosty day to the yuppiesville that is Handorf. The old German township of Handorf is Adelaide's version of Daylesford (without the day-spas or drive) a haven for the overworked bourgeoisie to sip Chardonnays and chomp on eye-fillets with red wine jus. It is nostalgic, pleasant and ready to accept all of the money that Monday to Friday has just provided. Of this sport I partook with the purchase of a walking staff carved in the likeness of Tolkien's ent, Treebeard. My Mum, a keen artist and purveyor of all things creative had made a beeline for the Acadamy art gallery in the main street and Treebeard spotted me sneaking in to the next gallery. Slowly, as is the way of the entish tongue, he spoke to me: "Tony, it is your solemn duty to buy me, before Sauron spreads his dark malice over Middle Earth." How could I not accept the quest? Treebeard is keeping an eye on me in the motel room as I type, making sure I can write as much dribble as possible into this blog.

However, I have digressed. The Cedars is a rambling 125 acre property about 5 minutes drive from Handorf, along one of those little rural roads that make you wonder why you are so dense to live in the suburbs. The property still belongs to the Heysen family and is still used by them for special occasions. Hans' studio is perched some 200 metres from the homestead, up a grassy knoll and guarded by an ancient pine (presumably guarded by Treebeard until I removed him from Handorf). The studio has the feel that Heysen will return from his garden in just a moment and put another touch on the huge oil sitting on the easel. It is such a place that, even though you are sharing it with fifteen others on the tour, you are sure you are the only one who has been invited. Anney, who is arty to the core, felt the need to stand in one of the places that Heysen had stood to paint, her feet sitting easily in the worn out carpet that had accepted such big shoes.

Heysen's majesty of line and light is only equalled by the beautiful pencil, charcoal and conte drawings of his daughter, Nora, in the gallery down the hill from the studio. Both artists made their work attract all of your attention, allowing you to leave your world for moments and see things through their eyes. Stunning portraits, vibrant still lifes and the ubiquitous scenic paintings are in abundance. As expected they are far more evocative that any reproduction found on a dining room wall or in a gallery catalogue.

Our guide, knowledgeable and pleasant, took us through the sprawling garden of sunny daffodils indispersed between native and imported plants, and under the massive eponymic cedar trees (there are a couple of sideboards in those) to the homestead. Again, I got the feeling of hospitality and welcome I walked through the lazy verandah and into the house. The walls are adorned with original Heysens and I could have plonked my bottom on the same raised floorboards that felt the light feet of Pavlova and had resonated with powerful voice of Melba. But, of course, that day I was the guest.

A well appointed gallery and store are mandatory to the survival of any self-funded heritage enterprise and The Cedars is no exception. Books, bookmarks, postcards and cards accompanied us back to the car (for Treebeard to peruse in the boot).

A pleasant return drive down through those beautiful hills and the eponymic Heysen tunnel set off a day that leaves you feeling good about South Australia and its place in the cultural world.

Although I am now thought of as 'a bloody Victorian' I still feel very much at home when I visit Adelaide.

From Airfix to Nurse Alice (or injection molded plastic has come a long way)

One wintry day when I was about 12, my brother Peter invited me down to his house for a 'boys' day'. We settled ourselves around the dining table in the kitchen whilst my Sister-in-law Paula cooked up a storm in the corner. Peter was in the Army Reserve and was quite potty about all things with a military bent.

The plan for the day was to paint model soldiers, those tiny plastic replicas of men, injection molded into fine detail ready to accept Humbrol model paints (tiny tins designed to part a young boy from even more of his pocket money). I suppose it was a way for him to pass on his wealth of knowledge in military history and enjoy his little brother's company.

Thanks to Peter, thus began many years of teenage enjoyment, assembling and painting aircraft, tanks and military figurines from all across the world and throughout history. Sometimes I needed a brush so small you couldn't see the tip that painted the irises of plastic men not much longer than your fingernail.

Most of my high-school buddies shared the same passion and fortunately for them, all were far more talented. 30+ years on and the only souvenir of this time is the tiny French cavalry officer you see above. He stands around 35mm high and reminds me of many hours of fun and frustration in trying to paint almost impossible details on these little guys (probably why I need glasses today).

Craig is the only friend that continued with the passion of scale modelling and he expanded this interest into a one-man business supporting those who may have accepted growing old, but are refusing to grow up. Christine and I made a surprise visit to say hello to him at Sandown Park, where he has a stall at the yearly Model Expo.

Having paid ten dollars each for the privilege of seeing him for a quick cuppa, we decided to get our money's worth by walking around the trestle tables and photographing the 3D artworks on display.

The plastic models of my day were still there: ships, tanks, cars, aircraft and those little men coated in Humbrol paints. They probably made up 80% of the exhibits; but there are new generations of modellers that have been entertained their entire lives by manga, anime and countless incarnations of Treks and Wars on the large and small screens. I think I saw all of the Starship Enterprises, Ripley in that machine that beat the crapper out of the nastiest of Aliens, and more Star Wars figurines that even I, a part-time Sci-fi fan, could name. It is the natural progression of a most satisfying hobby.

The one thing I did find odd, was the amount of boobies offered for ogling in miniature minutiae. Most were clad, some were bare, but none were flat chested. In true Japanese fashion, the manga/anime inspired characters were endowed well enough to set Pamela Anderson to tears. Being a bit of a perv' I did find this quite fascinating and offer you my favourite below. She was in the Fantasy section, although I think she was more in the teenage boy fantasy, rather than Tolkien fantasy genre. With the syringe she was toting I would have put her in the Horror section instead.

Given the fact Peter is laid up in hospital at the moment, I trust things haven't turned Twilight Zoney and he is tended by a Nurse Alice armed with a horse needle (sneaking around in a bikini on all fours, ready to jab him somewhere unpleasant).

Yassou!
Tony

Christine and Tony - Rye - Mar 2008

Christine and Tony - Rye - Mar 2008
Originally uploaded by ttulloch

Okay, so here is my first photo blog. Our friends at Flickr let me blog straight from the photostream to Blogger.com. Aah the wonders of modern technology. However, before you go thinking I'm too clever: this is all automated (and even then it took me 1/4 hour to figure out).

Ciao
TT

Welcome to my blog

Well hello there.

Welcome to a part of cyberspace that I have yet to lurk. I thought that a blog attached to my Flickr account would be a great way to share our lives with you (from my perspective anyway).

You will need to be a little patient here as I find my feet and stumble through my first few 'posts' (in fact, I'm so green to blogging I do not even know if 'post' is the right term).

Saelvertu!
TT