oj’s status update

Seems I’m not the only one who gets excited at the sight of swifts. This from “The Miracle at Speedy Motors” - the latest No. 1 Ladies’ Detective book by Alexander McCall Smith:

The apprentice, standing beside her, suddenly tugged excitedly at the sleeve of her dress. ‘Look, Mma Ramotswe! Look!’

She looked in the direction in which he was pointing and immediately saw what he had seen. Flying ants. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the air was filling with flying ants, rising up from their secret burrows in the rain-softened ground, gaining altitude on beating wings, dipping down again. It was a familiar sight following the rains, one of those sights that took one back to childhood no matter what age one was, and brought to mind memories of chasing these ants, grabbing them from the air, and then eating them, for their peanut-butter taste and crunchiness.

‘Go and catch some,’ she said to the apprentice.

He handed her the spanner he was holding and rushed out in the last few drops of rain to snatch at the termites, a boy again. He caught some easily, and de-winged them before stuffing them into his mouth. Above him there were other, hungrier dangers for the ants; a flock of swifts, materialising from nowhere, had swept in and were dipping and swooping over their aerial feast. The apprentice looked up at the birds and watched them, and smiled; and she smiled back. What does it matter, she thought, if businesses are left unattended, if people are not always as we want them to be; we need the time just to be human, to enjoy something like this: a boy chasing ants, a dry land drinking at last, birds in the sky, a rainbow.

This is where I follow through on the meme bit, or maybe the tag bit. I’m still not sure. But here’s a bunch of questions, and here also are my answers.

What I was doing 10 years ago:

Swiftly plunging towards an early mid-life crisis! In typical all-or-nothing fashion (of the time, I’m more controlled now), I quit my job, disbanded my band and left a relationship (involving hurriedly moving into an ill-advised share house) all within a few weeks.

It was then that I discovered cycling, which was great because it got me off cigarettes. But I also had a lot of useless revelations, and spent too long wandering up and down the Kangaroo Point cliffs muttering to myself, and sometimes to the cars.

I got a pc, but quickly got rid of it because I didn’t like having the internet in my bedroom (I really was a bit messy). So I was kind of sworn off technology for a while. The last email I received was “Fine, be a luddite then. See if I care!” Funny that I ended up doing coding and database admin.

I wrote some good songs, but they were generally pretty angsty. I think I wrote my worst-ever song in 1998 too. Thankfully, I think only one other person has ever heard it… though unless he’s taped over it, it’s probably still on a cassette somewhere. It was called “Make the Effort”

On my to-do list today:

Before bed, I am planning to make an experimental batch of spelt-and-raisin sourdough cookies. I’ve no idea how to make cookies, I guess I’ll just wing it. I’ve just ‘fed’ my spelt sourdough culture, and rather than discard the poured-off part, I thought I’d try and do something useful (and yummy) with it.

I also hope to get some reading done. I’m reading ‘Swindled’ by Bee Wilson, a fascinating and very thorough work on the history of dodgy food. Unfortunately, it being not what you’d call a quick read, I’ve been spirited away by Bill Bryson’s ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’ - his childhood memoir, which is a quick and easy, and immediately gratifying read. So I’ll probably stick with that til I’ve finished (which won’t be tonight), then go back to ‘Swindled’.

Oh yes, and I’ll probably have a swig or 3 from the open chianti bottle which would otherwise continue sitting uselessly in the fridge.

Snacks I enjoy:

Stilton. Brie de Meaux. Brie de Melun. Epoisses. Caerphilly. Yarg. Camembert de Normandie. Haloumi. Feta. Dolcelatte. Spelt and raisin sourdough cookies (hopefully). Did I mention cheese?

Things I would do if I was a Billionaire:

Buy Welsh hilltop farms. Block the drains. Reinstate moorland. Buy Aussie outback farms. Propagate appropriately.

Five places I have lived:

Llanidloes, Canberra, Toowoomba, Launceston, Brisbane. In ascending order of temperature.

Five jobs I have had:

I’ll try and do the more interesting ones.

1. Lighting operator for a strip show in Goondiwindi. It was a MALE strip show! The challenge was to get the right volume of smoke out of the smoke machine, whilst not actually looking directly at what you were supposed to be only partially obscuring.

The venue was the Queensland Hotel, affectionately known to the locals as the Snake Pit. After a night’s disco (non-strip) entertainment in the front bar, the floor was a sea of broken glass. Not just 10oz ‘pot’ glasses, but beer jugs, and those big, thick pub ashtrays. Entertainment was sparse in Goondiwindi.

2. Mechy / rigger type for a variety of venues, but mostly for an ambitious satellite-urban entertainment centre. It was fun going up the scissor lift, but I remember on my 30th birthday being up the top and thinking “Sigh! My life is going nowhere!” It’s nice to be 35 and not be thinking that any more.

3.
“Medical Payments, Owen speaking”
“Hello Simon, could I get a payment unauthorised?”
The frequency of this little aural mishap was the most notable thing about job #3. Nuff said.

4.
Remotely looking after electrical submetering systems for the US and UK’s biggest retailers. The aim being energy savings. If less coal is burned as a result of my work, I’m happy enough with that. If the side effect is that the big retailers increase their profits… well, so be it I guess. You can’t have it both ways.

5.
“Alright, good evening and welcome to Krazy Dayz Karaoke, I’m your host for tonight and I’m going to do a couple of tunes to get you in the swing… woo-hoo! Listen, boy, I don’t wanna see you let a good thing slip away…”

And finally…five people who write interesting blogs that I’d like to tag (in no order of preference):

plumsource - you are the only other blogger I know of. I should get out more. Or stay in more!

My mate JT in Brisbane wrote a great blog for some time, but his blogging shrivelled up coincidentally when facebook took off. Now he writes a status update every few days, usually paraphrasing or quoting whatever is his lyric of the moment.

Now, do I add tags to my tag post? I think I’ll have to tag it ‘tags’.

J commented (in person; she’s sitting next to me) that “TREE GUIDE” is the most prominent book title on the shelf across the room.

Slightly closer observation reveals (in order of visual prominence):

“Alice Walker”
“Zorro”
“BIRDS”
“CHEESE”
“Postman Pat”
“MACHINES”
“Bob Dylan”

I think this reflects an accurate distribution of the interests of the book (and puzzle) consumers of our household.

(I also think I have a disturbing tendency to construct nerdy sentences such as the above, especially when moderately afflicted by fermented beverages!)

Um. I have vivid and persistent memories of my Dad’s bookshelf, and the titles that have stood out from it from about 1982 onwards. (J thinks ‘onwards’ is redundant). Patrick White’s ‘Voss’ is one. Also ‘Seven Brothers’, ‘WAR AND PEACE’, and some more perplexing titles, like ‘Memory Hold-the-door’ (a biography; I can’t remember whose).

Last time I saw my Dad’s bookshelf I was disorientated by its rearrangement. It used to be alphabetical by author (or subject within biography) - now it is chronological by death date (or birth date for still extant authors [or subjects within biography]).

I think it’s sensible, if slightly confusing to me (but really, my personal comfort shouldn’t be a consideration in anyone’s bookshelf arrangement - bar my own). It makes more sense than arranging cd’s by spine colour, which I have seen done by someone with too much time on their hands. A long time ago.