Nottlesby's Notebook

Back By {-------} Demand

2010-12-22T06:46:00.004+11:00

What ho, what ho, what ho! - was my reaction when I received an email from a certain Mr Train of my acquaintance asking me to dust off the old fountain pen and put it, post-haste, to paper. Being a rather obliging sort (if I dare say so), I did as I was bid. Immediately I observed a large ink blot spreading across the white wasteland. I sat in quiet contemplation of it, my pen-arm not daring to move lest the flow of Pelikan 4001 SCHWARZ be stemmed. I saw a formation of ducks heading south for winter. I saw a couple of old ducks fussing about their permanent waves. I saw a chap in white ducks rowing his sweetheart over a waterfall. A most interesting (and Anatidean) diversion indeed, but thoroughly unrelated to the task at hand. That task was to write a short entry, a kind of Notebook-redux, for Mr Train's zine Badger's Dozen. I both finished and submitted it in time (a new record) and have recently received the good news that the issue has gone to press! All details are here, and I would encourage anyone who reads this note and who is in possession of the means to do so, to support Mr Train's most eclectic publication. You most indubitably will not regret the investment.

Devices and accoutrement

2010-03-05T05:56:00.001+11:00

Taking a break from my incessant plotting and planning, I let my mind wander over the things I wanted (needed?) to equip myself with as a matter of urgency. My list was both concise and precise.

I need:
*a shillelagh, to be sure - for walking and self-defense purposes;
*an orchestrion - the ultimate home entertainment system;
*and a monocle.

As soon as possible.

Nottlesby and the Hun

2009-03-20T04:11:00.009+11:00

{Insert stirring march here:}

Hello chaps, Nottlesby here again after yet another staggering (and impolite) lapse in correspondence. Nigh-on a year ago I answered the Call and set off for a tour amongst the Jerries. My plans were carefully laid, and with what I assumed to be a serviceable amount of German under my belt (and between my ears) I packed my kit and boarded the airship for more northern climes.

Arriving in Berlin, my way of Frankfurt-am-Main, I soon secured lodgings in the eastern districts of the city and commenced my further language studies in earnest. This tested every ounce of studious fibre in my being, for while Berlin is a cheap city (indeed, the cheapest capital city in the world) it abounds with Entertainments to delight and distract the travelling scholar (and inform and edify the amateur sociologist)! And it was my pleasure indeed to sample a fine crop of same on many and varied occasions.

Classes were small but the students enthusiastic at Doktor von Buglehorn's Akademie für Begeisterte Ausländer

My studies finished in early June, and with the confidence of the half-educated, I indulged in a final weekend of pleasure in the Hauptstadt before boarding an early-morning train for the East.

It must be said that since the business of reunification was complete (and not before time, too!) getting about the Fatherland has become dashed easy. There's a complex network of railways which service nearly every small town one could possibly want to lend one's presence (and pfennigs) to. I boarded the train in Berlin and with only a couple of changes to smaller conveyances, soon found myself in the heart of Thüringen - the green and friendly heart of Germany. In this noble Federal State one finds not only rolling forests, but also the ghost of Goethe himself haunting the back lanes of Weimar.

But amidst all this Wanderlusting, the most amazing discovery was of a musical variety. Specifically The Comedian Harmonists, whose songs provide the entertainment for many a night of sherry and banter at my new lodgings. Given the fact that spring has, once more, sprung, I find myself singing a certain song "Veronika, der Lenz ist da" (lit. "Veronica, spring time is here") with (what will soon become) boring repetition. The lyrics are something along the lines of:

Veronika, spring is here, the girls all sing 'tra la la'

There's a spell cast on the world, Veronika, the asparagus has woken (!)

Ach, Veronika, the world is green, let's go and have a look at the woods

Even grandpa says to grandma: Veronika, spring is here!

Girls all laugh, young men ask: Darling, will you, or will you not?

The poet Otto Licht is moved by all this,

so he writes the poem:

(Then they sing the first verse again and it all gets terribly exciting!)

These are heady days indeed. Why just last weekend it was my pleasure to serenade a young lady of my acquaintance with this very song. She took it in her stride and, with remarkably good grace, complimented me on my selection of such a "charming little song". Quite so.

In Search of The Spotted Buffoon

2007-07-26T16:25:00.001+10:00

Following Herr Tymnus' most informative post on the matter of louche louts and boorish buffoons, I had my butler Horrocks warm the Bentley, pack my net, a bottle of ether, several rounds of cucumber sandwiches, the family Bible, a couple of clean handkerchiefs, some boiled sweets, a bottle or six of ginger beer, my monocle, our passports (in case of emergency), several large sticking plasters, a crate of tinned herrings, four loaves of bread, a wheel of cheese, and we hove off into the woods in search of the mythical Grotto of Decadence.

After several minutes of tedious trekking, and abysmal alliteration, we happened upon a small clearing. There, reclining in their natural state of insolence, we discovered a Brace of Blighters infesting a mossy rock and a low fence.

I whipped out my Box Brownie and immediately snapped off a couple of prime shots. Unfortunately I'd left my Fairy Rifle at home (it was being cleaned by the obliging elves next door) and I was armed only with said ether, a net, and my faithful camera.

The Buffoons at Rest & Play

The Buffoons seemed unperturbed by our abrupt intrusion into their post-prandial smoke-and-lies hour, and instead greeted us warmly (if not with a measure of condescension) and apologised for their rough uniforms. The assured me that the uniforms were merely to enable them to more effectively blend with the forest hues ("and cries?" I quipped - to no avail).

Suddenly a chill wind blew through the clearing, and with a demonic squeal the Buffoons turned-tail and scampered away through the undergrowth, a faint cry of "Tiffin! Tiffin!" echoing through the darkening forest.

Horrocks and I stared at each other in rank disbelief. Could we believe our eyes? Had we truly encountered that which we though we had? As we turned tail for the Bentley - and home! - I espied, snagged on a low-hanging branch, this hankerchief:

Evidence? Or Merely My Butler's Carelessness?

Hark! I cried. Horrocks stopped in his tracks. I stooped and peered at the thing through my monocle. Most peculiar! I tapped at it with the butt of my cane. It didn't crumble to dust. I leant in further and smelled it. Indeed! The unmistakable hint of lavender-water. The Buffoons! Even in forest disguise they couldn't entirely eschew the comforts of home. I snagged the thing with my cane and held it aloft for Horrocks to take. It was then that I noticed the monogram. The letter "H". Horrocks begins with an "H" I thought (spelling prowess runs in the Nottlesby line, y'see. Great Grandfather Enoch Walter Disciplinarian Nottlesby was editor of the Stern Christian Review - Denouce Me Not Thrice, Ye Scoundrel). Could this merely be an oversight on my butler's behalf? A bit of lacy litter cast to the ground in to hopes of freeing his pockets of unnecessary ballast which would serve to impede his flight? Could my man be that much of a fop (or indeed dandy) - to even consider carrying a lacy hankie in the first instance?

I raised an eyebrow in silent cross examination.

Horrocks met my glare with his own steely reserve. He looked into my eyes. Then down at the hankie, then into my eyes again. He shook his head. I will have to trust him. It isn't his.

I nodded at the heinous hankie and Horrocks immediately popped it into a paper bag marked Hunting Souvenirs. It's best to always keep track of these things.

Motoring home, I smoked my pipe pensively. Horrocks did not take his eyes from the road. Was this due to safety? or, worse, raging guilt? How would I ever know? ...

{to be continued}

They're A Hazard To Yer Wealth!

2007-07-16T08:03:00.000+10:00

Abandon hope (and coin) all ye who pass within! Precious hours will be whizz by in what seems like minutes. You will no longer be allergic to dust or small amounts of mould. Your senses will be dazzled beyond belief by the discovery of rare treasures you Simply Must Have. You will fossick with the zeal of an Archaeologist on the brink of a Major Find. You will lose the power of hearing, and develop a highly-focussed tunnel-vision.

Some considerable time later you will emerge, panting and dusty, shirttails flapping in your wake, clutching a recycled supermarket bag full o' goodies.

Where the devil would one be subject to such gruelling treatment? Where else but your friendly local Secondhand Book Shoppe!

I spent a merrie hour or two over the weekend - first perusing the shelves of a Backstreet Bookstore I discovered in the City, and then, much longer, lost amongst the mouldering piles in Gould's Book Arcade, at Newtown.

My purchases on this occasion were:

Siegfried - Harry Mulisch
The Rebirth of History - Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy - Misha Glenny
A German Love Story - Rolf Hochhuth
Kleinzeit - Russell Hoban

And it is just as I type this (honestly) that I see the entirely unambiguous thematic connection between all these works. Heigh ho. So be it.

I'm going to make a pot of strong coffee (using my Bodum plunger whatsit, never been bothered to splash out on one of those stovetop numbers) - and read!

Of Berlin and Beer Halls

2007-07-16T07:51:00.000+10:00

To keep the vein of alliteration cut with the razor of my wit, I shall share with ye, dear reader, the latest developments in the Grand Plan of St John Nottlesby, Man o' the World. Well, at the moment I'm only a man o' a very limited world, but that is soon to change. There are, as the more astute among you would have gathered by now, Plans Afoot! For fear o' jinxing them into oblivion, I shall let the blouse of discretion slip over the shoulder of certainty to expose the bra strap of possibility. In short, I'm planning an extended safari through the Teutonic Lands, furnished with my meagre knowledge of the Tongue of Wagner, and, I hope, the appropriate Work Permits &c, I shall be setting sail later this year (or very early in the next) to follow my star, and try my luck in Foreign Lands.

Gosh, how exciting!

Girly gushing notwithstanding (and it's a habit I must break myself of if I'm to be amongst the inventors of Lederhosen), I'm really very excited at the possibilites ahead, and in the past two weeks there have been a number of seemingly "chance" occurrences that have given me whatever sign I need to know I'm clearly doing the right thing. These include, but are not limited to, a friend of mine from my German class leaving in a fortnight and telling me of new changes to the work visa - making it easy to get, and allowing the holder to work for a full year, with the chance of an extension if your employer is willing; and several conversations with German friends who have promised to give me names and numbers of their friends - which may or may not come to pass, but there's the chance of having a few contacts "on the ground" when I get there (although precious time may be lost helping them back into a standing position).

Tally ho!

Of Birthdays and Bacchanalias

2007-07-16T07:45:00.000+10:00

My good friend and learned colleage R (for whom I'm sure I once penned a triple-barelled Germanic "pseudonym" - but which I've since forgotten) had occasion to celebrate the eve of the day of her birth on this Saturday night just passed. A merrie coterie of her friends and associates convened on the rooftop of a suitably inner-city bar to hoist tankards afoam with good cheer.

It was a roundly enjoyable evening, conversation flowed thick and fast, the mood was most convivial, and, by my estimation, a jolly good time was had by all! Huzzah and three Oxford rowing team cheers, R!

My own birthday looms around the corner, like a thug in a dark alley, armed with nowt but a heavy cosh and crippling halitosis. Try as I might, I am afeared that I shan't be able to give the steaming brute the slip. More to follow.

Not Too Shabbos...

2007-07-14T00:33:00.000+10:00

I was flummoxed and flabbergasted in the extreme when I hove into the Prostitute's Providore (known commercially as Coles, Kings Cross) today. There, on a shelf, conscientiously not working (because it's Friday) idled a GIANT jar of Gefilte fish! A rather-too-loud "oy vey!" sprang from my lips. I cast my eye up. Further. And to the sides. Lo! I had happened upon "Kosher Korner", the small (yet crowded, in a way reminiscent of the Warsaw Ghetto) section of the giant emporium given over to the needs of the sons and daughters of Israel.

I cautiously perused said shelves and found them to contain:
tinned olives;
Shabbos candles;
Gefilte fish;
pretzels (rolled, I assume, by highly trained Rabbis - how else can they be sure they're kosher?);
matzo (yes, Mitzi, now? are they not a little late?); and
... sundry other useful things.

Gefilte fish I have no use for (oy, the stench makes me want to plotz) but I think I might go back and get some olives, pretzels and whichever of the "sundries" I deem worthy of my consumption.

Nottlesby, the Sarge, and Angry Lesbian Theatre

2007-07-08T22:28:00.000+10:00

Beware, gentle reader, of free tickets to anything! The Sarge and I convened this afternoon for a spot of drinking and reminiscing (Yairrrs, the Crimea. Now that was manly fun, eh?) - and as we were snorting our snifters down as though there was no tomorrow, who should heave-to by our tottering bar table, but a comely young lady asking us if we would care, free, gratis, and for nothing, to bolster the numbers at a small theatrical number that was to be performed on the premesis in a matter of minutes. Never ones to thumb our noses at The Arts, the Sarge and I let fly a manly bellow and told said woman that, yes, t'would be our honour and privilege indeed. Merely proffer forth the tickets, and show us the way to the door! The woman kindly obliged, and the Sarge and I, drinking arms raised, snifters charged, repaired thence post-haste.

Ye gods what twaddle ensued.

We suffered (bladders full to capacity, which, alack, is more than can be reported for the house) an hour-and-three-quarters of the most leak-inducing "theater" to ever tread its tinnea'd toe upon the boards. Someone clearly forgot the "you'll laugh" part of the old huckster's promise "you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be moved". In short, the piece was about the coming out, and coming-of-age, of a young hip-hop artiste. Now, anyone close to yrs truly knows that the only hip-hop I'm fond of is a many jiggle make sure the last of the effluvia has shot clear when I'm standing trough-side; yet I can assure you that I went in (alebit somewhat well-oiled), and ready to have my mind opened and my experience expanded. Shame I'm not a lady. And an angry, oppressed, sexually-monocular one at that! I do rather think that the whole performance which (despite my lambasting above) wasn't entirely without merit, was better suited to a, shall we say, fringe?, audience.

Not to be daunted (or unnecessarily moistened) the Sarge nipped out for a quick leak mid-show, and, in a stunning display of dexterity worthy of the Brothers Ringling, shot over the side of the bleachers and dropped (noiselessly, mark you!) to the floor - and thence out the door to safety. What was doubly safe was our burgeoning friendship - I thought for a mo. that the Sarge might do a runner, pleading testosterone and brass balls all the way, but no. He was manly enough to return for the Final Chukka and sit the thing out with me. Good show, Sarge!

View Halloo!

2007-05-02T23:43:00.000+10:00

- rings out across the gorse. Nottlesby is back on the airwaves, cookin' with gas, back in town/business/the 19th Century groove. He shall never be defeated. (Thank you Winston, time for your brandy and pills, I rather fancy).

The hour is indeed late, dear friends, and I cannot begin to make amends for my many consecutive weeks of stony silence. St John, O St John, wherefore art Thou, St John? Has been the cry on many a lip, I am no doubt certain. And I shall endeavour to answer said entreaty in 7 words or less:

Everywhere and nowhere.

(3. Not bad doing, if I can say so myself.)

In short, dear reader (if indeed you still exist) (or are interested) (or care), I have had rather the devil of a time these weeks past. It has come to pass that I have parted ways with what I thought was going to be a capital post-graduate course, and have been whiling away the days reading, listening to music, and generally trying to Better Myself (more on that in subsequent posts). I am, I can assure you, sound of limb and wind, and looking forward to getting back into the old-school styles that are, dare I venture, the stock-in-trade of these pages.

Until then, and because the hour is late, I shall sign off with a hearty TTFN and tally ho!

-Nottlesby

Spitze!

2007-02-07T19:07:00.000+11:00

This Sunday past, His Edenic Maj, Prince Ronaldo, Clausi, Mr and Mrs Smith of Groin, The Professor and I set forth on a mighty hike. We walked, in strict Military Fashion, along the trail from the Spit Bridge to Manly. It was both a manly pursuit, and one that left us spitting that we didn't take more water; talk about it being everywhere but not a drop to drink, the briny bue heaved and swelled beneath us, and my water bottle was all too soon bone dry! I foolishly quaffed all of mine before we were halfway through the expedition (fool that I am, did not the sun-bleached bones lining the path give enough warning of the perils of too-hasty consumption? Or even Galloping Consumption, that most artistic of illnesses?).

Mild dehydration notwithstanding, it was a most worthwhile experience. The path, for those of my sev'ral readers who are not familiar with it, winds along the coast between - you guessed it - the Spit and Manly. We passed through various types of rainforest, along beaches, across headlands, and through a tiny corner of suburbia. There were ample opportunities to detour along scenic side-paths which, usually, lead to superb lookouts. His E Maj, Clausi and I followed one which lead up to a vantage point above ... a Nudist Beach! Yikes! Tackle out in all weather, eh chaps? There was not a vixen to be seen (alack) instead a few leathery middle-aged chaps sunned their ... themselves, and watched the antics of the Boatload of Buffoons who had managed to beach their small craft sideways on the Nudist Beach, and were frantically pulling everything detatchable from the boat in a effort to do something I still don't know. Maybe they hoped that by lightening the thing it'd just naturally right itself and bob merrily once more upon the gently-breaking waves. Oh the minutes of amusement as we watched from our high vantage point and conferred amongst ourselves, hitting upon many sound ways that we would right matters were it up to us.

We soon tired of our self-satisfaction, and repaired once more to the trail. A half-league or so along the path was yet another detour with genuine Aboriginal rock carvings, and a few done in the 1940s (BH woz here 6/6/1943 &c. Clearly the work of louts!).

We proceeded apace and hove-to at Fairlight beach for a spot of aquatic activity, Frau Clausi seeing fit to deliver both the snorkeling equipment, and their daughter, for our entertainment. Well, you know what I mean.

Not being much of a sportsman m'self, I was somewhat timid about taking to the briny blue (not to mention to horrid groin chafing I'd got from my woollen togs when I last took a dip - last Century). Although, given my generally perspirious state at that late point in the outing, I bowed to popular pressure (and Clausi himself shoving mask and snorkel-pipe into my clammy and quavering hands) and soon found myself face-down in the water - having a thoroughly enjoyable time! The Professor joined us, and while Clausi and his tochter swam in the shallows (eventually venturing into deeper waters with the rest of us) the Prof and I (sometimes in tandem, sometimes alone) swam about examining the sub-aquatic nooks and crannies where the most amazing fishes were going about their Sunday afternoon, seemingly impervious to the stares and thrashing legs of the writhing snorkelers (not just our party had seen fit to engage in said pursuit at the beach). Every litte crevice had something happening in it - sea anemonies waved their dark tendrils in salute to the ebbs and flows of the current, schools of little grey fishes darted about while larger, more stately, types surveyed the youngsters with something akin to piscean disdain. I bonded with these grey chaps immediately - the antics of the Younger Set never really enticing me to be one of their number.

All too soon I realised that I had been in the water for over an hour and was rapidly turning into a prune-fleshed fish myself. So I promptly saught the comfort and shelter of my meagre towel and what was left of the afternoon's sunlight.

After we'd all emerged from the salty depths, and taken a quick head-count (to ensure no one was left at Davey Jones' Locker), we repaired en masse to Manly and the firm, Teutonic embrace of the Bavarian Bier Cafe on the Promenade.

Wit and Wisdom of the Great Jewish Comedians (No 274)

2007-02-06T23:48:00.000+11:00

I have enough money to last me the rest of my life unless I buy something.
- Jackie Mason

Samstag

2007-02-05T19:26:00.000+11:00

By God, what a weekend! I had occasion to repair to the fine residence of the erstwhile schwestern on Saturday morning for breakfast - which soon became an all-morning gabfest, through elevensis and right up to tiffin, at which time I took my leave, pleading the need of an afternoon nap and a bracing restorative before I repaired to a friend's housewarming celebration that evening.

But this was not to be!

On my way to the omnibus shelter, Fraulein von Brandenburg-Himmelsdorf telephoned me and requested my presence at her seaside Lodge forthwith. What could I do but comply? I made haste (on a number of omnibuses - omnibii?) to the seaside, whereupon we lunched at Cafe du Lax (so named for the thoroughly insouciant service we received at that otherwise fine eating establishment). The good Fraulein and I sauntered along the sea cliffs, basking in each other's company and the late sunshine. Before I knew it the hour for napping had long passed and it was time for me to sally bravely onwards to the north side of the Bridge to add my voice to the merrie throng at Fraulein Katzenjammer's Einzugsparty (or "housewarming", for those of my readers not conversant in the Kaiser's tongue). Having worked with Frau Katzenjammer in days of yore, and thus made the acquaintance, then friendship, of her daughter, I was still not remotely familiar with any of the other coves thronging the drawing-room, but lost no time introducing myself and generally making the convivial Nottlesby presence felt.

The evening wore quite late before, from under drooping, leaden eyelids, I gave my farewells and called for a taxi-cab.

Better Latke Than Never

2007-01-31T18:01:00.000+11:00

Mama Goldstein's Latke Recipe
(They're to die for ... oy! You'll plotz!)

6 Large Potatoes
3 Eggs
1 Cup Onions, Grated, Drained
4 Teaspoons Matzo Meal, Or All-Purpose Flour
2 Teaspoons Salt
Pinch Pepper
Vegetable Oil For Cooking

Peel potatoes; using largest holes of hand-held grater, grate into bowl. Drain liquid. In another large bowl, beat eggs; mix in potatoes, onions, matzo meal salt, and pepper.

Pour oil into skillet to depth of about 1/4- inch; heat until hot but not smoking. Using 1/4 cup mixture per latke, add batter to skillet, leaving about 1- inch between each. Flatten slightly with back of spoon. Cook, turning with slotted spatula, for 5 to 6 minutes or until crisp and golden. Transfer to paper towels; drain well. Serve hot.

Makes about 20 latkes, or 6 servings

A Veritable Treasure Chesterton

2007-01-31T15:10:00.001+11:00

"But whenever he gives advice it is always something as startling as an epigram, and yet as practical as the Bank of England."

The Man Who Was Thursday - GK Chesterton

Mazel tov, Nottlestein!

2007-01-29T22:41:00.000+11:00

My cousin, Herschel Nottlestein (of the Israeli Nottlesbys) has recently drawn my attention to the following, which I offer up for the enjoyment of sev'ral of my readers:

Piggy Bank: A Kosher Paradox

Moish asked Smuel, "Was your wife outspoken?"
Smuel said, "Not by anyone I know of."

A Rabbi who was late for a golf game was rather curt with several people whose phone calls kept delaying him. The next day his secretary said "Rabbi, several members of the congregation were really upset with you when you cut them short yesterday."
At that point, a man who had been sitting within earshot in the reception room got up and departed hurriedly.
"Who was that?" asked the Rabbi.
"Oh, that was Mr. Frankelblum." she answered. "He wanted to speak to you about a circumcision for his son."

A young man asked an old rich man how he made his money.
Morris, the old guy, fingered his worsted wool vest and said, "Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel. So I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents. The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 pm for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I'd accumulated the sum of $1.60 ... Then my wife's uncle Bernie died and left us two million dollars."

An Englishman in New York stopped at a window in the middle of which stood one lone clock. The Englishman went inside.
- He-llo! - he sang out. From behind a curtain stepped a bearded man in a skullcap.
- Would you please inspect this watch? The Englishman worked at the strap. Tell me whether it needs ...
- Why are you asking me? asked the bearded one.
- Aren't you a jeweler?
- No. I'm a moyl.
- A what?
- A moyl. I make circumcisions.
- Good Lord! exclaimed the Englishman. But why do you have a clock in your window?!
- Mister, sighed the moyl, what would you put in the window?

The Adventures of St John Nottlesby, Amateur Egyptologist

2007-01-29T19:44:00.000+11:00

This Friday just passed (Huzzah For the Colonies Day - for those who were undeterred in their efforts to celebrate same) Miss Packenham and I motored o'er hill and dale to our nation's fair capital. Capital indeed; what better way is there to spend the day (that day of all!) than driving in ever-decreasing concentric circles around an American's imagination?

There was method to our madness, however, and the aim of the outing was to attend the National Gallery to peruse at our leisure the exhibition of Artefacts from Antiquity that the Frogs had nicked from the Egyptians and then had seen fit to lend us. That transaction alone would surely raise a few eyebrows. I'm loathe to lend my best chum a favourite book, let alone my priceless collection of artefacts! By Jove, they can stay right here in Nottlesby Manor, thank you! Where else would one go to see the rare Faux-Bavarian Hat; Cannibal Fork (Missionary Mulligatawney is one of Scullion's, and I must admit, my, favourite dishes not only to prepare, but also consume. Left to boil long enough the flesh just falls off the bone, I tell you); Subcontinental Cigar Box; and sundry other trinkets all rare and peculiar? There must have been a fair bit of back-scratching and knob twiddling to secure that transaction; I'd rather not contemplate it any further.

So yes, the Gallery. Well, it was interesting, but I don't think that Johnny Louvre lent us the best stuff in the store room. There were a lot of pieces on display, but they tended to be a lot of the same kind of thing. A philistine I may yet prove to be, but by the end of the exhibition I was glad to get out and lay waste to the souvenir shoppe (my search for the best of the best to take back as a small token for Fraulein von Brandenburg-Himmelsdorf was a source of great amusement to la Packenham!).

The interesting things I saw can be summarised thus:

Actual Heiroglyphs (on everything);
A copy of their Book of the Dead which covered three of the walls in a very large chamber;
Several highly decorated burial caskets, and one of stone;
Amulets &c which were wrapped with the corpses to protect them from evils which may beset them on their way through to the Afterlife;
Organ receptacles, which were used to store the innards of the people being buried (for future ues?) - there was one section which explained that having the trappings was far more important than the quality of same, so there were some wooden examples of the same receptacles which were decorative, but not used to hold hearts, livers &c;
Several funeral shrouds, one made just of beads (the Economy Version).

One of the more interesting moments was when I beheld a rather portly woman in a wheelchair heave-to by a glass display cabinet. I was sitting on a seat, resting my legs, and watching the people shuffle past when I beheld her Bath Chair moving for'ard and aft. Lo! I thought to myself, it be a mystery - there was no attendant hand upon the handles! My attention captivated, I watched as first one, then the other leg reached down to the marble floor and ... yes, she hoisted herself from the Chair! I fought down the urge to rise, pointing at her, and yell that it was a MIRACLE, instead contenting myself with silent, yet utterly rapt, amusement.

That alone was well worth the entrance fee!

Supping at the Groaning Board

2007-01-24T16:54:00.000+11:00

It was my signal honour last night to break bread at Table with Count and Lady von Brandenburg-Himmesldorf, their multitudinous progeny (one of whom I am especially well acquainted with), the progeny's suitors (capital sorts all), their Uncle Rupert, and sundry well-wishers and loyal retainers, including, to my surprise, bordering on rank astonishment, the Earl of the Eastern Waters.

I was taken somewhat aback to see so many people, most of whom were related, in one place at one time. As readers of these pages would know (or at least be able to deduce relatively easily), Nottlesby Manor has a population of one (not counting, of course, Horrocks and Scullion, who, being on my Domestic Staff, are all but invisible), and Nottlesby Lodge (wherein my Pater, and the ghost of my Mater, dwell) has an equally low population. Coming from as small a family as I do, I am certainly no stranger to Solitude! By Jove, being in the company of so many for a meal took some getting used to (the whole process was lubricated, I rather fancy, by a drop or several of some eminently drinkable squiff).

Not to gloat, dear reader, but for a chap who's used to a meal taken in quiet contemplation, with Brahms perhaps playing softly in the background, being amongst so many convivial and lively people was a wake-up indeed - which I feel I rose to with the usual panache! I felt alive! The blood coursed to my brain, washing the cobwebs of solitude away on a tide of lively banter.

I had joked to Doctor Harlot that I rather fancied someone may well turn to me and ask me to present my credentials - who I am, where I am from, what my Pater does, what my intentions are &c. I was not to be disappointed! Uncle Rupert von Brandenburg-Himmelsdorf hove over to me, fairly late in the proceedings, and asked me those very questions! Three cheers for Inquisitive Unclery! Without so much as batting an eyelid, I was able to reel off the highlights of my career to date, prove my Patriliniage, and generally show my worthiness. I do fancy the old boy was impressed, pausing as he did to stammer "You don't have to take my questions seriously, y'know!" Oh don't I, Rupert? The Dear Uncle then proceeded to grill me (figuratively, cannibalism being an awkward habit he claimed to have kicked several years ago) on The Israel Situation, The Nature of God (Or Why People Are Fools), and The Joys of Fishing. Fun times ahoy!

Lady von Brandenburg-Himmselsdorf had herself toiled all day in the kitchen to provide us with platter upon platter of the most toothsome foods imaginable. Were I to level but one criticism at the feast, it would be that there was simply too much to eat - a chap could bearly try a morsel from each dish before he was too full to eat for several days.

In all, I would declare (without fear of contradiction) that the night was an absolutely galloping success. Huzzah for lively company! Huzzah for good food! Huzzah for new horizons! Huzzah, I say, Huzzah!

Behold the Wizard of Bayreuth

2007-01-21T17:10:00.001+11:00

I am sitting in the music room at Nottlesby Manor listening to excerpts from Wagner's "Ring Cycle" and am impressed again at how astoundingly beautiful the work is. The man truly was one of the greatest artists of all time. Of course, one would do well, as always, to not mention the War.

As Herr Tymnus and I have discussed at length on one of the Doctor's posts, opinion is clearly divided about whether or not the great RW actually precipitated all that much (zeitgeist being what it is. And was). I am firmly of the belief that, while the creation of a work is undoubtely influenced by the artist's personal beliefs, there remains more than one way to interpret it. Take the character of Alberich for example. One school of thought is that he represents the absolute worst charicature of Jewry - money-grubbing; perfidious; incapable of love, or the appreciation of beauty; speaking with a raspy, grating accent; generally loathesome &c. On the other hand, he has been interpreted as being the archetypal Industrialist - money-grubbing; perfidious; loathesome; selfish; generally abhorrent; a consummate philistine. Who is to say which is the "correct" interpretation? Indeed is there one? Given that Wagner is quite dead, I would argue that his opinions more or less died with him, and that the outrage some people feel about his work is due to them being either il-informed, or, dare I venture, ignorant of the works themselves.

What Wagner has left us are many hours of truly beautiful works - Gesamtkunstwerke all - which remain fresh on each hearing, and which are always open to new interpretation and enjoyment.

Does the half-beard hide my jowls?

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

2007-01-21T10:21:00.000+11:00

I have arisen from my bedchamber at Nottlesby Manor decidedly uneasy, and not at all ready to greet the new day. In the moments before I woke, I had the most peculiar dream. Mater Nottlesby, as readers of these pages will know, passed away some 18 months ago; in my dream, there were large queues of people - all of whom, I think, were waiting to die or who were already dead - who were also visited by their own deceased relatives twice a year. My sister, Florence Nottlesby, and I were strolling the queues looking for Mater, from whom we had been separated. Aunt Agatha made a brief appearance, pausing only to give us fatuous directions and to generally hamper the proceedings. It ended all too suddenly, when I kept getting waylaid by people asking for directions or wanting to talk to me about their problems. After several minutes of this, I knew that Mater had gone and I had lost whatever opportunity I'd had to speak to her.

And so the weekend continues.

Good Lord...

2007-01-19T14:19:00.000+11:00

... the Jerries are dancing again, sir!

As Regular as ... Clockwork?

2007-01-19T12:36:00.000+11:00

His Edenic Majesty just saw fit to bestow the following link upon me, thus causing great joy, for verily was I released from the Scrivener's Toil for a happy moment.

What a thoroughly odd contraption is described in said film. Of course, if anyone happens to know enough French to be able to provide a rough translation, I'd be most thoroughly pleased!

Behold the ... Bizarre 1772 Device!

Nottlesby's Thoughts on City Living

2007-01-17T18:01:00.000+11:00

I am sitting alone in the Manor, having just got home from Snodgrass, Wapthrottle, and Smythe, glad for the sunshine and fresh air. This afternoon I took the easy way out and caught the public railway home from the City. The thronging masses, while vexatious, did cause their usual gladdening of my heart. I pushed and jostled my way aboard the train (sidestepping, as usual, the ignorant passenger who sees fit to stand perfectly still just inside the door) and managed to find myself a decent seat.

As the unbearably hot train wend its way through the subterranean tunnels, I sat back and surveyed my fellow passengers. There were businesspeople, grim and proper in their suits and ties; there were monied ladies, all worn out after a difficult day's shopping; there were travellers, wide-eyed and excited by what was, for everyone else, the commonest of everyday journeys; and, of course, there were several Senior Citizens, stolidly holding their places on seats near the door.

I was, it embarrasses me to admit, awash with sweat, and not in the most pleasant of dispositions, but I still loved every moment of the trip. To be amongst so many people, none of whom one knows, and to have shared the random encounter of a railway journey, put me, despite my discomfort, in an expansive state of mind.

In a city one can intersect with so many different lives, and see so many different expressions of emotion - from the occasional person one passes who seems inexplicably joyous (due not, I'd like to think, to chemical enhancements); to the lone people who look utterly bewildered and perplexed - by life, the city, or their personal stresses; to the couples so clearly in love, or, occasionally, in hate, with each other. One need only step out of their door and onto the street to become a part of it all.

Yesterday afternoon, when I was on my way to meet my friend Miss Packenham for supper and a flm, I was, again, in somewhat of a rush, and as I was coursing along the arcade, a middle-aged woman stopped short and turned back to a shoppe she had nearly been carried past on the tide of homebound workers. For my part, I nearly walked right into her when she stopped, and only managed to draw up at the absolute last second - thereby avoiding a Very Compromising Situation, where I may have found myself in another woman's arms Thoroughly Unintentionally! The woman immediately ducked her head and only then peered up at me apprehensively. I stood back to block the flow of people to the shoppe door and smiled (I hope) warmly at her. The woman, taken aback, smiled back at me and slipped into the shoppe. I continued on my way to the train station and thence to Miss Packenham.

These observations and random encounters are what make city life so enjoyable for me, St John Nottlesby, Flaneur.

My Luncheon is a Saucy Temptress

2007-01-16T14:07:00.000+11:00

As fond as you know I am of a capital beano, dear reader, I think I've managed to outdo myself today! I purchased, for my meagre scrivener's luncheon, a green bean salad from a local vendor of portable comestibles, and promptly removed said sustenance to my scrivener's desk (all the better to be able to consume in privacy, or al desko, as we say in the business).

No sooner did I shuck the brown paper wrapping to reveal the plastic vessel containing the eminently toothsome victuals than I hit trouble! The dashed lid was so securely fastened that I could not pry it loose! Try as I might (even stooping to wash my hands in an effort to rid them of extraneous oil &c, and thereby grant myself better purchase on my purchase) I could not at all free it! I nearly broke my plastic fork in the effort!

Several curses, and a number of minutes later, I humbly beseeched Fraulein Raquel von Hohenzollern-Hütteldorfer to render me some urgent aid. Armed with nothing but a metal utensil, R v H-H soon had the lid off the thing, and returned it to me with the smug grin of someone eminently satisfied with her own prowess. And rightly so!

Now to eat the stuff. I do hope all this effort will prove to have been worth it.

Summertime and the Living is ... Perilous, at Best

2007-01-14T17:57:00.001+11:00

Fire up the iron lung, Nurse Brown! St John Nottlesby, Sporting Fellow, has overdone it on the old track and field for the first time in a dashed long time.

Earlier this afternoon I was loafing about Nottlesby Manor, at somewhat of a loose end. I was considering putting Wagner on the Gramophone (not literally, Pompersnickle!), or taking a learned tome from my shelves for immediate perusal, when, out of the ether, I received a telephone call from Fraulein von Brandenburg-Himmelsdorf! Hark For'ard, I exclaimed inwardly, hastening to appear debonair as usual and pur in my dulcet tones &c. Fraulein von B-H enquired as to my movemets for the afternoon. I told her that I was looking down the barrel of the third movement of Brahms' 4th, and it went somewhat wide of the mark. I hastened to add that I was at leisure, and was considering one of several sedentary pastimes. The dear Fraulein scoffed heartily, and told me that I should betake myself into the Sunshine and Fresh Air and do something. Indeed. Well, gentle reader, the thought had of course occured to me independent of Fraulein von B-H's subtle pursuasions, although, as these things tend to do, it became a lot easier to see reason when it was administered in a manner with just a shade more subtlety than a suppository tablet, and issuing from the lips of a woman whom I hold in the highest esteem.

So I had Horrocks lay out my Exercising Attire and fetch me my best cane. I laced tightly my boots and made sure I had my compass. Then, without any thought for the consequences, I hove off at top speed.

I described a winding, yet purposeful, trail around the city. From the Manor, I shot down Wilhelm Strasse and passed by the side of St Mary's Cathedral, thence around the back way to the Art Gallery, then down through the Botannical Gardens, up behind the Conservatoire, then down to Circular Quay. From there I battled my way through the thonging, idling masses of sweaty, sunburned, dawdling tourists, to the bottom of the Harbour Bridge, which I passed under, being careful to avoid winding up, impromptu, in someone's wedding photographs! I then loped along past the Theatre Company, and ran up a decidedly steep staircase to the bemusement of several waddling tourists (and my own utter astonishment!). From the back of the Rocks, I took the high road past the container wharves, and then back into the city. I cut along the back streets and wound up by the Town Hall. From there I went up past Hyde Park, and deliberately took the hilly roads of Darlinghurst to get back to Victoria St and thence back to Nottlesby Manor wherein I shall forthwith dive into steam bath.

By Jove, I feel invigorated!

I Shall Bruckner Resistance

2007-01-12T20:46:00.000+11:00

Very well! It appears that my efforts to pun on the great Bruckner's name have landed me, where I seem often to wind up when I attempt "pundemonium", to wit: squarely in the mud. This afternoon I bought a copy of his 4th Symphony - in an effort to branch my listening out somewhat, and I am certainly not disappointed. There are clearly elements of Brahms, and Wagner (two 19th century composers who, in their day, held absolutely diametrically-opposed camps of followers). At a first listening I can hear Brahm's passion, hot-bloodedness, and graceful, arcing sounds; and Wagner's Teutonic verve, crisp horns, driving urgency, and there are definitely quotes from, or at least allusions to, his works (Siegfried, among others); and both composer's rich, full sound.

I know very little about Bruckner, but will hasten to rectify this over the weekend and will certainly read what I can to confirm whether or not my first impressions bear up under historical scrutiny and I shall, naturally, report on these pages any interesting tidbits I unearth.

The Week That Was

2007-01-12T19:43:00.000+11:00

What a devlishly bloody awful week this has been; but far be it from me to sully these pages with self-indulgent ramblings. I am dashed glad to be back at the Manor this eve with a cold beer, Bruckner's 4th on the Gramophone, and the promise of a simple, yet hearty, supper (as soon as I can betake myself to the scullery to prepare it).

One school of thought, which I generally subscribe to, is that Life will never throw more on one's lap than one is capable of dealing with at any given moment (even if there is a stretch of one's very fibres required). It is times like this, of upheaval, death &c that one's philosophies generally are put to the test, and I do hope that I have passed with my usual distinction.

There are changes afoot, and I am not, at present, entirely sure what they entail. All I know is that things will work out as they are meant to, and that all is well. (As hard as that may be to believe at times.)

Given that I have allowed Scullion the night off (to return to the village for the annual pig-greasing or somesuch), I had best don my chef's apron and see what I can whip up. Seven courses, or a simple two. The agony of choice!

A Friend in Tweed is a Friend Indeed

2007-01-12T18:45:00.000+11:00

... and nobody cuts a finer figure strolling the ivory corridors of Academe than my good friend Dr Reginald Fitzmaurice Polkinghorne-Smythe, MD. Imagine my joy this afternoon, dear reader, when I got word from that selfsame cove. He's back in the Metrop. after several weeks ministering to beach-ridden urchins on the Far North Coast. By all reports the good Doctor is sound of limb and wind and raring to perform surgery on some worthy patient. Huzzah!

A Question

2007-01-11T18:04:00.000+11:00

What happens to us after we die?

Minor Celebrity - Mine at Last!

2007-01-11T18:01:00.000+11:00

I read with joy, and a dash of embarrassment, the posting (linked to below) which Herr Tymnus saw fit to place on his own pages. What an honour and priviledge indeed!

http://willtypeforfood.blogspot.com/2007/01/suggestion-is-ventured.html

Aye, There's Trouble at Mill

2007-01-11T14:11:00.000+11:00

I am a rake, bounder, cad, cur and blackguard of the absolute first water! I rent my garments in sorrow and anoint my head with the oils of the penitent.

It has come to the attention of two of my friends and colleagues, Learned Women both, that they have been (entirely erroneously!) omitted from these pages. Therefore, gentle readers three, I would like to summon the Bayreuth Orchestra brass section for a rousing Germanic fanfare, exhort you to charge your glasses, and please be upstanding and welcome to the well trodden boards that are the stage that is this Notebook - Mesdames Raquel von Hohenzollern-Hütteldorfer and her esteemed second, the high-ranking, and most worthy, Seraphina Tarkington-Entwhistle.

I now throw wide the Comments Pages to them both, inviting them to leave the choicest morsels of their wit and erudition for the consumption, and betterment, of us all.

Matters Sartorial

2007-01-11T09:42:00.000+11:00

The Nottlesby Eye was turned to, as the Germans would say, kleidung, yesterday. It came to my attention (and was the cause of great dudgeon, consternation &c) that people no longer feel the need to dress for funerals! Pater was, in my opinon, suitably turned out in black tie and trousers, and a sombre grey shirt. Yrs truly was wearing entirely black, but Aunt Agatha, her boy, his girl, the Freemasons, the assembled mourners &c were wearing whatever the devil they wanted to!

What happened to Standards? What happened to Tradition? What happened to Dressing For The Occasion? Surely the Antipodes haven't entirely eroded a Sense of What's Right?

I say BAH! to the whole sordid affair.

Nottlesby's Word o' the Day

2007-01-11T09:26:00.000+11:00

Today's word is: Porphyry:

any igneous rock containing conspicuous phenocrysts in a finegrained or aphanitic groundmass;
a very hard rock, quarried in ancient Egypt, having a dark, purplish red groundmass containing small crystals of felspar;
a sweet variety of white wine.

[ME porfirie, from AF, from ML porphyreum, for L porphyrites, from Gk, from porphryos: PURPLE]

Home at Last

2007-01-10T22:38:00.000+11:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Such is the variegated life of St John Nottlesby, Mourning Party. I have returned to Nottlesby Manor this evening, somewhat crestfallen and down-at-heel after the funeral service to farewell Grandfather Nottlesby in Melbourne.

It was my great good fortune, while treading the streets of that southern Utopia, to have made the acquaintance of that most learned and thoroughly whimsical chap, Herr Tymnus. We two hoisted many a foaming tankard in most convivial surrounds upon my arrival (Tuesday evening) - pausing only to scoff down a couple of the noble barman's finest pork pies with chutney and lashings of mustard. Our conversation ranged from the sublime to the truly informative (the benefits of reading Aristophanes were made immediately clear to this correspondent - especially when wondering where to keep one's loose change so that passing beauties have the greatest chance of unearthing it), and late was the hour when we were forced to part ways, promising to reconvene at a future, mutually convenient, juncture. Hail fellow well met!

The funeral service today (Wednesday) was a solemn affair indeed. There were not many people in attendance: I, Pater, my Aunt Agatha, one of her boys (and his chippie), two chaps from Grandfather's Lodge (stout Masons both), the Vicar, the Organist (ooh-er), sundry (no more than 7) folk who turned out ostensibly to pay their last respects (but who didn't stay for sandwiches after the proceedings), and a good friend of Pater's (who lives locally and had made the acquaintance of Grandfather).

The service was short, but (especially from the Vicar) heartfelt and sensitive - there was nothing at all formulaic or rushed about it. Seeing the casket being returned to the waiting hearse and driven sedately from the chapel was an especially sobering affair. I realised afresh how fragile life is, and how vitally important it is to cultivate relatonships with people. I grant that not every one a person ever meets can be admitted to their inner circle of intimates, but a reculsive, withdrawn life defeats what I believe to be the purpose of living. As Forster said, only connect.

And at last I know what he means!

The Great Germanic Hike

2007-01-07T16:53:00.000+11:00

What better way to clear the corpuscles than to tread vigorously the rocky coastal path between Coogee and Bondi on a blistering summer's day? Fraulein von Brandenburg-Himmelsdorf, Frau Schmetterling, Fraulein Schmidt, and I donned Sensible Footwear and held high our hiking staves, setting out under the blazing midday sun in search Health, Vigour, Searing Sunburn, and Physical Exertion. These lofty goals were soon ours as we strode out along the greatly populated walking track. The conversation was convivial, the views superb and the air clear as we hove along the narrow trail linking these two idyllic Sydney beach encampments.

Fraulein Schmidt, here from Muenchen for a brief respite from the bracing Germanic winter, appeared to be most taken with the natural beauty of the paths, although her conversation was Teutonically spare and exacting in its brevity. However, Frau Schmetterling, Fraulein von B-H, and I kept up a flow of lively conversation as we marched inexorably onwards.

Attaining our goal of the golden-yellow sands of Bondi Beach, we all donned our best bathing togs and took to the waters. By Jove, it was Artic! As my friends and correspondents will know, I am not at all the Athletic Type, and while Frau S, and Fraulein von B-H hove off through the icy waves, Fraulein Schmidt and I contented ourselves with a perfunctory dip and then regained the safety and warmth of our towels on the shore whereupon we attempted a lurching and awkward conversation amidst the acres of browning flesh on all sides.

Pausing for Luncheon at a favourite Jewish cafe of mine, we then felt invigorated enough to embark on the return journey.

We arrived, in the early evening, to Fraulein von B-H's Hiking Lodge wherein we all consumed pints of water and sat, in a semi-torpor, discussing the Walk That Was.

It was, by any estimation, a roundly capital day, and I feel better for having been invited to participate!

Vale

2007-01-05T14:47:00.000+11:00

It is with mixed feelings entirely that I announce the passing, this morning, of my Maternal Grandfather - Horace Victor Nottlesby. It was the selfsame Patriarch who had graced these pages several months ago when I was present at the festivities surrounding his 100th birthday and who, as an avid, life-long cricket fan, this morning declared himself 100 and out.

Grandfather Nottlesby lived in Melbourne, and was receiving the best of care - as fitting for a gentleman of such advanced years.

What little I know of my Grandfather gives incontrovertible proof of a singularly extraordinary gentleman. He was sent to Military School at a very young age (4 years, I belive), wherein he was educated with a firmly-rooted loathing of the Hun, the ability to sing Rule Britannia loud enough to wake the Vicar 5 miles away, and the rudiments of the pugilist's arts (gained not from Dormitory fisticuffs, rather carefully cultivated in the sanctity of the boxing ring).

During the War, Grandfather Nottlesby hoisted a spanner, slung a screwdriver, and applied lubricating oil liberally thrice daily to keep Our Brave Boys airborne against the Bosch. I'm sure not singlehandedly, but he did play a somewhat important role in keeping Jerry well clear of Britain's rocky and otherwise uninviting shores (long may she rule the wave!), and in the immediate post-war years married his sweetheart Florence. A brace of children ensued from this union - specifically my mother and her older sister.

It was for my mother's health that the family decamped from Albion to the wastelands of Terror Australis, and here too did Grandfather Nottlesby toil to keep the iron birds flying, this time at Qantas HQ at Mascot.

After his retirement in the early 1980s, my Grandfather moved to Melbourne, to accomodation at the Royal Freemason's Nursing Home (admittance with Lodge bag, suit, tiepin, handshake, nervous tick, commemorative pen, and silk handkerchief ONLY) where he spent many mostly happy years organising indoor bowls tournaments, croquet matches on the lawn, and grousing about the food.

Many - just over 20 - of the years my Grandfather spent with the Freemasons were in the good friendship of a fellow inmate, Mrs Lillian Robson, whose lively conversation, quick wit, resolute character, and wealth of world-experience I am utterly certain helped the two of them stay sane in that temple of blandishments, daytime television and vapid condescension from teenaged "orderlies".

My Grandfather was a good man, who had a quick wit, lively intellect, and a keen love of sporting pursuits. He also, up to an including his 100th birthday, had the absolute firmest handshake I have ever experienced - not bone crushing, but it was, I belive, the very epitome of manly.

Rest in peace, Grandfather.

Back In The Saddle

2007-01-03T13:08:00.000+11:00

Well yes. The year of toil beginneth, and all at Snodgrass, Wapthrottle and Smyth are dour of mein, and leaden of limb. The scrivener's job is not a happy one, as, I believe, the late William Schwenck Gilbert once wrote. And right he was. And is.

On The Mean Streets

2007-01-02T13:48:00.000+11:00

I had occasion this morning to repair to the bustling Metrop. in search of (among other things) some provisions to stock the bare shelves of my larder. I was perambulating along one of the many, yet featureless, Malls which have infested this otherwise semi-gracious city as subtly an attack of rabies in Her Britannic Majesty's Equatorial Army when who should lumber towards me, looking decidedly unsteady on his feet, but a chap wearing a black eyepatch!

Oftentimes I have wished I had the fortitude to pull off such a stunt; many are the nights I have lain awake in my cold bachelor's bed thinking up ways to draw the sympathy of Pretty Young Things (at minimal expense to myself) - and my most commonly recurring ploy is the possible use of an eyepatch. I took the time to observe this gentleman's passage through the thronging masses, and, I must admit, that he did no so much draw sympathy as the ire of people he inadvertantly blindsided (!) owing, I assume, to his total lack of peripheral vision to starb'd.

I tip my hat to the poor blighter, and shall scotch that idea from my (slender) list of Tactics & Methods.

Back to the drawing-board I guess.

Ain't No Vaudevillian Like An Old Vaudevillian...

2007-01-02T13:46:00.000+11:00

Man 1: I say, I say, I say! My wife went to the West Indies this morning.

Man 2: Oh really? Jamaica?

Man 1: Not at all; she went of her own accord!

Damned Insomnia

2007-01-02T06:22:00.000+11:00

Blast these tropics and their bed-linen dampening inclinations! I retired to my chamber at the Manor rather later than usual last night, after a convivial repaste with Leopold and the requisite witty banter and lively conversation - only to be rudely awakened several hours later, awash in my own persipiration, with no chance of the resumption of my nightly rest. This bloody humidity is unholy in its pervasiveness.

Undercarriage Out On Runway 16!

2007-01-01T13:36:00.000+11:00

I cannot believe my laxity! Which, let me hasten to add, is not an endorsement in any way of Metamucil. Lord no. I refer of course, to my never-entirely-quashed ability to let interesting things slip by the pages of the most rambling and twaddlous Notebook.

On the Friday before Christmas my good friend Leopold and I were at sixes and sevens. We decided, on a whim, and after he had just received some infernal news from the Town Council which thwarted several plans he had laid - setting them back by a factor of many weeks - to take a brief Motoring Adventure to parts unknown.

So we wound up near the airport.

Cursing the fact that I had forgotten my passport, and thus couldn't escape to Bavaria for an echte Weihnacten with Fritzi and the boys, we consoled ourselves with a stroll by the oily waters of Botany Bay (the only botany practiced there these days would pertain to the consumption of illicit substances favoured by Rastafarians, I rather fancy). Anyway, heigh-ho, we perambulated the gently receding coastline, drawing deeply on our pipes in profound melancholy, while large aircraft whizzed about overhead, and some bounders in a motorboat disturbing the acquatic peace several hundred yards abeam us to port.

We mused and comiserated, as fit the mood, and had soon walked to the perimeter fence of the airfield. Not wanting to be shot at by any over-zealous security guards who may have been loitering about, we promptly turned-tail and hove off back along the greyed sands.

In the distance we saw a party of four frolicking in the water. I exclaimed at the peculiarity of that, given the fact that even a blind chap could have seen that the water was highly polluted and unfit for any but corpse-disposal. Leopold agreed that it seemed most odd, and we adjusted our steps slightly to give us an even wider berth when passing the odd assembly.

As we drew closer we could ascertain - to our unspeakable horror - that there were two men, and two young lads, all of whom were at least ankle-deep in the water. One of the men, instead of being a guardian and protector of the youths, had seen fit to divest himself of all clothing, and was standing in the oily brine Utterly Naked!

I nearly broke the stem of my pipe with the shock of it!

What's worse is that they somehow espied us, and, on mass, turned and stared at us! As if being fully clothed in public is something to be ashamed of!

Leopold and I, muttering hasty commands to each other to "get the deuce away from here" &c, hastened our step and strode manfully away from the vile spectacle. But the odd party emerged from the water, the Naked Man lumbering towards us, less like a Leviathan, and more like, well, a moist be-mulleted yokel awash with oil in full view of little children.

We beat a hasty retreat to our waiting car, and moved off at great speed, half expecting to see the posessor of that awful Bêche-de-mer lumbering after us, seaweed hanging modestly over his...

Editorial Note

2006-12-26T21:38:00.000+11:00

Dear Reader,

I would like to introduce myself, my name is Herschel Goldblatt and I am Mr Nottlesby's agent. It has been a tumltuous year for both Mr Nottlesby and me; the constant upkeep of St John's estimable salon has proved both taxing both mentally and physically. Meanwhile, in my role as Mr Nottlesby's agent I have been scouting opportunity from the hallowed halls of good repute, through to the grimiest of sordid cut-throat back-alleys, and it is my pleasure to announce that there most certainly will not be any forthcoming film, radio serial, television show, magazine, or fan-club - now, or in the forseeable future.

I consider this my greatest service to literature to date, and my office address can be supplied on request for the bestowal of any gifts, largesse, or comemorative tokens deemed worthy of the occasion.

I wish you all a happy Hanukkah, a merry Christmas, a festive Kwanzaa, or the most felicitous greetings for whatever festival you celebrate at years' end.

Sincerely yours,

HS Goldblatt
Agent

Yule Laugh, Yule Cry...

2006-12-26T21:07:00.000+11:00

Receive ye, dear reader, the annual Nottlesby Christmas Message, wherein I shall discourse as per usual but with a slightly greater emphasis on the year that was, the year to come, and things generally Christmas-ish.

So the year grinds its flabby rump over the finish line, panting and wheezing and nearly vomiting from the exhaustion, and yours truly is left mopping his brow (with, of course, a monogrammed silk handkerchief), wondering if this is indeed all there's going to be. If this is as good as it gets. And just when the deuce he will be able to step foot upon Germanic soil again.

Let us, albeit briefly, recapitulate on the year that was:

During this year I have (in no order whatsoever): moved into my own digs, to wit, the infamous Nottlesby Manor (of capacious cellar, and home to one of the finest chamber orchestras in the land); I have consistently failed to find true love (even looking behind the couch for it); I have had a minor surgical procedure (and emerged unscathed); I have renewed my study of German (the ancient and sacred language of Brahms and Wagner); I have toured Europe (with Florestan, and we all know how that went ... but it was still a capital experience); I have celebrated the first anniversary of Mother Nottlesby's passing (and it was about as good as can be expected); I have attended an art gallery opening or two (not quite in full evening attire, but still cut a manly figure); I have welcomed my good friend L back to the metrop, after he (wisely) chose to end his self-imposed exile in the country; and I have generally patched things up with Pater.

No a bad effort for the Home Team, what?

Pater and I were discussing the folly of New Years' Resolutions over luncheon by the seaside today. We were more or less unanimous in ascribing some good sense to them, but also acknowledged that they're open to exploitation by the overly sentimental, easily lead, and generally constitutionally weak. So of course I posited a few to Pater (which I shall certainly not be revealing here) and only time itself will tell whether or not I stick to the damn things, or if they are indeed nothing more than a few more good intentions to pave the road to my personal hell.

For now though, charge your glasses friends, and let us toast the Christmas that was, and let me wish ye all the best for the coming year.

I Like A Good Nog As Much As The Next Fellow...

2006-12-21T14:41:00.000+11:00

... and 'tis indeed the season to indulge! Tally ho to the liquor cabinet thence to the kitchen to have Scullion whip up a pint or three of the old nectar. My learned colleague R and I took luncheon today and, among the many and varied topics which came under the microscope of our convivial conversation, we discussed the composition of a good eggnog and the best method of imbibing (my "bucket-and-straw" approach wasn't entirely warmly received!).

I have forthwith scouted what I believe to be a passable recipe for same, which I shall reproduce below (with appropriate credit given where it's due). Hoist a glass, me hearties, and a merrie Christmas/joyous Kwanzaa/happy Hanukah to ye all!

3 cups whole milk
7 large eggs
1 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup bourbon
1/3 cup Cognac or other brandy
1 teaspoon vanilla

Garnish: freshly grated nutmeg

Bring milk just to a boil in a suitably large, heavy saucepan. Whisk together eggs and sugar in a large bowl, then add hot milk in a slow stream, whisking. Pour mixture into saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until mixture registers 170°F on thermometer, 6 to 7 minutes.

Pour custard through a fine-mesh sieve into cleaned large bowl and stir in cream, bourbon, brandy, and vanilla. Cool completely, uncovered, then chill, covered, until cold, at least 3 hours and up to 24.

Best if made a day in advance to allow the brew to mellow appropriately, not opprobriously.

With thanks and a tip o' Scullion's yellowed cap to the vast resources of the internet. A brief historical treatise can be found here. L'chaim!

I Don't Speak Latin

2006-12-20T13:46:00.000+11:00

Despite the best efforts of "Old Buggers" the Latin Master at my Preparatory School (Dr Wassailing's Academy for Festive Boys), I have never mastered the art of that most ancient and sacred of tongues (and no, I don't mean the town hooker, "Miss Tickles").

I do, however, mean Latin!

Of course, though, and as my many friends would know, a paucity of knowledge has never stopped me speaking as if I am an expert on a topic, and I wish today to weigh into the deep end of academe and discourse on methods of rhetoric.

Rhetoric, as we know it today, began in New York in 1932 when some especially prescient Jewish immigrants brought both fire and language from the Old World to the New. The savages on Manhattan Island did not know what fate had befallen them! Within mere weeks they were wearing homburg hats (from the shtetl of Hom, in Bavaria. "There's no place like Hom" became a catchcry amongst friends of a sparkly-shod mädel who later shot to fame and stardom when a tornado uprooted her house - and her queer friends - and they landed in Bowling Green, Wisconsin. However, I digress); eating knishes (Oy! Like mother used to make - except for the fact we're Irish.); and putting on Broadway musicals (with varying degrees of success - fiscal and artistic).

As any bounder with the most basic knowledge of literary history would know, the rhetoric of the Greeks (which they invented, along with several other notable things, if ye know what I mean... missis) was considered one of the three liberal arts (rubbing lexical shoulders with dialectic and grammar). The rhetoric of the Greeks was a subtle art, even in its infancy, concerned most with the quest for truth, the ability to gather like-minded souls and unite them with that most binding of social glues - the love of a good argument as a means to define the world and gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their place in it.

The rhetoric to which I allude today, however, is a bull in the historical china shoppe; it is the cudgel raised in a Sorority-girls-only pajama pillow-fight; it is the machine gun used to swat a fly.

Dear readers, I refer to that most favourite fall-back of the rhetorically clumsy, the historically-obsessed, and the movement-fixated. I refer, infer, imply, ingratiate, and insinuate, to you both, the estimable, if only defined in Latin: Reductio ad Hitlerum! - close cousin, verily a bedfellow, if you don't mind the implied indecency, of the reductio ad absurdum.

In short, it is the reduction of every argument to Hitler, and the (false) belief that just because Hitler, or indeed, his merrie Nazi followers, endorsed something it must therefore be inherently evil (I, for one, have never been especially fond of watercolours, well, I wasn't until I saw the excellent works of one Enid Featherstonehaugh).

It's jolly fun to play the "Jackboot Two-Step" and try to reduce everything down to a diatribe against Jerry in a maximum of two steps.

To wit: take the innocent statement "I like gingerbread". That statement can then (most easily by referring to my earlier posting on the Amero-Germanic gingerbread Party Rally), be reduced to: "Gingerbread men are Nazis". Which in turn is reduced to "Nazis are evil, therefore gingerbread men are evil, and anyone who likes them, or who has ever eaten one, or whose sister has ever married - or even dated - one, is, by association evil." And so it goes.

Hours of nonsensical fun! Alles klar?

There Are Jerries In The Oven, Sir!

2006-12-20T13:27:00.000+11:00

I nearly choked on my pfeffernüsse when I read this little purler! Some daft blighter in the States has made a Nürnberg rally out of gingerbread men. Needless to say there has been rank outcry from concerned citizens (especially when it was first annexed to the local hardware store front window) with local Jewish groups leading the cry with, I presume (though it was not printed), a hearty "Oyyyyy haven't ve all suffered enough?".

Now, I'll be the first to admit that this was probably done in highly dubious taste (except for the sugary, cinnamony parts, which, unless the artist was a dreadful cook, should be at least palatable), but dash it all people, they're gingerbread, and unlike the real Nazis, they have:
a) been in an oven;
b) are easily quashed (just watch 'em try to march through rain!); and
c) are somewhat stiff-limbed and incapable of organising themselves, let alone an entire "master race" (or "mistress race" if they're into that sort of depravity).

It's one of the funniest things this peddlar of humbug has seen this yuletide. I'm almost ready to pour myself a glass of milk and nibble Göring's wee fingertips!

Polkinghorne-Smythe's Big Day

2006-12-18T12:09:00.000+11:00

Gosh, how exciting! The heading reads like something from Blyton, or perhaps a long-lost chapter from "Tom Brown's Schooldays", but it is indeed true. My good friend, the learned Doctor Reginald Fitzmaurice Polkinghorne-Smythe has, at last, and in keeping with the bookie's odds, been signed off as a licenced sawbones, prescriber of tinctures and medicaments (both many and varied), and adviser to the underprivileged on matters procreative and constitutional. The Doctor donned the sacred vestments, and swore the club oath, last Thursday at a ceremony with full academic honours. It was my pleasure indeed to add my voice to the merrie throng feasting at table with the Reverend and Mrs Polkinghorne-Smythe, his sister Dymphna, and Dr and Mrs Pompersnickle that very evening.

Our Magyar comrades (at "Corner 75" - a little taste of the old country hidden away in an eastern suburb in Sydney) prepared a most toothsome banquet, and foaming tankards were hoisted to the newly-minted Doctor's future successes and continued absence from the Magistrate's dock. One cannot top the good Reverend's toast (and enjoiner) to "... rejoice in your successes and bury your mistakes!" Hear hear!

Hurrah and huzzah for good times, good company, witty badinage, moreish food, confortable seats, Hungary, beer, decorated tablecloths, soup, goulash, veal, paprika, olive oil, national costume, waiters, restaurateurs, serviettes, salt, rambing discourses, third courses, edelweiss, and whipped cream.

Heady stuff indeed.

The Beano Report

2006-12-18T11:54:00.000+11:00

So the Grand Beano has come and gone, and some six days have elapsed before the Nottlesby fingertips have touched keyboard to report on the proceedings. Part of the (feeble) excuse for the delay is that there is a decided dearth of dirt to report on same. One quaffed heartily with one's colleagues (astounding beyond belief the Resident Bavarian when one proved knowledge of the ancient and sacred Bavarian Drinking Song - scroll down halfway on the linked page and listen to a version of "Ein Prosit" - tell 'em Uncle St John sent ye) and one observed, with varying degrees of horror/smug satisfaction/bacchanalian glee the debauch of others.

Heads were pounding the next morn, and verily was there weeping throughout the land. This correspondent sat smugly, albeit in mild discomfort, and thanked his lucky stars that he escaped the night with his honour intact and his chambers unoccupied.

[Top Secret: Beano Ahoy]

2006-12-12T09:30:00.000+11:00

The Annual Beano at Snodgrass, Wapthrottle and Smythe is This Very Eve! Huzzah!

My learned colleagues at Wikipedia define "beano" as being, among other things, "an English colloquial term for a binge drinking session, specifically the occasion when serfs would be offered a meal by the lord of the manor once a year". I have also found Other Sources which give a more elaborate (and modern) definition.

The office is abuzz, the scriveners are restless; verily there is electricity in the air. Mister Pooter is strolling the corridors, wringing his hands with glee, Miss Bartlett is nearly swooning in anticipation, even The Major has waxed his moustaches for the occasion.

Who knows what adventures the night will hold? Who will get tighter than a Very Tight Belt? What vile and nefarious confessions will issue from the lips of whom? I, for one, plan to remain as sober as a Judge with my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open.

Details, dear reader, shall follow in all their festering, boozy, yellow-toothed glory.

Humbug!

2006-12-09T13:16:00.000+11:00

Ye Gods and all that's good! I have just returned to the safe, and quiet, confines of Nottlesby Manor after braving the thronging masses in search of gifts to lighten my wallet and bring joy to my friends and family. What an absolute debacle! The devil take every last retailer hawking their tawdry wares! Pshaw, what nonsense!

I am glad to be back, far far FAAARRRR from the madding crowds, where I can sit in peace in my morning coat and smoke a contemplative pipe and rejoice in being away from squalling infants and their increasingly crotchety parents.

Where did we, as a society, go wrong? And before I receive very many letters begining with a snotty "Dear Sir, I'll have you know..." yes, I realise that a many great minds ponder this selfsame question every Yuletide, and as far as I know (as a deovted reader of same) we are no closer to knowing the answer.

I hope that the season is bringing joy to someone, somewhere. I know that I, for one, am glad to circle the wagons of friendship and family and do my jolly best to exclue the cheaper, nastier, and generally less salubrious sentiments.

All year.

Smingus Dyngus

2006-12-08T16:05:00.000+11:00

I am, as most of my dear readers would know, an avid collector of the obscure, bizarre and frankly unbelieveable - in all its unlikely forms. Fraulein Pickelhaube (herself a Pole, despite my having chosen a most Teutonic moniker for her) was telling me recently about a most peculiar Polish tradition, specifically that of "smingus dyngus" on Easter Monday.

From my consecutive minutes of online research, combined with picking the good Fraulein's brains over a glass of slivovitz or seven, I have gathered that it's an ancient tradition to ensure that the maidens who are summarily doused (and it is always boys wetting girls) will marry in the coming year (or ever) and thus be spared the ignominy (and fiscal burden for their elders) of terminal spinsterhood.

I have found here an aerial photograph of some young Polish bounders filling various vessels &c in joyous anticipation of their forthcoming watery saturnalia. Right little scoundrels they are - with buckets no less!

The Slavic peoples are singular, this we already knew, but by God, they've outdone themselves with this!

Tally ho to Pompersnickle Lodge

2006-12-08T08:40:00.000+11:00

By jove, it was an entire week ago that I boarded one of the less scabrous coaches on the Provinicial Express, perused a copy of The Times and repaired poste-haste to the warm embrace (and brimming goblet) awaiting me at Pompersnickle Lodge.

A rather nasty dose of Malayan Sprue having laid me low on the weekend of the last Pompersnickleian Beano, I was awfully glad to be in (relatively) glowing good health on this occasion. My usual case of Post-Modern Jaundice had receded for a few days, as well as the array of Scurvey, Malaria, and Beri-Beri which usually wrack my person.

Anyhow, medical case histories aside, it was dashed good to see Squire and Lady Pompersnickle again and the good doctor Polkinghorne-Smythe also added his rumbling bass to the merrie proceedings.

We supped on Lady Pompersnickle's finest cuisine (such a banquest was prepared for us, the likes of which I have not seen for many a day) and a rather manly raid was conducted on Pompersnickle's wine cellar; which left several bottles rather worse off, but our countenances that much more rubicund, and our badinage the more mellifluous for it.

On Saturday, we repaired en masse (albeit without a priest) to the wee hamlet of Burrawang where the local publican threw wide the doors of his noble establishment and furnished us with more libations and bounteous fare.

In all, a roundly enjoyable outing. Three awfully loud cheers for good friends, good food, and good times! Huzzah!

NaNoWriMo

2006-12-07T18:31:00.000+11:00

So the great undertaking endeth and the submission from Team Nottlesby camen in far under regulation weight at a mere 14, 500 words. I didn't bother trying to upload it to the special site - it would have been rejected out of hand as being the scrawny excuse it was. Oy the writer's life is a harsh vun (as Cousin Herschel was once overheard saying in a Prague cafe).

Accordion To Some Old Chap

2006-11-12T13:32:00.000+11:00

Fraulein Pickelhaube (who, incidentally, is a dashed good cook) and I were strolling the streets of her suburb yesterday eve looking for somewhere for dinner. I was in the middle of recounting a ripping yarn about a film I had seen at the Festival of Jewish Cinema (this, you call art?) when we happened upon an elderly gent squeezing out a folk tune or two from his piano accordion.

We decided, naturally, to heave-to on a conveniently-placed bench and I took a break from the narrative and we enjoyed his music. Unfortunately for us, he was just finishing and declined our entreaties to play just one more song. He did, however, come over once he'd packed up and strike up a conversation. He told us (as I understand it) that in life we each have control over our circumstances and that he thought it terrible that people put up with situations that hurt them, or are unsatisfactory, just because they believe they have to.

He spoke about love and its comforts and securities and encouraged Fraulein P and I to each find love - if we don't already have each other's hearts (!). Then, having said his piece, wished us good night and good luck and said he had to get home to his wife.

This Writerly Life

2006-11-12T13:23:00.000+11:00

So NaNoWriMo is proceeding apace - and the submission from Nottlesby Manor is gradually taking shape as something more than the deranged, twaddlous ramblings of a lunatic. That's right, chaps, I've seen sense and discarded the idea of writing a grand Holmesian epic starring yours truly, St John Nottlesby, esq.

Instead I have turned the Nottlesby quill to matters more serious and searching - a story of life and death, and a reflection on people's reactions to the death of a lov'd one. Of course, to anyone even remotely familiar with these pages, my inspiration for this is abundantly clear. And I very much hope that my story will do honour to my experiences and the memory of Mother Nottlesby.

Onwards and scribblewards! Better fill the inkpot and get back to it.

Hold my calls, Miss Brown, I am writing!

NaNoWriMo

2006-11-02T23:06:00.000+11:00

I am sure the above acronym sounds like a load of twaddle to the uninitiated - and indeed perhaps to the initiate - but let me assure you, gentle reader, this is perhaps one of the most artistically gruelling, yet exhilerating things one can do at a computer.

The National Novel Writing Month (hence the contraction) is a worldwide project in which participants write their own 50, 000 word novel in - yep - a month. I signed on today, 2 days behind the rest of the field, but shan't let that daunt me.

His Edenic Maj sent me the link today, but I'd heard about it before - my good friend Enid Featherstonehaugh had undertaken the same folly some years ago and we'd both spoken of doing it together sometime. I do believe, in fact, that Enid has also consigned herself to seeking literary glory this month.

I can't say too much about my magnum opus just yet, but suffice to say the working title of the thing is "Nottlesby and the Case of the Missing Artefact - A Tale of Gypsies, Treachery and Clubmen". It's a cross between The Mystery of Dr Fu Manchu, Holmes and Watson stories with a dash of PG Wodehouse thrown in for good measure (and any chance to use lines like "By Jove, I exclaimed, letting the cheroot drop onto my smoking jacket...").

Gripping stuff, eh? Details will, of course, follow (try as ye collectively might to avoid them!)

Master of My Destiny

2006-11-02T22:44:00.000+11:00

I arrived back at Nottlesby Manor this eve to receive some very interesting post indeed - I found out that I have been accepted to study the Masters Degree I had applied for. Three cheers for my imminent Germanicisation!

I will begin the course in the New Year - in March - when all the fresh-faced Undergradutes cleave themselves from Mother's apron strings and are thrust out into the cruel world. It will, I imagine, be easy to see who is new to the experience and who has been around a bit before, and seen the rigours of academic life (sleeping late, reading things at all hours, dropping into spontaneous debates about theory &c at a moment's notice...).

It hardly needs to be said that I am beside myself with excitement at the thought of joining the fray again - mortarboard cap akimbo, dogeared pages of the tome du jour peeping from my satchel, elbows of my tweed jacket especially scuffed from long nights at library reading desks.

Gosh how exciting!

Freundschaft

2006-11-01T19:50:00.000+11:00

Friendship is tonight's theme, dear reader; that veritable boon and veritable agony, that necessary and life-affirming union of two likeminded souls in mutual support and allegiance, that succour in one's hour of need. How does one step nobly away from a friendship that is no longer beneficial? that makes one feel constricted, constrained and is laboured with unspoken conditions and regulations?

I dined with Florestan this evening - for the first time since our return from the Teutonic shores these two months ago (so fast? my God!). It was a decidedly awkward affair. We made small-talk for a while, then relied on that old conversational fall-back - shared experiences. For the remainder of the meal we rehashed our trip, dropping names, chuckling about people and situations and generally reminiscing.

I must admit to these pages, anonymous as they seem to be, that I had grave misgivings indeed about the meal. F and I haven't really spoken since we got back. I have been genuinely busy at work (to the amazement of many, I'm sure) and when he's called me on the office telephone, and I haven't been able to talk about Bayreuth, Brahms, and Beethoven, as was our wont, he got decidedly pointed and said, on several occasions, that he'd speak to me later then. With a very strong tone of "well fine, be that way". Oy. What to do?

The long and short of it is that I really don't feel that I have that much to say to the man anymore. He and I are at very different stages of life, which itself isn't reason to cut a friendship, but dash it all, I feel bally awkward after a few things that happened on the trip, and don't feel that I have much to say to him.

The question I am grappling with is how much to tell the old boy - do I spill the beans in all their hideous detail and leave my issues festering in his lap, or do I just keep a low profile, only see him occasionally and hope that the matter slides into oblivion, swept under the rug of Time with all the other odds and ends one doesn't ever want to front up to and take head-on - like a man?

The thought that I will hurt someone that I care about is very unsettling, but so too is the thought that I will play along with something that is giving Florestan false hope - and unfortunately hoping that the old boy will take the hint and shove off is, also, decidedly yellow of me.

What to do ... what to do ...

Overheard in Sydney...

2006-11-01T09:45:00.000+11:00

While repairing to the ancient and sacred offices of Snodgrass, Wapthrottle and Smythe this morning, I perambulated past a young woman, impeccably dressed, who was jawing into a cellular telephone with nary a thought of where she was. I overheard the following:

[Her]: ... do the Pakistanis have nuclear weapons?

[silence, her interlocutor no doubt enlightening her]

[Her, gasping]: Oh the bastards!

A General Survey (or: The Great Digital Free-For-All)

2006-10-29T21:40:00.000+11:00

It often seems, to me, at least, that the electronic utterances I inscribe on these pages are falling on deaf ears. I have a regular cadre of devoted types who, I am sure, in their own way are each hanging on every word, or at least are kind enough to let me know they have read my latest and not broken out in hives (despite my best efforts to the contrary).

I am putting out an all points bulletin to anyone who may peruse this posting to please leave a message - as themselves, or under any assumed name/regular pseudonym (which I don't necessarily have to recognise)/stage name/nom de plume/peerage title that they see fit.

Please convince me that my mewlings and musings aren't being lost in the foetid torrent of the same that daily washes throughout cyberspace from the sewer of the common keyboard.

Damned Gadgetry and Trinkets

2006-10-29T21:26:00.000+11:00

I have, at long bally last!, figured out how to buy and download songs to my iPod! Three cheers for unncessary consumerism in the face of mankind's darker days, eh? I had recently tried to buy an album from an American Klezmer outfit called The Klezmatics and had been thwarted at every turn.

Now it is my pleasure indeed to be the proud new owner of not one, but verily two, of their albums. The shtetl will be swinging tonight, that's for sure!

It turned out to be quite easy, the only thing that was thwarting me before was a slowed internet connection (I am only allowed 200MB a month, and I didn't realise how much just browsing the web consumed!). Now, at the beginning of my billing month, that I have dowloaded these two albums, I am certainly on the road to imminent retardation (of my connection, thank you!). But it's certainly worth it.

Vhat else can I say but "mazel tov" to technology?!

There's Nothing Nietzsche Couldn't Teach Ya

2006-10-26T18:18:00.000+10:00

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

Quite so!

The Tax Man Shall Have His Pound of Flesh ...

2006-10-26T18:07:00.000+10:00

... and unfortunately, this year, part of it will come from the Nottlesby flank! Begad, I was appalled and horrified in the extreme to find out that this annum I am actually in arrears with my remittance to Her Britannic Majesty's Purse. Through a series of bungles and miscommunications, my bankers, Goldblatt, Finklestein and Snyderman, had been collectively asleep at their ledgers and hadn't seen fit to skim a little more from my Estate to slake the seemingly boundless thirst of the Commonwealth leeches for the fiscal blood of the citizenry.

I shall have to auction off a few choice items from Great-Great Grandfather Nottlesby's collection of pilfered antiquities to pay this onerous due. Devil curse ev'ry last Guinea.

Horatio Nelson and Dr and Mrs Pompersnickle

2006-10-24T18:20:00.000+10:00

I had the pleasure of taking luncheon last Saturday with my friends Dr and Mrs Pompersnickle. It had been some time since I'd seen them (a dose of Tropical Sprue laying me low when a weekend retreat was planned for their Country Manor - Pompersnickle Lodge) but we soon made up for lost time over beer and pizza - those favourite saviours of the Italian workingman.

Plans are afoot, once Polkinghorne-Smythe completes the last stages of his medical training (that pesky last bit where one has to go and see the Chief Surgeon after the last chukka of Polo to be signed off perfunctorily, but for which one must prepare night and day for weeks on the off-chance that the old blighter chooses to ask an especially curly question about how to cure Jungle Rot or Beri-beri - seemingly for his own amusement), for us all to repair to Nelsons Bay. Whether or not that fine village has been named after the late Horatio I am not entirely certain, but it makes for as good a hypothesis as any that has been posited to me. It will be confirmed for yours truly if, upon alighting from Pompersnickle's carriage, we clap eyes on a gaggle of coves all of whom are missing an eye and an arm, and a bevy of women all of whom could pass for nobility with dubious interpretations of the marital vows of fidelity (which, I venture, hold nothing compared to the Martial vows of fidelity - love thy Admiral until death, or the Syph, do you part).

By Jove, the year is nearly at its end and I find myself asking, as one so often does in these circumstances, where the devil Time has got to. I rather fancy I hear the venerable Father, clocks merrily ticking, skipping away from us at quite a galloping pace.

Whimsy

2006-10-23T22:54:00.000+10:00

What I would give to be flying above the clouds
Mountains stretched out beneath me
Like fingers after a long bath
Pointing away - away
Away to anywhere

But soon enough - too soon! -
The clouds will vanish
Wrinkled fingers will dry out
And become fields
The world will be in focus
And I will have landed

Halcyon Birthing Days

2006-10-23T22:39:00.000+10:00

His E Maj celebrated the advancement of his years on Saturday night by hosting a beano at the Edenic Quarters to which it was my signal honour to have been invited. I repaired there on time, expecting a gay soiree of the first water. Instead, and perhaps to my great relief (after all, my Moulin Rouge coustume was at the cleaners'), it was a more sedate affair (not a tutu or set of rollerskates in sight) but nonetheless enjoyable! I met a few of the Edenic One's comrades-in-arms and quaffed some capital wine while passing witty banter with the assembled company.

Happy birthday, old boy! Here's to many more!

Centenarians I Have Known

2006-10-19T22:22:00.000+10:00

I flew down to Melbourne last Sunday and spent the afternoon wandering the city, alone in foreign climes (the best way to be, I think!). I had a day and bit to myself before Pater flew down and the filial thing simply had to be done.

On Sunday night, I dined with my Godfather, who, until mother was sick, had pretty well been known in name only, but we have since struck up a good friendship (and I've also got reacquainted with his wife and daughter). We went, at my insistence, to a favourite Jewish restaruant of my choosing - on Ackland St in St Kilda, the shtetl of Melbourne, if such a thing exists!

I whiled away many happy hours on Sunday and Monday, strolling the streets, drinking coffee, loitering in cafes and reading (I was reading "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" - and loving it!).

Through a series of dashed foolish errors and assumptions on my part, I missed out on going to see a few exhibitions I wouldn't have minded seeing, but on Tuesday Pater and I repaired to the Jewish Museum ... in which something dashed dismaying occurred.

I may have intimated on these pages that since I have got back from the "Old Country" I have been in something of a mild identity crisis - especially in re matters religious. I was greatly dismayed when the otherwise friendly, elderly Jewish woman who was a volunteer guide in the museum mistook me for a Muslim! Now, I have nothing at all against the followers of Islam, but when I was on something of a pilgrimage to find myself in the arms of Judaism, to then be taken for yet another religion ... oy! it was almost too much!

The real reason for going though was to see my grandfather - Mother's father - who turned 100 on the Tuesday. The old boy was in surprisingly good form, and we took him out (in his bath chair) for a turn around the block and a cup of coffee. We rather suspect that he's had a stroke or three - his talking was a little slurred and he didn't seem entirely sure of who we were, but he enjoyed the company. And after all, that's why we were there.

Mitzi G Burger's Neighbourhood

2006-10-14T17:15:00.000+10:00

It was my recent good fortune to make the acquaintance of one Mitzi G Burger (see my Note about the Artist's Ball, below). As fate would have it, the good Burger (good burgher, surely?) resides more or less in the same neighbourhood as L and I and we were both invited to her recent semi-regular bacchanalia.

Duly fortified with the finest Teutonic cuisine from Magda's Germanic kitchen, we repaired to the appointed temple to hoist a glass in Bacchus' honour.

All this was a couple of days ago (nothing like a timely post, I know, I know) and I am looking forward very much to the next hoisting of the glass!

Mazel tov, Mitzi!

Noodle Market

2006-10-14T17:03:00.000+10:00

On Wednesday past, His Edenic Maj, L and I repaired to the outdoor annual noodle market. It has been said by a (somewhat) impartial commentator that these markets are wont to fill one with ennui. I fear this was so. The market was held in a somewhat confined corner of an otherwise large park in the middle of this blighted city, and seating was at an absolute premium (perish the thought that the Nottlesby buttocks should be forced into contact with Mother Earth).

We queued up and got our platters of cooling battered whatsits from "authentic" vendors of same and sought out halfway decent seats amongst the thronging urbanites all jostling each other, careful not to spill their greasy suppers on their genuine shirts - or on their giggling, vacant girlfriends.

We did get a seat, together, then we had to try and make conversation over the blaring, inane music being pushed on us from towering speakers (conveniently located by the booze stall - courtesy of a very well known local establishment). Why the devil the organisers, or publican, felt the need to assail the public, who, I imagine, were all there for a quiet al fresco supper with their friends, with such dreadful tunes still leaves me at a loss. Why? Is good conversation such an anachronism?

For all that, though, it was a roundly enjoyable evening, and we three ate then repaired along the central avenue - past the outdoor photographic exhibition which was being held in conjunction with the market. Capital stuff!

The State of th' Yarts

2006-10-10T18:20:00.000+10:00

Great was my indignation when I read last week that our (slightly gnomish) Prime Minister warbled from beneath his staggeringly bushy eyebrows that the "left" were to blame for tosh being taught in schools, the rampant spread of socialist ideals amongst undergraduates (who, in my recent experience, were mainly concerned with how much their degrees could let them earn, and didn't give a tinker's damn about anything else) and the intellectual torpor which currently reigns supreme on this blighted land on the bottom of the civilised world.

What crap!

What arrant twaddle!

What a load of old cobblers! (no cobblers were hurt by my proclamation, I can attest)

His Edenic Maj and I were both appalled at this most plebian development in the cultural firmament of this wide brown land, and I echo (very distantly, I know) Cate Blanchett's call for a sound cultural policy to be devised and implemented.

Amongst all the waffle and hyperbole that is being currently indulged in, we clearly need someone to come forward and cut the crap and take the helm of what passes for Australian "culture" and steer this apparently talented land into the deeper waters of cultural achievement. The sitation is very much that of someone who is looking in a mirror wondering why they aren't beautiful instead of getting on with their life and doing kind, considerate and beautiful things that will help them realise that not only does beauty take many forms, but that it usually appears in the most unlikely of circumstances.

At The Artist's Ball

2006-10-08T16:47:00.000+10:00

Hitler, so the song goes, only had one ball. And so did the FirstDraft gallery - last night. It was this man-about-town's honour and priviledge indeed to lend his wit and charm to the proceedings which went, as these things are wont to do, until the wee hours of the morning.

Interestingly, the ballroom (such as it was) was directly opposite another room of similar proportions which was being used for an Old Boy's reunion (the class of '96 at Doctor Buggerilloe's Academy for Young Crumpet, or somesuch) - needless to say that, awash with alcohol, some of the more bohemian of the Old Boys lost no time in crossing the floor to show how willing they indeed were to be considered patrons of the Arts!

There were many interesting coves there - men and women of the Arts; men and women who wished they were of the Arts, and could fake it really well; men and women who weren't of the Arts, per se, but who were there because they were sleeping with/married to/trying to impress someone who was of the Arts.

My good friend Seymour Goldberg was certainly typical of the calibre of chap there. In him we have, dear reader, a man with talent to burn. A man whose star is certainly on the rise, a man, in short, who has the world at his feet and the shoes to walk all over it. We also have, I fear, a budding alcoholic. Goldberg seems only able to unleash his wit when he's three sheets to the wind (as my Uncle Roderick used to say - and we know all about those Navy boys, don't we Matron) - in short, a man heading for the rocks (pardon the metaphor) if he doesn't shape himself up and put that nasty business with the rabbi's daughter and the croquet mallet behind him. Anyway, each to their own, and it was dashed good to see him, hands waving, shoulders rising and falling, and wit crackling - in full form.

There was also a new acquaintance - known only as Mitzi G Burger (Zounds! I suspect a pseudonym!) - who hailed from either the Upper West Side, Brooklyn, or Omsk, Russia, depending on which ear she was speaking into. Her feathered headdress made Josephine Baker (who certainly was conspicuous by her absence) look dowdy and conservative. Her wit matched, and I fear bested, Goldberg, and left all who crossed her path glad they'd had the experience.

Stanislaus Zemlinsky, rake and scoundrel of the first water - he was seen oiling his way around the floor, monocle cleaming predatorially, teeth flashing a warning to any maidens in the vicinity (who, I fear, were few and far between). I kept well clear, preferring to hold my court in an area where one could be expansive, and truly lavish in the feast of reason and flow of soul of more convivial company - well clear of the somewhat dubious music which, at times, assailed our ears.

A young creature known only as "The Cat" - I dared not ask any more. Her eyes (glazed as they became) flashed in the half-light in a way that was both attractive and slightly menacing. Made one wish one was at home, having a last glass of warm milk before being tucked into bed by Mother. Or in a Moroccan bordello - depending on which eye you looked into.

There was also, as there invariably is at these dark and mysterious things, a woman known only as "The German" (and, in her case it was a well-deserved moniker - she was actually German). She loitered in the corner for a large part of the evening, terrified of Mickey Finn and smoking like a chimney.

The Woman In The Leather Jacket - who had the rank audacity to infer that I, well, to put it slightly euphemistically, that I was perhaps not the straightest shooter at the corral. Damn her eyes.

All told, though, it was a roundly capital night and as soon as I have a glass of water and a steam bath, I'll be back in business!

Wild West

2006-10-05T22:46:00.000+10:00

The good Fraulein Lotte Salzkammergut, of my acquaintance, has told me this very eve that there exist in parts of the heinous city I am yet to place the Nottlesby tread, somewhat antiquated palaces to the moving image - to wit: drive-in cinemas. Of course I wouldn't dare risk taking the Bentley down there after dark, and I know that Bronson would so loath running over the vile urchins who would attempt to assail the vehicle (blood, you know, really doesn't wash out, Lady Macbeth had it right. Not that I want to dwell on the Scottish Play at all! Egads).

I am not sure how well the Nottlesby suit of ancestral armour would look on my person - of indeed if it still fits! - but if I can be convinced that I will return unscathed, I may well dare to strap myself into someone's automobile and sally out in the direction.

God only knows what appalling flicks they'd put on. Not one's usual diet of Left-Bank pinko froggy stuff, I'd wager.

Mitternacht

2006-10-04T01:31:00.000+10:00

It is 1:25 Wednesday morning. Dined with Polkinghorne-Smythe last night, convivial company and a capital evening had by all. Yesterday in the late-AM I hove outside the offices of Wapthrottle, Snodgrass and Smythe and saw a young man sauntering past wearing a "Davey Crockett" hat - raccoon tail and all.

What has my life come to?

Dying Slowly

2006-10-01T23:52:00.000+10:00

My good friend L came down to the provinces today - to surveil the ancestral manor and to generally make his convivial presence felt. Again I took a turn in the kitchen to prepare a fitting repaste for us three gentlemen (being a gentleman is, I can assure you, a full time job and one works up the deuce of an appetite).

Over dinner the conversation accidentally drifted to matters of death and dying. As most of my acquaintance will know, it has been a little under 18 months since Mater passed away, and time has not yet worked to fill the gaping hole her death has made in the ranks of our family with the cotton wool of faded memory.

Between soup and the meat course I was breating some people of Mater and Pater's acquaintance for being so inconsiderate to not even turn up once to visit her in hospital, not attend the funeral (they were on holidays? Pshaw! Death takes no holiday) and, in the early stages of Mother's TERMINAL illness, to have had the rank poor taste to send a "get well" card! The cretins!

Pater, ever a soothing balm on the tempestuous waters of yours truly's sense of outrage and What's Right, calmly suggested that perhaps it was hard enough for mother knowing that every time people came to see her they didn't really expect her to be alive much longer. I extrapolated this to our own visits, and I am sure the same held true. Each time we left there was the chance that it could be the last time we'd say goodbye. Of course, an element of this is true at every parting, Death being as fond as a First Year student of the surprise prank, but it takes on a certain immediacy when one is farewelling someone who is in the "Galloping" stage of cancer (as opposed, of course, to the "Possible", then "Probable", then "Dashed Bad News, Old Chap" stage, which is followed by "Bally Rampant", then "Galloping" then, shortly, the final stage, "Call the Undertaker, Matron").

I still cannot quite imagine what it would be like for a patient to know that each time someone left the room they may never see that person again, each time they closed their eyes at night they may not reopen them, and each time a medical person came into the room they could be delivered another lot of even worse news (viz: Did we say five weeks? We meant days. Frightfully sorry." &c). And, to be honest, I hope I don't ever have to find out first-hand. Going quietly in my sleep is the plan - in about 60 or 70 years.

So much to do, so little time! Here's to living a full life while we all can!

Cooking Up A Storm At The Ancestral Manor

2006-09-30T21:49:00.000+10:00

This evening, Pater and I, with no one to impress beside ourselves, took up the chef's tools and hove into the kitchen for an all-out Spanish nosh-up. Elbows were flying, husks, rusks and shells were shucked, shunned and cracked respectively. Oil was a-sizzlin', things were a-fryin' and there was the faint sound of slightly strained laughter in the air. The kind of laughter that immediately preceeds questions like: "Are you sure it's meant to look/smell/taste like that?", or "Tell me again - is that really how it looked when you had it in Spain?"

The avid (or even casual) reader of these pages would be aware of my affinity, nay penchant, for all things Teutonic, but it was out of respect for Pater, a desire to try something new, and a lamentable lack of schnitzel, that I tried my (not entirely unskilled) hand at preparing a couple of new dishes. I made a chickpea and spinach concotion (cooked in a wok, with an added sauce made from mashed up toasted bread, garlic, olive oil, cumin powder and water), a tomato and garlic bread (kind of like Spanish bruscetta) and Pater made tortilla and also friend up some chorizo with green capsicum (eaten together it is truly delicious!).

As I write these words I can feel the garlic surging and bounding through my system, riding the crest of the wave of extra virgin olive oil I have also just ingested. I feel great. I also feel an attack of heartburn coming on. How do the Spaniards cope with eating like this all the time?!

A Penny Farthing for Your Thoughts

2006-09-27T22:25:00.000+10:00

I had a brief digital communication (titter ye not, missis), with Miss E last week, wherein she admitted she was shopping around the local velocipede merchants for a jolly good mount. Tally ho, what!

I nearly swallowed my pipe, and computer, when she said that they were actually selling MODERN penny-farthing bicycles! Good lord what fun! I spent a happy quarter-hour imagining myself whizzing along the highways and by-ways of this vile and vapid city, coattails flapping, bell jangling a hurried warning to the lame and infirm who got in my way, moustaches twitching in the breeze &c.

Oh what I'd give to be able to exercise the Nottlesby thighs by pumping thoroughly the pedals of said conveyance.

I'm getting all sweaty just thinking about it!

Suffering for Art

2006-09-26T16:46:00.000+10:00

It is with a dramatically drooping quill (cast ye not aspersions! saith my brother, the Rev Algernon Nottlesby) that I write to inform you that my recent dalliance (all 5 minutes of it) has come, once more, to a final, crashing halt. Much like my overweight cousin Bertha Throckmorton-Entwistle trying to audition for the lead role in the village performance of Swan Lake. However, unlike that ill-starred morning, no pianists were crushed to death under their own instruments, and the only thing to perish was a little bit of my optimisim and faith in humanity.

The object of my, fleeting, affection has made it clear in a terse cable to your humble correspondent, that she wishes forthwith, post haste, and henceforward, a complete, total, irrevokable, codified and indentured severance of all relations both cordial and otherwise. For reasons best known only to herself.

So I console myself in the Nottlesby digs, sitting by the wireless in the evenings, indulging in an extra glass of port as I plan my next foray into society and steel myself to once more enter the breech.

Figuratively, of course.

Tally - somewhat dejectedly - ho, chaps.

A Full Cast of Tens!

2006-09-26T16:39:00.000+10:00

Also starring (playing themselves):

Ivo Folgger. Met on train from Czech to Vienna. Very (VERY) talkative. Highly animated. Seemed to have odd compulsion for drawing diagrams and speaking at the same time. Spoke extremely animatedly. Favourite phrases includeed: " ... and blah blah blah"; also "tra-la-la".
Riccardo Chailly. Conductor of Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchester. Was magnanimous enough to play Shostakovich's "Jazz Suite" (both 1&2) at an open-air concert. Whipped orchestra into truly top form and left yrs truly deeply saddened that he doesn't live in a country where this kind of indulgence is the norm.
Toothless Gypsy Hooker from Prague. Oh beware, ye of the twitching loin! Make ye not eye contact with women on the street. Offer ye NOT cigarettes to the sad of eye. Smile ye not at the downcast. And make thy voice clear when thou saith NAY to the offer of scabrous union in back alleys.

Arty-Farty-Party, Me Hearties

2006-09-22T16:40:00.000+10:00

Avast - and all that. A vast what, I hear you ask. A vast featureless desert out there? A vast wall of silence? A vast of kaflowers?

Nein! I shall say, so emphatically that the veins in my neck stick out and alarm passing surgeons.

It war' talk like a Pirate day t'other day and, shiver me scrawny timbers if I don't feel like celebratin' it be-latedly. Yarr. Harr.

Mere days after I had arrived back in the Island Colony (dashed Antipodes, to those with more Geographical knowledge than a slightly-educated badger), my erstwhile friend and number 1 crony, the dashing Baron von Discreetveil invited me to the opening night at a local gallery of modern art.

Now before you, gentle readers, take up your cudgels and start assailing my person with blows and filling my ears with the bile of your anguished cries, let me assure you both that I was both sound of mind and spirit when I agreed to attend.

And that it wasn't that bad at all.

Truth be told it was decidedly interesting.

And the art was alright as well.

Modesty (and a hard-earned sense of discretion, reserve and general caution) will prohibit me naming names or even speaking any more openly of what transpired, but please, dear reader(s), view these pages frequently and as the seeds sown that night come to flower, or as they wither in the arid and bleak land of social awkwardness, I shall be your man on the front line and shall reveal as much as circumstance allows.

For now, however, I must away - to dust off my cape, polish my monocle, and refill the trusty fountain-pen. There are happenings afoot!

The Best of Times, the Wurst of Times

2006-09-22T16:00:00.000+10:00

What ho everyone! I'm back from the land of the Kaiser - somewhat reluctantly, I must say. Had a wonderful time, Jerry almost hospitable, Fritzy rolled out the red carpet and Hans-Dieter boiled the best Würstchen in town.

I shall not regale you both with too many tales (tall and otherwise) of my Teutonic peregrinations, but will certainly decant into the waiting receptacle of your goggling eyes and capacious crania a few choice tidbits by way of travellers' advisorys and words many and varied to those of wisdom.

In other, more melliflous, words, a bit more about the trip:

The Itinerary
Flew to Austria, with a stop at Kuala Lumpur.
5 days in Vienna
2 days in Salzburg - 1 day of which was a day-outing to Hallstatt
5 (but accidentally 6) days in Munich
3 days in Nuremberg - 1 day of which was a day-outing to Bayreuth
3.5 days in Prague
2.5 days in Leipzig - 1 day of which was a day-outing to Eisenach
5 days in Berlin
3 days in Barcelona
2 more days in Berlin
1 day's train travel Berlin-Vienna, by way of Dresden and Prague
3 days in Vienna

- exactly and approximately.

The Characters
Besides, of course, Florestan and I, there were many lively and interesting folk to meet on the road. The most memorable of these are:

Norbert. Keeper of a private museum in the Esterhazy Keller, Vienna. Museum dedicated to the Esterhazy family, who were the patrons of the composer Haydn. Some mention of Haydn, much mention of the Turkish siege of Vienna. Piece de resistance of exhibition was genuine marble cannonball from aforementioned siege.
Robert G Stemplinger. American-at-large. Drinking companion in Hofbrauhaus, Munich. Can hoist a tankard of ale with more dexterity than any seasoned drinker ever born. A cove of the first water, bon vivant par excellance, but sadly not a patron of the Arts. All-round decent chap - just don't ask for directions to Poland. Or mention the War, for that matter.
Gisela Brandstätter. Sometime actress, artisan, and one of the kindest, warmest and most pleasant Germans it was my pleasure to meet. Keeper of the ancient press in Master Dürer's house. Keeper of ancient wisdom about making paint in pig bladders.
Vaclav (not his real name). Tour guide in Prague. Could have passed as Field Marshal in a bygone era. Gave informative, marching-pace tour of Old Town, Jewish Quarter, Lesser Town, Prague Castle. Very well read, good sense of humour.
Hyman (also not his real name). Very randy Semitic gentleman of the, er, of, well, certain, ah, shall we say Grecian inclinations. Mincing walk should have given it away. Stared too long at the Nottlesby trousers for anyone's comfort. Had audacity to ask which hotel we were staying at.
"The Countess". Perhaps not a real Countess, but acted like one. Very interesting, albeit eccentric woman into whose palm I dearly wish I pressed the address of Nottlesby Manor. Had a dog - Princess Luna - to whom your correspondent is now betrothed. Nothing at all consummated. Thank God.

All-in-all a motley crew of decidedly capital types to people the Grand Tour.

Insidious Management Jargon

2006-08-06T19:21:00.000+10:00

I am once more in the Sticky Keyboard Internet Emporium, wedged cheek-by-jowl with a few young travelling ladies. They are in the middle of negotiating some further travel details, and yours truly is being entirely brazen sitting here and typing these observations under their very noses (more literally than I'd care to admit).

What has struck me just now, as it has at other junctures, is how deviously management-speak infiltrates common conversation (and yes, the conversation in this instance is common, but that wasn't my point) - it is appalling to sit here and listen to these girls, who, by the way, can't stay in their own seats!, blather to each other in bland and meaningless drivel.

I am not, for a second, assuming that everyone should adopt the curlicues and quasi-literary grace of one St John Nottlesby - God no, and perish the thought! - but really, this is the most graceless of functional communication.

I despair!

Geburtstag

2006-08-06T10:27:00.000+10:00

The sands have been pouring through the Nottlesby hourglass lately and I am still at a loss to believe that in a week I will be well on my way to Vienna. It was my birthday a little over a week ago, and the occasion was marked with an all-out beano at the Kaiser Cafe (a fine eating establishment that Florestan and I discovered several months ago). Foaming tankards of ale were hoisted high, platters of food were brought to the groaning board, and the conversation flowed. It was, all things considered, a captial occasion. What made it especially good was the fact that I convened a group of friends from various circles - which, I know, is a fool's gamble - the chance is too great that it could all go horribly wrong and we'd scarf our meals down in stony silence then all run from the place in different directions.

The luncheon was such a success that we all repaired for a post-prandial stroll by the water, then for coffee afterwards. Capital!

Reading List

2006-07-23T19:13:00.000+10:00

At the moment I am reading :

"The Double", by Jose Saramago.

Next I want to read:

"Dog Years" by Gunther Grass

"The Wagners" by Nike Wagner (RW's great-great granddaughter)

... and anything else that I get suggested to read when I'm on the road. I plan a rather large campaign on a local bookshoppe this week to get the necessary supplies for my trip. I am open to suggestions.

Sunday Night

2006-07-23T18:15:00.000+10:00

Dear Notebook,

So the weekend has ended. I am back in the bustling metrop, back at the Sticky Keyboard Internet Emporium pounding out my fleeting memoirs on said Sticky Keyboard. Today was a decidedly peculiar day, at the end of which I am glad to say things are looking up somewhat not only for the Grand Tour, but also in my filial relations with Pater.

Last night a dinner was held at the Ancestral Manor, at which was a friend of Pater's and a friend of hers - a very interesting German woman. I had met the Teutonic Frau but once before, at which meeting I was thoroughly captivated and greatly regretted the little time we had to talk. (Let me add a footnote here - my interest in the TF is entirely platonic.) I had been given plenty of advance notice about her attendance at the dinner, and had expressed my excitement to Florestan. As the evening panned out, I did not have one moment, nary a second, in which to engage the TF in conversation! Instead Florestan kept up a steady stream of (admittedly) lively banter and reminiscence from his own extensive travels and general experiences.

Also, earlier that evening, before the ill-starred dinner, Pater had asked that I show him on a map just where indeed we would be travelling. So maps were procured. I cleared my throat and was about to launch in with a manly "So, you see Father, we will land in Vienna..." when Florestan pipped me at the post and was away with his own narrative. Not to be beaten, I picked up the trail and launched in with a "... yes, so then we take the train to Fussen..."

Florestan backed down and gave me the floor.

Why, gentle reader, was this so alarming. I admit that it was quite possibly an overreaction on my part (really?! I hear ye mutter) but at the time I was gripped with a horriffic premonition that F's behaviour that evening was going to set the pattern for the rest of our trip. For a young man, the Grand Tour is a major undertaking, and, dare I say it, a rite of passage.

Of course, I realise that at any moment we are each responsible for our own behaviour, and our own reactions, and that if I feel a certain way when Florestan behaves a certain way, my reaction is my own responsibility. My task now is, clearly, to plumb the depths of the Nottlesby emotions and figure out what the devil caused this vehement reaction and snuff it out!

Tally ho to the Fatherland!

Saturday Night

2006-07-22T23:01:00.000+10:00

Dear Notebook,

I am once more at the ancestral castle - my last trip before winging my way to the Fatherland in but three weeks. It has been, of course, an interesting weekend up to now. Florestan has come down with me, and we are having a bit of a taste of what our five-week sojourn will be like. And, to be honest, I am having second thoughts about how well the whole thing will go. Many friends expressed their disbelief when I told them months ago that I would be undertaking such a trip with a gentleman of such advanced years as Florestan.

This is most likely last-minute folly on my part, and I am sure that things will go just fine when we are on the road. But I still have reservations.

For now I must retire to my chamber and not brood too much.

Tonsorial Treats

2006-07-09T12:11:00.000+10:00

I had occasion yesterday to repair to Razor Bob's Tonsorial Saloon to have the Nottlesby locks trimmed. The Saloon is split over two levels and I had only ever been to the lower of the two - but when I hove through the door the friendly tonsorialist waved me upstairs with his comb and scissors. I trod the stairs somewhat heavily, entering unfamiliar territory with a slightly heart. Who would I find up there? Or more importantly what would I find? Images of a crazed Turk, moustaches flowing, blood pooled at his feet, cutthroat razor flashing through a smoky haze whirled sickeningly through my mind. And quickly, too. There were only about 10 steps between the two rooms.

When I broached the doorway a very large gentleman sat sprawled on a leather couch, delicately sipping a cup of coffee. He leapt to his feet with great agility and, with a flourish, gestured for me to take a seat.

He whirled the barber's cape over my shoulders deftly and tucked the requisite paper towel around my neck without drawing a breath. Voluminous greetings dispensed with, he asked me what I wanted. I asked for my usual trim ... and thin it out on the top, my good fellow. He looked at my hair askance and shook his head.

"You need clippers, boss. Scissors take too long. Make big job."

I held myself back from asking just what it was that I paid him for, but remembered my Pater's sage words that "the difference between a good haircut and a bad one is only about two weeks". So it was that the clippers were oiled and activated and ploughing their way through my hair before I was even aware 0f having made a definite decision one way or another.

But everything ended well, I was able to hold my head high on the way home, and I am not at all ashamed of the job he did. No doubt His Edenic Maj, Florestan, or Dr Polkinghorne-Smythe will see fit to correct me if I view myself in error!

The Windy City

2006-07-08T14:03:00.000+10:00

Last night Florestan (who, I fear, has been absent these pages in the past weeks) and I retired to the Mozart Society's subscription concert. We went with high hopes for an evening of sublime music which would be our preferred transport of delight for the evening. What I fear we got, was a whole barrow-load of tootling and peeping and not much in the way of edification.

The reason is not a lapse in our taste, instead it is wholly ascribed to the selection of works played by the ensemble. As Florestan succinctly put it, "they played the most boring music Mozart ever wrote". Indeed I must second that. They played his wind divertimenti.

Let me explain: This music was written to accompany social gatherings. Unlike other works of chamber music, the divertimenti weren't meant to be listened to in eager silence, they weren't meant to be the focus of one's attention. Instead, they were meant to waft on the summer night's air. They were meant to be the musical backdrop for lovers' soft whisperings. They were meant to be what people commented on when all other avenues of conversation deserted them.

The Society, without doubt, provides some of the best chamber music concerts in Sydney, and it is with pride that I bear their membership card.

Chamber music is wonderful, and well worth listening to, but for the time being I am going home to listen to "Tannhäuser". Now that's music!

A Shaggy Dog Evening

2006-07-08T13:37:00.000+10:00

His Edenic Maj and I repaired a couple of evenings ago to the flicks, wherein we purveyed a new Brittanic filming of "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy". I had read the book, his E Maj hadn't, and the consesus between us at the end of the thing was that one doesn't really need to have. However, seeing Steeve Coogan blunder his way through pretending to know who the Widow Wadman was did have a certain piquancy...

The above link to a synopsis will give you, gentle reader, an idea of the how the book was treated, but as a scholar of the novel (in my old Varsity days), it was my opinion that the film was most faithful to the spirit of the book, while also managing to convey most of the story.

Of course, in such an entertainment, the most important question to ask is: Is it funny? It is my signal honour to report that indeed it is, at times even ball-boucingly so. Reviews I've read bandy about such hackneyed phrases as "bawdy romp" &c, but I fear that in this instance I am forced to agree (although let me first participate in a bawdy romp myself then I can really decide whether or not I concur!).

News just to hand, I found a rather long-winded review in my local newspaper, so if you've nothing better to do, it can be perused HERE.

I, however, do have better things to do, and will carry on with the posting mayhem (although given the way my posts appear, you will have read the newest ones by the time you read this).

Heigh ho.

You May Feel A Small Prick (Or: My Adventures In Acupuncture)

2006-06-30T22:41:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I let my guard down and allowed L to practice the acient and sacred art of accupuncture on the Nottlesby flesh. Despite my initial misgivings (a friend sticking needles into ones person does raise certain issues of trust, I believe) the procedure went off without a hitch and I eventually regained feeling in my left side.

Seriously though, it was a truly sublime experience and I felt as though I was floating for days afterwards. How it works remains ever a mystery, but by Jove I can't wait to have it done again.

Hair Today...

2006-06-30T22:30:00.000+10:00

Well, I have been shaved from making an embarrassment of myself (!) and the pundemonium continues - albeit with the Nottlesby cheek as clear and ruddy as ever. Fortunately no one of my acquaintance needed to tell me what a buffoon I looked sporting a beard, and the offending follicles fell silently under my razor over a week ago.

Order has been restored, and decorum, as ever, reigns with a good measure of hauteur in her eye.

And finally...

2006-06-19T20:19:00.000+10:00

I have decided, I think, to grow a beard. Please someone post something urgent if this is an especially ill-considered idea.

Save me from myself (if indeed I do need saving).

Thank you, and may the Lord be bounteous unto thee.

The More...

2006-06-19T19:53:00.000+10:00

... I promised to follow. So it shall:

Sadly that encounter with the Lawyer was among the more interesting of events to have befallen me lately. I had some minor medical tests last week, the results of which I'm still awaiting (have you found my heart yet, Doctor?). Everything is fine, let me assure you - and there is entirely NO need to go out and buy black-bordered cards and crepe for your top hats. Trust me, Ponsonby-Smythe, you'll be given plenty of notice, and do remember that I would like black plumed horses as well.

There's a good chap.

Hark! On the evening before I was chlorformed in the interests of modern medicine, I decided on a whim to leave my mobile telephone turned on as I slept. I can hear you all now berating me for being a dashed knave, and yes, technology is at my beck and call and not I at its, but still. It was an urge. A whim. A premonition, as it turned out.

Sometime after 1 am I was jolted awake by the clangour of the digital ring. Naturally, my mobile telephone rings with the same sound as a bakelite wonder of days gone by. How could I have it any other way?

It was Schoene Lizchen, meine freundin aus Neue Schloss. At that hour! Having not seen the dear girl in months, then a call! I had to answer it. She sounded rather distressed and asked if she could come over. At that hour?! Of course!

I shall draw a discreet veil over the next few paragraphs. Nothing lewd, lascivious, or immoral occured (to my dismay), but I was able to, I hope, give a calming word and stable shoulder to a friend in distress.

It came to pass that Lizchen sought her ease in my humble digs that evening, and as I rose early to repair to old Sawbones' rooms, she merely turned over and wished me well.

What a dashed conundrum! One simply shouldn't leave young ladies unattended in one's rooms. Worse that Mrs Miggins, the nosey neighbour poking her beak around the corner, would be the chance of one's Pater collecting one from the medical cutting board, escorting one home and then one having to (while still partly etherised) explain the presence of the aforementioned girl and pass off some introductions all round.

Which, might I say, I pulled off with my trademark aplomb!

Father and Lizchen got along swimmingly and I swam my way into the kitchen and somewhat hamfistedly made a round of tea for everyone. Me! The recovering invalid! The outpatient!

My protestations could bearly be heard over the convivial roar coming from my drawingroom.

From The Ancestral Castle

2006-06-18T11:50:00.000+10:00

With a restorative cup of tea at hand I brace myself to type these words. It has been a dashed interesting couple of weeks since last I put finger to keyboard to inform my many admirers of my actions. There has been perfidy, there has been healing, there has been a measure of boozing and carousing, there has been minor surgery and there have been old friendships rekindled.

In other words, just a quiet few days in the life of St John Nottlesby, esq.

The weekend just past, Lukenhausen and I had occasion to repair to a public house to toast the birthday of a friend of his. L's friend and I had never been especially close, but I thought I would lend the old Nottlesby tenor to the festivities nonetheless. Being the convivial chap that I am, I strongly believe that one makes one's own fun, and motive and opportunity play but a small part. So it was that we repaired, after being led slightly astray by highly ambiguous directions, to the public house in question. The Nottlesby heart beat a fearful tattoo when we found the group we sought. They had, even at that early hour, already fragmented into posses and were involved in close and intimate conversation. L knew a few of them and was able to ingratiate himself with them, whereas your correspondent was left clutching his pint, both motive and opportunity fleeing with a giggle.

And so it happened that I got a little squiffy a little too fast.

One of the assembled number was a young lady of both beauty and (apparently) considerable wit. Naturally I roped motive and opportunity back to my side and made winsome eyes at her across the table. She responded in kind, and it was with a certain urgency that she asked L and I if we would be accompanying the group to the second temple of Bacchus.

I replied with a mighty: "Of course we will!"

So the young lady found reason to move around to our side of the table (a sort of social Siberia, I have to admit) and she engaged yours truly in conversation. She said she was lawyer. In the wisdom of hindsight, I should have said right then that I had to go home to tend to my fungus collection, but given her my number in case she wanted to come over and listen to some Bert Kampfert records the next day.

But no.

I drew her further into conversation. Hark! The lady wants to be a writer! What joy! What delight in the beautiful mind here presented to me!

I'll skip a bit - and get to the part where we were all invited to her apartment midway between the two temples of Bacchus to that some people could relieve themselves, and so she could (I reasonably suspect) show off her breathtakingly large inner city apartment (in which she lives alone), and also so that some of the more bibulous amongst us could refresh themselves with a cold ale from her ice-chest (and oh how icy her chest was. Little did we know she kept the ales on ice right near her heart).

I, bearing in mind that she had but minutes before espoused a desire to be a writer, completed a brief survey of her bookshelf. It was made all the more brief by the fact that he had in her posession NINE books (three of which were from a popular children's series about a young magician and his friends - whose eminently marketable name won't be mentioned in these pages). I emitted a small gasp in horror. L saw this and counselled silence. I bit my tongue.

But not for long.

After prevaricating for an inordinately long time - as large groups of half-squiffed folk are wont to do - we trundled off to the next thrilling instalment. Where, I fear, I totally dashed my chances and made myself appear something of the rake and bounder.

We sat in the second bar. L and I sipping our ales like the debonair men of the world that we are, and the Lawyer and L's friend engaged in deep conversation. We had somehow lost most of our party, although like the proverbial flea on a camel's buttock (come on people, read your Bedou folklore, please!), a friend of the Lawyer's hung around - the chap was quite the poltroon. He asked me if I had ever been in a fist fight (me! of all people!) and was amazed to the point of apoplexy when I told him I hadn't, and most likely wouldn't ever. He espoused some guff about "all men have to at some stage" and I retorted the ability not to fight was what separated us from the animals! Then I turned my back on him and the Lawyer - literally. But not before I heard the Lawyer say, in decidedly boudoir tones, that she loved watching a good fight.

After some time the Poltroon left and I casually asked the Lawyer where the rest of her books were. Seeing as she wanted to write, surely it followed that she would have a wide range of eclectic titles to peruse at her leisure - both for her entertainment and her edification. Oops. That harmless question (delivered with, I must admit, a fair dash of Nottlesby zeal) wasn't quite received as it was intended. And the match was more or less lost then. Home Team nil, Barroom Broads one.

Anyhow, the luncheon gong has been sounded, so I shall have to be brief.

The night ended with her getting my number (why? I don't know...) and us making tentative plans to have wine/coffee/vinegar on a fork sometime soon. The Lawyer cancelled a couple of our planned meetings, and then fobbed yours truly off for a Thursday night drink - saying she had to dine with her mother.

L and I were strolling the streets of the bustling metrop that very Thursday night and who did I espy ensconced in a pack of beautiful young things (none of whom old enough to mother anything over 3 years, I assure you, gentle reader) but the Lawyer of my recent acquaintance! The perfidy! The juvenilia! She was caught red-handed (and red horned and hoofed) in a thundering lie. But I didn't feel the need to confront her and make a scene - and yes, her pugilistic Poltroon was in tow, could he, perhaps, be some kind of loyal retainer? - instead I held the Nottlesbean head high and with great hauteur rebuffed her before she could again rebuff me.

After we'd passed, I muttered a few uncharitable things to L and soon let the matter drop. On calm reflection, given how ignobly she operated, I came out of this relatively unscathed!

Luncheon is on the table. More to follow!

Sunday Nights ...

2006-06-04T17:15:00.000+10:00

So thus ends (or begins) another week. I've never quite figured out at what point a week ends and at what point another begins. But I'm sure one of my erudite readers will be more than happy to put me right on this minor piece of chronographical punctilio.

It is Lukenhausen's geburtstag today, and to celebrate a dinner was held at his father's manor last evening. I was honoured with an invitation and added my voice to the merry throng toasting his contiuned good health and further successes. Not only did the stirling company provide a feast of reason and flow of soul, but Mother Lukenhausen provided a feast in its purest and most original sense.

It was a roundly capital night.

The rest of the weekend has passed rather slowly.

I'm feeling decidedly lackadaisical this evening and will write more tomorrow after my German class.

Charlatans and Quackery

2006-05-28T11:38:00.000+10:00

I had occasion yesterday to go, at the invitation of a good friend of mine (heretofore unmentioned in these pages), to have a reading of my cards, aura &c by a practitioner of same of her acquaintance.

It was a very interesting experience.

I went with as open a mind as I could manage, and was genuinely interested to hear what the man had to say. However, I couldn't help but feel that he was only responding to leading questions that he'd asked, so I tried to give away as little as possible.

He made a few very broad comments - and some astoundingly specific ones. He asked if I played an instrument (which I don't) and then sounded very annoyed when I said that I do listen to a lot of music. His tone of voice was, several times, abrupt, almost dismissive and very much "well yes, of course".

He was accurate in his observation of my recent life. He said to me quite definitely that I had had "a rough time of it" in the past year, which I admitted was true. Then when I told him about my impending trip to Europe he said "Ah yes, Wagner". That alone was enough to convince me that he wasn't entirely a hack and a fake.

I left the reading underwhelmed, but with my curiosity piqued.

It will be interesting to see, over time, if anything he predicted comes to pass.

Byron Bay (better a late note than no note)

2006-05-25T18:37:00.000+10:00

So as the avid reader of these rambling chronicles would well know, I had occasion to "Go North, young man!" last weekend. The flight was good - it was a small plane and I was seated right at the back. There was one row of seats over the left (port?) wing and seats two abreast to the right (starb'd, surely). I was on the aisle at the back, and there was an elderly gent with twirly moustanches sitting across from me. For the whole flight he was beside himself with excitement, craning about to see out to the clouds, exclaiming under his breath in rapture whenever there was an especially beautiful cloud formation. He was even trying to peer out the window next to me to see if he could follow the coastline.

After a while he and I struck up a conversation. He had flown down from Lismore that morning on the first flight of the day, and was now flying back home. He said, in a very grim tone, that he'd made the same journey a fortnight before. I suspected the worst, but didn't question him anymore. We tried to pick out places that we knew from the air, but he had (in every sense) the home-field advantage. I'd only ever made the trip twice before, by road, and mainly at night.

The plane circled Lismore and came in to land the scenic way. Everyone onboard was craning out of the windows in their excitement.

The landing was smooth - fortunately! I've had some bone-jarring trips before. Landings where you could imagine the pilots sitting in the cockpit, stunned, saying "Oh, so that's how it works!"

Lukenhausen and I repaired forthwith to Byron Bay - not wtithout stopping at the Open-air Cathedral for a chat and a clove cigarette.

We went out for dinner as soon as we were installed in our motel room (two beds, thank you matron). Somehow, and fortuitously enough, the food was superb and the waitresses were polite and discreet. L and I always feel that people can pick us a mile off as being city toffs, and somewhere as earthy as Byron Bay compels a chap to quash that side of his bearing - forthwith!

The meal was an utter success, although L decided to have the mille-fuelle something or other. And neither of us could bloody pronounce it! So naturally we called the more obliging of the two waitresses over and asked her how to pronounce it. She told us how, then admitted that at first she thought it was milly-foo-eelly. L, being charming, told her he thought it a much better pronunciation and I rolled my eyes manfully and chuckled a bit.

Later on, admittedly after a little more beer, I launched on a foolish jag about how L could have been a philosopher on the left bank in Paris, circa 1965, and the girl could have been his temperamental artist's model girlfriend. L dared me to ask the waitress to pronounce it again and really ham up the accent - so I did. And she did. And she walk away shaking her head in disbelief and we were largely ignored for the rest of our meal.

Heigh ho.

We were going to have a beer at one of the many welcoming local public houses, but the staggering number of young men trawling the streets oozing testosterone and boredom compelled us to get some beer and retire to our rented digs.

The next morning we woke rather late and went back to our favourite place for breakfast (a favourite from past trips). On a whim we decided to walk to the Cape Byron Lighthouse - which is a couple of miles hike from the centre of town.

To paraphrase, it was certainly a cleansing walk and we arrived back in town several hours later ready to same some more local ale.

After a hurried dinner of local food we repaired to a beachside bar and relaxed with a most cleansing ale or three. We were sitting and chatting and whiling away the evening quite pleasantly when a gaggle of rather odd-looking country girls erupted onto the premesis.

L and I looked at each other in horror as they started running about and giggling inanely. It reminded me of visiting my Great Uncle Horace, when I was a lad, at the Returned Servicemen's Sanatorium. Things were getting less than civil, and it was happening damned fast.

Without warning, the colour drained from L's face, and he grabbed my wrist, stammering and pointing. I looked. I recoiled. I retched.

The bride-to-be had strung a row of lollies over her breasts (thank god on the outside of her shirt!) and she was currently inviting anyone who dared/wanted to/was unfortunate enough to talk past to come over and eat a few off!

Begad! The utter ignominy! The strumpetry! The harlotry!

So we left. Snorting indignantly, and maybe looking a little over our shoulders to see what we were missing. But, on principle, we left.

We repaired forthwith to the nearest public house and quaffed a couple of ales to sooth our shattered nerves. Seemingly only moments later the bridal debauch followed.

So we went to play pool in the quiet back room.

After a couple of mediocre games, L decided to invite two young ladies to play against us. They graciously accepted, and it was on. Witty banter was flying thick and fast, we all managed to occasionally hit the ball in more or less the right direction. Among the many things that I discovered that weekend (Byron Bay is always very enlightening) - I found that we were playing pool with Claude Achille Debussy's great-great-great granddaughter! I don't know if the young lady in question was having us on (and it's entirely possible) but then maybe not.

I'll never know.

Game for Gaiman

2006-05-23T21:49:00.000+10:00

His Edenic Majesty and I had occasion this very eve to repair northwards to the rolling gounds of Macquarie University to hear one Neil Gaiman speak and read and be generally entertaining. Which he was. And is. And, no doubt, will always be.

The evening began, in His E Maj's own words as "something of a fool's errand". But wound up being alright. Late in the afternoon I realised that we should have booked (even though it was a free event) and I tried calling the number only to find it rang out every time. We sallied bravely forth regardless and found the bus stop.

It was quite a long trip up to the Uni (about an hour, maybe a little more?) and His E Maj and I weren't at all sure where we were going. Alighting from the omnibus, naturally in a heavy rain, we hove off in the general direction of the campus.

Minutes of strolling around lead us nowhere, but somewhere, and we went in to an invitingly open Student Affairs office and asked directions.

I assured both His E Maj and the pleasant chap who helped us that there were in fact no directions at all on the website and that I simply didn't have any idea where we were meant to go. At the suggestion of the University Man, I looked on the internet and, lo!, at the page advertising the evening's festivities was a room number (deeply in university code, I must admit). Somewhat shamefacedly I thanked the chap, took the map he gave us and His E Maj and I returned to the downpour.

We found the room easily enough (one can do anything with a map!) and I approached the door, wearing my most boyishly disarming smile (which I hope didn't look like a pervert's leer). The keeper of the door assured us that although the event was fully booked (a thousand curses!) we stood a better than even chance of getting in. A hot chocolate soon saw us in higher spirits and we returned to try our chances. We shifted nervously from foot to foot as the minor officials scurried about checking and crosschecking the lists. Umming and aaaahing and generally looking like minor officials about to cave in to popular pressure and admit the few poor souls who hadn't the wits or the luck to get a reservation.

Finally, after what felt like an age, they decided that seeing as the festivities had just begun inside, and there were spare seats, we may as well be admitted.

So, with joy in our hearts, His Edenic Majesty and I repaired to the ancient and sacred chambers and took seats at the back.

As promised, NG read some of his work - we heard a story from an as-yet unpublished collection of stories. And a poem. And yea did the assembled people rejoice!

NG reads very well and has a soft English accent. He looks a little like Bernard from "Black Books" but seems, at least seemed to me, to have a far more pleasant disposition!

In all it was a very enjoyable evening, and I think that even His E Maj was glad he trusted fate, my intuiton and the gods of good writing!

Prince Charles at large?

2006-05-19T10:24:00.000+10:00

I got quite a shock this morning, on my way to the Sticky Fingers Internet Emporium! I was strolling the streets of the bustling Metrop and who should I happen upon, checking parking tickets on a little by-way but the doppelganger of HRH Prince Charles! I nearly bit my bottom lip off in delight! The chap I espied had the same whispy hair, radar-dish ears, vacant look, bemused smile and, upon my honour, he was talking to himself!

Up Diddly-Up-Up

2006-05-19T10:08:00.000+10:00

Indeed it was, to quote the Reverend Doctor Pustule from last Sunday, with a glad heart that I entered my shower this morning. Now let me clarify that the Rev Dr made no mention of his morning abloutions, just made frequent mention of the gladness of his heart. Yea verily and all that...

Anyway, yes, it was with a most glad heart that I entered the steamy embrace of my shower and as the night faded from my lungs, it was under full throat that I sang a few lines of the immortal aviator's ditty: "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines"! For today I shall indeed be going up diddly-up-up, perhaps not looping the loop, but certainly defying the ground! Tally ho!

My good friend and qualified Chiropodist, Herr Lukenhaus, shall be returning to this very city and it is my signal honour to fly the hour and a half up to see him, have a couple of evenings of roister-doistering and then make the triumphal drive home with him on Sunday.

Gosh how exciting.

Noble Brahms: Ignoble Orchestra

2006-05-18T08:18:00.000+10:00

Florestan and I attended the Symphony last night. Unfortunately it was the Sydney Symphony (Motto: "Proudly Making Highschool Bands Sound Great Since 1921"). Both F and I were in a state of great excitement, Maestro Gelmetti was conducting, Oppitz was on piano, they were playing Brahm's Second Piano Concerto - things were looking good indeed.

Unfortunately our hopes for a pleasantly musical evening were dashed within seconds of the first notes being struck. Oppitz played tantivy - and the orchstra followed. They galloped through the first movement at a truly blistering pace, the brasses (as always) bleating far too loudly for comfort, and the strings weeping and whispering away almost unnoticed. It was truly dreadful.

The audience (bordering on being nothing more than a "crowd") were uncultured louts. The amount of coughing, sniffing, wriggling, shuffling, and, i fear, farting, at went on was only matched in its ignominy by the inconsiderate blighter whose mobile telephone saw fit to ring during the Second Movement! My compatriots proved to be nothing more than an assembly of uncultured provincials and I was thorougly disgusted.

I suggested to Florestan (after we had left at Intermission) that perhaps Oppitz, an otherwise fine musican, didn't feel the need to give and Antipodean concert the same amount of verve and musicianship that he would have a European or American concert. Or, less charitably, that perhaps he had a high-class strumpet handcuffed to his hotel bed and she was charging him by the hour (hence the impetus to get the damned Brahms over with as soon as possible).

Gelmetti, I fear, has done his dash in our esteem as well. Last year he allowed a performance of Debussy's La Mer to continue that really should have been put down as humanely as possible. Then, under Richard Gill, the orchestra sawed and brayed their way through Berlioz's Harold In Italy - in a performance that was truly a spectacle to behold.

Is it the orchestra? is it the conductor? why the devil has no one else noticed? Florestan and I cannot be the only two gentlemen in this outpost of culture who have an even slightly functioning ear for what's right. Yet the presses roll with glowing reports of the wonderful orchestra and their superb music-making. Perhaps it would appear so if one hasn't ever heard anything else, but for the (even slightly) sensitive listener these rushed and haphazard performances are an assault to the senses (and one's sensibilities).

After the Harold In Italy debacle last year, I wrote to Dr Tinnitus at the Symph and told him how unsatisfactory I found both that performance and the orchestra generally. The good Doctor wrote me a three-paragraph reply in which he first suggested that I didn't know what I was talking about at all; then he suggested that Berlioz intended it to sound like that (cacophanous? I highly doubt it); then he finally admitted that yes, the Symphony was aware of the acoustic problems and they were endeavouring to fix it. All of which sounded like a smoke-and-mirrors job that would have made Houdini proud. Although I do commend the Doctor for taking the time from his busy schedule to reply, I hope the next step will be for him to take a little more time to actually fix the problems and get the orchestra into decent shape...