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Old folk at lunch

MOTTO: As Oscar Wilde might have said: Life is too important to be taken seriously

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14 February, 2012

St Valentine is remembered again

I did all the right things. Anne got a card, a big bunch of red flowers and an enormous sample box of Whitman's chocolates

And I took her to dinner at a nice Greek restaurant: The Kafe Meze in West End. I think I took her there last year too.

As usual I ordered a series of appetizers rather than any main course: Tarama, Haloumi, Keftedes etc. And all washed down with a stubby each of Fourex Gold, a Brisbane mid-strength beer. Most non-Greeks seem to be unaware of it but cold beer goes very well with Greek food and on a warm Summer night it went down exceptionally well

From what I saw the men of Brisbane seemed to have bombed out big time. The restaurant was very busy but most of the customers were glammed-up groups of women. Sad.

For some reason incomprehensible to both Anne and me, the waitress gave us a 20% discount. I didn't argue, however, but just said: "Thank you very much". It could have been a Senior's discount but I don't think we are quite wrinkly enough for 20% yet.



5 February, 2012

Another poetry night

For both Joe and Paul, I try to make up for the way the school system today deprives people of their inherited culture. And some of the most prominent cultural elements are the great heritage of poems in English. When I have read classic poems to both Joe and Paul in the past, they have greatly enjoyed it and Paul in particular is quite outraged at how he was nearly robbed of some great cultural experiences

So over our usual curry we had a selection of poems out of an old 1961 Grade 6 reading book! Primary school kids once got a better cultural education than High School kids do today!

We read Lord Ullin's daughter, The Song of Cape Leeuwin, Sea Fever, The Pioneers, Boadicea, Love of Country and a few others

Both Paul and Susan really enjoyed their contact with eloquent expressions of our thought-provoking past.

Matthew was also present and in good spirits. Susan, Paul and Anne all helped look after him until he eventually went to sleep.

I gave Susan a crazy gift: A tin of Heinz Spotted Dick made in England. It wasn't as crazy as it sounds, however. She was delighted to get it. Cooking is one of her main interests so she was pleased to get a mainstream version of a classic British dessert. She had never heard of it until I mentioned it.



2 February, 2012

A birthday lunch

On Monday there was a lunch in celebration of the birthday of Anne's sister Merle. I won't be so ungallant as to say WHICH birthday.

Suffice it to say that the three sisters, Anne, Merle and June had one of their relatively rare times together, which they all appreciated.

We met for lunch at a restaurant at Manly called the Cuttlefish. It had a very promising menu but the promise was poorly realized. The food was very mediocre. Anne described her Paella as "not unpleasant" and my "Barramundi" was tasteless. Even the salt-shaker did not work -- which led to my doing a somewhat messy dissection of it!

I was amused to see on their menu that they had a "Greek plate" that included neither Haloumi, Tarama nor Souvlakia -- Let alone Keftedes! They left out most of the essentials of a Greek meal, in other words. And their Paella was as about as authentic as their Greek plate!

Maybe they should have called their Greek plate a Mediterranean plate -- but then one would have expected Tabouli, Hummus, Falafel etc. -- which did not seem to be in evidence. I am not even sure that they had Feta! But they did have Dolmades!

But each lady brought along the man in her life so it was a fun party for 6. Colin and Ralph are smart men.

I shouted (in the Australian sense).



26 January, 2011

A time for traditions

The Left have done their best to destroy all that is traditional in our society but people like traditions. They like connections with their past and with other people past and present. A couple of billion people in the Far East actually worship their ancestors!

So the traditions that have survived the Leftist onslaught are much celebrated. A great Australian tradition is ANZAC day in which we remember our war dead. And far from it being a celebration for old fogies, it goes from strength to stength, with young people joining in the ceremonies in droves. Precisely because they have so little left in the way of traditions, many young people seize on ANZAC day eagerly as a way of helping them understand and relate to their past.

And yesterday and today were days of other traditions that are growing rather than dying out. The first was on Wednesday: Burns night. It is of course a celebration of the life and work of Scotland's greatest poet, always held on his birthday, 25th January -- and there now more Burns Night suppers in England than in Scotland, which is another indication of how people grab onto those traditions that have not been snatched away from them. And Burns Night is in fact a cluster of traditions. There are quite a lot of things that one traditionally does on Burns night and I usually do a fair few of them, varying from year to year.

We had all the traditional food yesterday -- led of course by the haggis -- but also including tatties and neeps, oatcakes, Dunlop cheese, clootie dumpling, tablet etc. We played pipe music, welcomed in the haggis with a recitation of the Burns poem to that effect and then toasted it in Scotch whisky.

Present were Anne and myself, Jill and Lewis and Paul and Susan. And we also had Vonnie with us for a while via Skype from New Zealand. She seemed very pleased to see me in the kilt.

I am normally pretty quiet on social occasions but I got into the Scotch rather a lot so that loosened my tongue and I may in fact have talked as much as Paul, which takes some doing. I probably made admissions that I shouldn't! Anyway, we all enjoyed the food and the poems and I even ventured a solo rendition of "Scotland the brave". It was probably pretty brave of people to listen to me as I am not much of a singer.


Matthew wearing a Scottish cap -- with proud mother

5-month-old Matthew was of course the star of the occasion and in good sentimental style we talked at some length about his education. We decided to send him to a Catholic primary school, followed possibly by a secondary education at Eton. He should be smart enough and robust enough to do well at the latter. But Paul and I would have to find the large fees involved to give him that advantage, of course.

It was quite late when we wound up after all that.


At table eating our Burns supper

And today was Australia Day. Australia Day commemorates the landing in Australia of the first settlers from England and there are always grumbles from the miseries on the Left that it should really be called "invasion day" or the like. For many years it was little celebrated but again the very fact that it is a tradition and commemoration that has survived makes it popular these days. Lots of people now fly the Australian flag on their cars on that day.

My family on my mother's side have celebrated it for many years with a lunchtime BBQ and it was good to see today quite a rollup, with people we hadn't seen for a while. I brought along some leftovers from Burns night and talked mostly to Peter and my brother as I usually do.

Peter is very au fait with all things Chinese and I know a fair bit about German so we agreed that the expression that the Chinese use to describe their country can adequately be translated into German ("Mittelreich") but not into English. Many are the woes of translators!

And, as usual, it was a great pleasure to see and hear Peter's vivacious Eurasian daughter, Michelle.

Peter is my cousin once removed and we are the "brains" of the family. It's a very bright family but Peter and I are the only academics.



23 January, 2012

Anne's birthday

January is usually a pretty quiet time for most people, I think, but it is not so for me -- not by my standards anyway. Burns night will be on in a couple of days and tonight I took Anne out for a birthday dinner.

Anne got all glammed up and I even put on long trousers and wore shoes! Shorts and thongs are my usual attire.

We went to George's Paragon fish restaurant in the city. I used to go to the one in Sydney and have also been to the one at Sanctuary Cove (about an hour's drive South of Brisbane). And all of them really are paragons! Tonight we had great views across the river from the big windows, a good ambience generally and first class service. I don't mind expensive restaurants if everything is just right. In some of them the service is snooty and the portions small.

We started with Sydney rock oysters and both then went on to whole Sole for the main course. The whole Sole used to be their specialty at Sanctuary Cove and Anne has also had it there so it was an obvious thing to order -- and it was as good as ever: A very tasty fish -- fried in butter, I think.

I had to ask for a salt shaker, though. They obviously think their food is perfect without added salt. I in fact added nothing to the fish: Neither salt, Tartare sauce nor lemon juice. But I did need salt for the chips. I like my chips very salty and you can't have fish without chips, of course.

I am getting a bit shaky in my old age so the Sole was rather difficult to eat (being slippery and very flaky) but I managed. And I DID eat both sides!



14 January, 2012

An expedition and a sendoff

A busy day yesterday. In the morning, Anne and I got into the Humber for our annual expedition to Syd's pie shop down Beenleigh way -- to pick up Scottish supplies. Burns night is soon so I stocked up on haggis, tablet etc. Syd makes an excellent haggis.

As soon as we arrived, however, I ordered a pie and chips for both Anne and myself. Anne first discovered the delights of pie and chips there and it seems to have become an annual treat for her. The pie, gravy and chips are all first class.

I did quite a big shop-up of British foods, including an apple and rhubarb pie, which is a great favourite of mine but is very hard to find in Brisbane.

And in the evening I put on a big sendoff dinner (15 people) for Joe at our usual Indian restaurant. He flies back to Canberra tomorrow for the academic year. Joe invited 5 of his Brisbane friends along to the dinner and I was rather impressed by Kim, a young woman who seems to act as his chauffeur when he is in Brisbane. She seems a real lady. I hope he makes sure to keep in touch with her.

Young Dan, son of Simon and Tracy seems to have grown up fast. He kept Joe engrossed in conversation for most of the night. I could hear a lot of Simon in him. I mostly talked to Ken, as I usually do.

We tried to Skype our NZ family in but there was something wrong with the Skype software so we failed. I have now reloaded it and hope for better luck next time.



2 January, 2012

Presents

In the aftermath of Christmas, I thought I might reflect on a few events about presents.

I am a very BAD present buyer and Jenny is good at that so I have for many many years given Jenny the job of buying presents on my behalf. If the present envisaged is a bit expensive she sometimes seeks my OK for it but I always say Yes to it anyway. These days the presents come from "Anne and John" but everybody knows who has selected them

But there have been a lamentably few occasions when I myself successfully chose presents. I thought I might mention those occasions

On one occasion when we were at Queen Bess St., I bought two reams of A4 typing paper, divided each ream into appprox. 10 quires, wrapped it and left the 4 packages under the tree before Christmas: Marked for Ken, Paul, Von and Suzy.

Now as everybody knows, kids feel presents left under a tree to try and figure out what they are getting. But my 4 packages stumped everybody. Even Ken was drawn into it. But when they finally got to open their presents, they were a great success. As Ken said: "It has got so much potential".

And on her 70th birthday I gave Nanna a much wanted present. Like most other people in the family, Nanna is a keen player of computer games. And computer gamers are very fussy about their joystick. A joystick that is not just right can cause them to lose a game. And Nanna had found one joystick that really suited her. So she had tried to buy another example of it for when her existing one died -- as they all do eventually. But she had failed. It was out of production.

But I had one. I had got it with an Atari computer that I had bought. So I kept it and gave it to her on Christmas day. It was obviously a big hit. Giving a 70 year old lady a computer joystick must seem odd but it was just right on that occasion.

And for the Christmas just gone I bought Anne a big glass frog. Being a nature-lover Anne likes frogs but being a woman she doesn't like thing hopping or scuttling. So a frog figurine is an ideal compromise. I just happened to see it in the window of an Indian shop. So when I went into the shop I sang: "How much is that froggy in the window?" to the tune of the old doggy song. Such good humour pleased the proprietor so much that she gave me a substantial discount on it!



1 January, 2012

A very quiet new year

In the early afternoon on new year's eve Joe rolled up accompanied by TWO young female persons, Kim and Cianne. So which was the Korean? If you know anything about Korea you would plump for Kim -- but it wasn't. Cianne is Korean and this Kim is a blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon. They gave me a very colourful Nepalese bedspread. I used it as a tablecloth that evening, where it did very well.

Anne was up in Nambour visiting her mother for most of new year's eve but she arrived at my place at about 7pm bearing a dozen Sydney rock oysters for each of us. I had put a small piece of pork into the oven at 6pm and with the addition of vegetables by Anne it made a good roast pork dinner with an excellent oyster appetizer. Sydney rock oysters are not the largest but they are the tastiest in my view.

We washed it all down with Australian "champagne". I have in the past bought Moet or Veuve Cliquot for such occasions but although they are nice wines my favourite Seaview brut from South Australia seems just as good to me. Seaview have always made good wines.

We drank only about half the bottle with dinner and kept the rest for a toast to the new year at midnight.

After dinner I put on some music, as I usually do when Anne is here. I had intended to put on Scottish music but forgot and put on Vivaldi and Mozart instead. A forgiveable forgetting, I think.

Anne stayed overnight so for lunch today I took her to the South Indian restaurant for dosas. To both Anne and I they are celebratory food. They are that good.

Then for dinner today Anne cooked up some mint and rosemary lamb sausages which were excellent.



For posts on this blog in 2011, see here








Epitaph

What would I like to be remembered about me long after I am dead and gone?

I would like it to be remembered that I too often experienced one of life's greatest pleasures: The first mouthful of cold beer on a warm day.

That pleasure will last as long as human beings are human beings, I believe

I am less certain about Bach. The last thing that people will remember about me long after I have gone will probably be: "He liked Bach". Will J.S. Bach continue to inspire people for a thousand years more? I think so. But beyond that I am not sure.

Motto

As Oscar Wilde might have said: Life is too important to be taken seriously

Brief bio

My full name is Dr. John Joseph RAY. I am a former university teacher aged 68 at the time of writing in late 2011. I was born of Australian pioneer stock in 1943 at Innisfail in the State of Queensland in Australia. After an early education at Innisfail State Rural School and Cairns State High School, I taught myself for matriculation. I took my B.A. in Psychology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. I then moved to Sydney (in New South Wales, Australia) and took my M.A. in psychology from the University of Sydney in 1969 and my Ph.D. from the School of Behavioural Sciences at Macquarie University in 1974. I first tutored in psychology at Macquarie University and then taught sociology at the University of NSW. I am Australian born of working class origins and British ancestry. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools.

Dramatis Personae

Jenny is the first wife of Ken and the third wife of John

Maureen is the second wife of Ken

Paul and the twins (Vonnie and Suzy) are the children of Jenny and Ken

Joe is the child of Jenny and John

Timmy and Davey are the children of Ken and Maureen

Paul is married to Susan

Matthew is the son of Paul and Susan

Twinny Suzy is married to Russell

Von is married to Simon

Tracy is Ken's sister

Tracy is married to Simon (another Simon)

Hannah is the daughter of Von and Simon

Sahara and Dusty are the children of Twinny Suzy and Russell

George came out on the boat to Australia with Ken

George has a son named Simon (The 3rd. Simon)

Jill and Lewis are old friends of John

Anne is the lady in John's life these days

Anne has sisters named Merle and June. Merle is married to Ralph

Anne's sons are Byron, Nigel and Warren

Byron has two sons named Koen and Ethan and a wife named Bonnie

My brother is Christopher (married to Kim) and my surviving sister is Roxanne (married to Stefan)

Quite simple really!