||||Jameses.org

1) Only in Australia would you find a lady at 8:45am (nicely dressed and about to start her office job) smashing a potato-topped meat pie for breakfast.
2) I have seen every one of the films John Hughes wrote, directed, or did both. The most humourous incident being when I watched the ‘Family Friendly’ version of Breakfast Club (my first viewing too) that became incredibly non-sequitur after they removed all references to smoking mairjuana. One second they’re sitting around; next minute Emilio Estevez is doing roundoffs… They also changed and overdubbed profane insults with more family friendly varieties – e.g, “Fathead!”. Classic!
3) I have found my first grey hair. This is a moment of excitement, yet now I’m not quite sure what course of action is required…
4) Dingo observed that I should change my tagline to reflect the fact that I am not truly random, but rather most likely pseudorandom

365Project

365Project was someone’s idea to encourage people to be creative and take a photo every day for a year. I’ve decided to try and rise to the challenge and am uploading my photos to my Flickr account (For those that use RSS feeds: ‘most recent photo feed‘ and ‘Project365 feed‘). You can also click through from the front page of my blaarrg.

I’ve already had to use a substitute for one day, and I’m one day behind in uploading my pic, but it’s been good fun. I’m going to see if I can get by with only doing editing using the standard ‘MS Office Picture Manager’ and its no-frills crop, colours and contrast abilities. So far so good. Storm looks like she is also keen to start and being a much better photographer than I am, I’ll be sure to not pass on her link when it’s up…. kidding.

You can check out some others here (1, 2, and my favourite, Stormtroopers365) or you can just search for ’365′ or ’365Project’ etc…

It’s been a while… In fact, the frequency of blogposts on Jameses.org has been flatlining for some time. But I do like my blog and I’ve often had a gander back at some of the randomness that’s filled its electronic pages over the last 3 or so years to have a chuckle or dance with nostalgia…

To that end, I’ve added a ‘Random Post’ widget on the righthand sidebar… so if you’re ever bored and on Jameses.org… try your luck.

The widgetization of my blog was part of a number of updates I did last night in an infrequent moment of motivation. Security has been strengthened (apologies to Cathy, whose blog, which I set up, was hacked months ago), data was backed up, and a Flickr widget which places the most recent picture of my Flickr Photostream on my frontpage was installed. I’ve done this as part of Project 365, which encourages participants to upload a photo a day for a year. Today’s as good a day as any to start!

The only other feature I’d like is a mediaplayer so I can have some toones on the frontpage – possibly done with my new guitar and microphone setup.

In other updates, Mum and Dad are in Chicago to visit the bro and family almost a year to the day since I visited that lovely city! Dad’s hopefully gonna kick along to Lollapalooza just to prove old people can enjoy Tool, Kings of Leon and/or other music of the devil.

My lovely little niece Ciara has broken her arm. This means she is now outdoing me on the broken bones counter 1:0. The tooth cavity counter is still level at 0:0.

Also, I stumbled on this interesting piece about love, life and acceptance that really struck a chord with me (From Megnut.com via Kottke.org).

Alright, that’s it for now… Hope you’re all well…

I was woken yesterday morning by my flatmate, Reece, chatting to his friend on the phone. A few words drifted through: flight, Thailand, Monday, Johnny, f#*king. Being roused from slumber and it being the normal chilly, windy, rainy time to prepare for the ride to work, I left the cosy confines of bed and made my way one-socked downstairs to see what the hullabaloo was about.

My still-slighty-intoxicated flatmate informed me that after work (at a nightclub where a meagre hourly wage is supplemented by a not-so-meagre apportioning of liquor) he got online and booked a flight to Thailand for the coming week. He was going to go with his Irish friend Johnny who had exclaimed, in true Irish form, that the trip ‘was going to get f*%king retarded’. Reece was somewhat chuffed at obtaining return flights for only 700, only to later realise (at which point I’m still unsure) that he had indeed been navigating a British website and that the quoted 700 was in Pounds sterling.

It later emerged that he’d checked the price multiple times, oblivious to the fact it was preceded by a £ sign. He’d also passed on the right to purchase the ‘right to refund’ should something go astray. Fortunately, the exchange rate is somewhat favourable so that, even if his frantic post-booking ‘please scrap that and refund me’ email should fall on deaf ears, he’ll ‘only’ be out of pocket by around $1500.

The moral of the story, I guess, is: If you’re get booked for drunken driving, you’re a fool. If you get driven for a drunken booking, you’re on your way to becoming ‘f$£king retarded’…

I started this poem after catching a hair-raising bus trip with Storm from coastal Kochin up to Munnar in the highlands in Kerala, India. It’s supposed to have the meter of the Man from Snowy River – in case that wasn’t evident from the title… See also this post from the trip

The Man from Three Rivers (Munnar)
There was movement at the station as the people milled around,
A beggar shook his cup in mournful tune.
The rubbish danced unnoticed as it fluttered from the ground
And rising sun saluted hazy moon.

The Munnar Man stood poised to write in History’s book by hand,
Every muscle in his torso set to rock.
Pensive in reflection, slowly masticating paan,
Six hours, twenty seven read the clock.

So many days have come and gone, a score of years at least,
Since raging Sanjay Gupta left his mark.
3 hours 43 he took to drive his metal beast,
From old Kochin to hinterland Munnar.

The people say it can’t be beat, with the traffic on the run,
With every thing a passing chance to hit.
But he knows that his bus is fast and skill is matched by none,
He’s whittled down the margin bit by bit.

So the people clambered upwards for a place in future glory,
Or else a death in some unknown ravine.
And last aboard the ticketman, who’ll feature in this story,
Shuffled forth collecting gold and green.

Blazing through the outskirts with his horn and screeching tyres,
Reaching speeds that only dawn allows.
Crashing through the odours of the streets and pavement fires
Dodging rickshaws, buses, cars and cows.

So to the hills he races with his lurching beast restrained,
The curves a blur for all of those onboard,
Soon will come the moment for which he’s ever trained,
The record his for now and ever more.

Round and round the corners as the bus would ever climb,
Hitting potholes, drifting left and right;
Right before the summit came a ‘clunk’ in space and time,
And for a tick the beast he drove took flight.

But nothing could deter the man on this his day of fate
3 hours 41 had come and gone,
When ladened bus with ghost-white folk did pass through Munnar’s gate
And stop outside the crowd in winter’s sun.

“Hurrah!!” He yelled “I’ve done it!” and he turned around with speed
Looking for the ticket man to say
“Congratulations Munnar Man, my watch fulfills the need,
Of proving that the record’s yours today”

Alas, it was this moment when he saw it was for sure
That the ticketman had sent his quest astray
And in this fellow’s absence were the taunting open doors
For you see he’d fallen out along the way…

{Baboom Cha}

Hey Guys,

This is fairly boring post, but one that’s aimed at my family and those who’ve asked me what I’m actually doing. That said, feel free to click away or zone out now…

The job is with the Office of Energy, in the ‘Hardship’ area of the ‘Community Division’. My role revolves around the formation and implementation of policies designed to help people in financial hardship (want to pay their electricity bills but can’t) to deal with recent and future tariff increases. Tariffs went up 10% in April and will go up 15% in July (26.25% total) to 17.6c/kWh. More are slated over the next few years to bring WA electricity prices to a point of cost reflectiveness.

As part of this, I work across a couple of different areas – grants, efficiency programs (including audits and a fridge replacement scheme), remote efficiency projects (insulation for remote communities and more audits) and most recently research and policy work regarding Pre-payment Meters (PPMs). PPMs are a hot topic at the moment and there’s significant debate as to how, and how far, they should be rolled out. As a result of all this, I find the work sufficiently diverse and fast moving (at least for the minute) to keep me occupied and happy.

Unlike last year, when Storm was working and dancing nights, it also means that my baby and I get to make dinner together almost every night. Although, with recent performances (which Storm rocked) and assignments due, she’s had more than a few valid reasons to get out of the washing up…

So that’s a wrap; I hope you’re all well and it’s a bit of a shame you all can’t be here to help me celebrate my 28th B’day with a game of Sunday Barefoot Bowls. I’ll be sure to have a beer for you… but not too many; I’m a working man now

I’m not a big cakes and sweets man. If I’m going to cook something, it’s generally going to be a first or second course offering. That said, the simplicity (and scrumptiousness) of the Helmore family’s scone recipe is too good to refrain from passing on. It requires 4 cups of self raising flour, a small tub (300ml) of cream, and 1 can of lemonade. Combine the mixture in a big bowl (you may need to add more flour or less lemonade to reach the desired consistency) and then plonk blobs onto a floured baking tray. Cook at 180-200 for 10-15mins… and voila! Perfect with whipped cream, jam and tea!

As good as these scones are, I’ve been desiring for some time to make a savoury scone recipe of similar simplicity; and so I set out to make the scones by substituting the lemonade with a can of beer and by adding bacon and grated cheese to the mix. The result, perhaps surprisingly, was a very nice (and wholly edible) savoury scone which, when consumed with beer and a little bit of relish, constitutes part of a nutritious Lancashire Tea.

I used a moderately flavourless beer – XXXX Gold – and added some pepper and salt to taste. Although the smell of beer is apparent when mixing and resting, it does not invade the flavour of the scones. Possible modifications include cutting the bacon into smaller squares, adding semidried tomatoes or olives into the mixture and/or using soda water with extra salt for those wishing to avoid using beer.

One other option is to make the scones according to a traditional recipe, which by all accounts isn’t too much more difficult that the one thus divulged. Either way, Storm and I now have a deal that every weekend, while she hangs up our 3 loads of washing, I’m to make a fresh batch of scones. And believe it or not, that proposition was arrived at by mutual accord!!

I’ve been blogging for a few years now and I’ve quite often been struck with a lack of content or motivation to fill the lines and spak the cracks… But the last couple of days have presented a fairly novel conundrum – an excess of interesting ideas and an inability to filter, organise and synthesise these into one or more decent posts…

There’s a follow up post to the Joys of Older Literature post I’d recently done, with an extended list of the novel terms and phrases encountered during my reading of Jane Eyre. By book’s end, the number of pages with dog-eared markers for later reference easily exceeded the number of ants swarming the scones we’d left out o’ernight.

Then there’s the flood of thoughts that have emerged upon commencing Hunter S Thompson’s part autobiography Kingdom of Fear. After finishing Bronte’s 590 odd pages of flourishing, refined and highly considered language and context, the effusive textual outpourings of HST came as both a shock and refreshment. Classic quotes and titbits are surrounded by random stories and occasional self-righteousness that a number of anti-establishment figures seem to be unable to avoid. Tales that seem to belie Occam and his shaving ways make me wonder whether the legend has overtaken the man or whether he truly was a badass…

There are thoughts on celebrity (however minor) and its effect on personal interactions, as shaped by a couple of conversations Storm and I had with Brisbane musician Loren at a recent gig in Fremantle.

There was an SBS documentary that Storm and I saw called Frank and Daz, about a C6 Cerebral Palsy sufferer who ran and completed the New York marathon and his Scottish friend who founded a charity to open schools in Cambodia after visiting the country.

And through these thoughts drifts a theme of ‘calling’. Thompson writes that he knew that he was to be a writer. Writing was work, but it was still ‘worthwhile work’. He had to pick a career that he could do better than most others, and writing was it. After Bronte, I don’t necessarily think him to be a brilliant wordsmith; however, he certainly does entertain. There was Loren, in a room where some patrons didn’t even have the common courtesy to limit their conversations during songs, singing and playing guitar in a manner that I could never replicate, and somehow subsisting only on merchandising sales and meagre cover charges. There’s the legacy left by the late John Martyn and the raging debate of his personal and muscial worth between lovers and haters in the comment sections of his youtube videos. And then there are Frank and Daz who are striving to do what they’ve been told they can’t, and living a life to its fullest.

Unfortunately, there’s no neat wrap to this flurry of ideas. There’s no epiphany… It’d be a mis-advertisment if there was. But at least that backlog of pre-nascent posts is out and now I can try and move on to more organised thoughts and syntheses…

And finally start work…

Unfortunately, I have no recollection of the first time I heard John Martyn’s voice or masterful guitar work. I don’t recall what grabbed me ‘hook, line and sinker’ and made me a devotee of his music. I don’t know at what time he became my favourite musician of all time, assuming a mantle previously held by Powderfinger, Pearl Jam, Counting Crows, Ben Harper, Ani Difranco and Nick Drake.

But he has sat there on top for a number of years now and I’m continually amazed by his words and thoughts and their interplay with some of the most majestic guitar picking my ears have beheld. Later compositions, ‘riddled’ with synthetic drum beats, electronic organ and Kenny G-esque saxophone have taken a while to grow on me, but grown on me they have – simply the evolution of music through the hazardous waters of the 1980s and early 90s.

By all accounts, John Martyn lived, played and drank hard and it was this hard living life that no doubt shortened his illustrious life and career. His last few years were troubled by illness, one such bout necessitating a double amputation at the knees. His understated (in my eyes) talent is illustrated by this relatively brief wikipedia entry.

Martyn passed away on the 29th of January this year, right about the time Storm and I had passed the worst of the Nullarbor, and I only found out this morning whilst doing a trawl for some notation of ‘May you Never’. I’d dreamed a few weeks ago that I’d seen him in concert and that he was shortly to die. I remember feeling immensely sad as I awoke from that dream, regretting that I’d never had the pleasure to see him play in the flesh (particularly during his 1970s heyday). It is a sadness that I feel acutely today; ‘A little strange’ given that our assocation lives purely within the musician/listener interface. Still you can’t help how you feel and I am truly saddened…

So, for those who haven’t had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with John Martyn’s music, I present to you my all time (thus far) playlist of his tracks. If you’re rich or iTunes inclined, you could do worse than download some of these tracks… The difficulty will be in shortening it by some measure… Many of these songs have a number of versions – studio and live – and I have selected those which I think are best.

1) Couldn’t Love you More – One World (1977) CD2, Track 2 (There are a number of versions but the one from the ‘One World’ Album is my favourite and possibly the most beautiful song ever…)
2) May You Never – Solid Air (1972-3) Track 7

Ok, they’re probably my two all-time favs. The next are chronologically listed (1 per album) to give an idea of change in times and style

* Sandy Grey – London Conversation (1967) Track 2
* Sing a song of Summer – The Tumbler (1968) Track 1
* Woodstock (Track 5) and Traffic Light Lady (Track 8 ) – Stormbringer (1969-70)
* Head and Heart – Bless the Weather (1971) Track 6 – A number of other excellent songs on this album.
* Over the Hill (Track 2) and Go Down Easy (Track 5) – Solid Air (1972-3)
* Ain’t no Saint – Inside Out (1973) Track 3
* My Baby Girl – Sunday’s Child (1974-5) Track 4
* One Day without You – Sweet Certain Surprise (1977-81) Track 12
* Hurt in You Heart – Grace and Danger (1980) Track 6
* Never let me go – Live in Bristol (1983) Track 9
* Don’t want to Know – Philenthropy (1983) Track 2 – covered by Beth Orton on her first album
* Spencer the Rover – BBC in Concert 1986 (rel 1992) Track 2 (Folk song cover)
* Fisherman’s Dream – Live at the Shaw Theatre 1990 (rel 1995) CD1 Track 9
* Bless the Weather – No Little Boy (1993) Track 12
* A Little Strange – And (1996) Track 5

* The Cure – Accoustic – I’m not sure which album but you can get it on the DL by right clicking the link

I’d be more than happy to make a compilation for anyone who’s interested…

RIP John and I hope you enjoy some of his amazing music…

There’s not much to do for the two and a half weeks until I start work except wait… and get a National Police Clearance. In Queensland, there was no such requirement, with the Government apparently having no aversion to possessing crooks in its ranks, as evinced by Sir Joh’s extended occupation of the top job.

Unfortunately for me, the nearest Australia Post was out of the forms and would continue to be so for the next few weeks. Other branches were apparently likely to be in a similar state of depletion due to a recent spate of applications and police clearing.

Thus I was turned away and told to fill out and print the online form and return it UNSIGNED so that my signature could be verily witnessed and verified. But not between 12 and 2 or after 4 and not without unclipped ear and nose hair or a second toe longer than the thumb-toe.

Turned away thus, I set about my tasks: clipping ear hair and filing back fleshy toe ends and tracking down assorted ID artifacts. With filled form and bleeding feet I made my way back to Australia Post to have myself cleared of all ‘reported’ crimes. Luckily mum and dad didn’t report me for stealing shrapnel to play the arcade machines at the local takeaway store. Does a ‘grounding’ show up on a police clearance?

With my ID confirmed, I set about the incredibly difficult task of signing off on my application. I say this with retroflection given that, unbeknownst to me, there was an impending show-stopper lurking in the midst. You see, my (consistently unique) signature has a loop on the J and a long tail crossing said letter. It turns out that the entire signature had to fit within a moderately sized tetragon. The fact that this fact was written in bold next to my nemesis-quadrangle should have wisened me up. However, ecstatic that I was about finishing the process and distracted by a clarity of sound due to an absence of ear hair, I missed it.

And thus I was defeated by a quadrangle. The 4 micrograms of ink spilled outside those borders of black rendered the entire process null and void. The fact that these 4 micrograms of ink were wasted on mere flourishings and embellishments of my normally staid signature mattered not. And given that they were still out of forms, no expedient corrective action could be taken. Shunned by the quietly spoken Jefferey with a casual ‘Next Please’, I was metaphorically shown the door.

Good thing I’ve still got 18 days to get it done…

Storm and I live in reasonable proximity to a fantastic book store, Planet Books, which is full of the kind of folk I could imagine myself chatting to over coffee, scrabble and acoustic accompaniments and the kind of books I’d love to sink my teeth into. In our first outing there, while Storm was engaged in the Dance and Autobiographical sections, I meandered to the Classics area, keen to make good on my internal promise to attempt to read a number of the classics and by extension the Top100 book list.

Ignoring the urge to read another Dickens tome at the expense of other lesser known (to me) authors, my eye drifted to the familiar orange and white backdrop of a pile of Penguin classics. I perused the pile at length, at last settling on two distinct yet equally appealing titles: ‘One flew over the cuckoo’s nest’ and ‘Jane Eyre’.

I digested the former first, assuming a pace commensurate with the goings on of McMurphy and his band of nuts. Whilst mildly discomforting and unsettling, the second half of the book was very hard to lay aside and a couple of decent sessions enabled me to polish it off in relatively short order. Storm will now have the pleasure of wishing to continue and cease reading simultaneously…

While I’m only 6 chapters into Jane Eyre, reading it has reminded me why I love delving into older literature. A familiarity with modern vernacular and turns of phrase (perhaps with the exception of the likes of David Foster Wallace and authors with a propensity to unnecessarily drop obscure, difficult words, like trophies, into their prose) means that the English language takes a back seat.

In older novels, however, the dynamism (and evolution) of the English language is brought to the fore. Euphemistic and linguistic oddities (at least to the modern eye) pique an interest in the language itself, no longer consigning it to the analogous equivalent of a ‘Coolibah tree’ in a primary school theatrical rendering.

We’re (or at least I’m) encouraged to think about the roots of words that we use mutliple times in quotidian life. Once firmly established linguistic pairings, where one has now fallen into obscurity, become reunited and illuminated.

The simple example that dragged me down this path of drivel is the word ‘ruth’. I have no memory of reading or hearing or using this word in isolation yet it abounds in the form ‘ruthless’.

“ruth – /ru?/ [rooth]
– noun
1. pity or compassion.
2. sorrow or grief.
3. self-reproach; contrition; remorse.

Origin:
1125–75; ME ruthe, reuthe.”

Other examples include the use of dread as an adjective “a dread place”, the use of ‘quail’ as a verb, and the employment of words such as ‘opprobrium’ and ‘animadversions’.

In other instances, I’m happy to see that words like ‘dingy’ have a heritage much longer than I would’ve presumed. Who knows what other gems will be turned over in the course of the next 500 pages?

On the topic of language, I did notice the phrase ‘they’d of’ in Cuckoo. Would there be anything wrong with taking two well entrenched abbreviations ‘d and ‘ve and making a triple composite “they’d've”? Is there a precedent, or a future, for such a contraption as this?!? Or will it meet with a tumult of insuperable animadversions and dread opprobrium?!? Ummm… ok…