The Summer Knows...

Observations on Sydney summer 1 month and 4 days into 2011…

Weather: Does anyone actually like this stifling heat? Temperatures in Sydney have been up to 41 degrees and doing even the most rudimentary things is stressful, inelegant and exhausting. It is scandalous that ANY un-air-conditioned trains are scheduled at peak hour. The fact that we had one cooler day that coincided with Opera in the Domain is a miracle for which I am highly appreciative. Carmen was wonderful!

Contemplating starting uni in late February- if this heat persists - fills me with horror. Perhaps all tute rooms and lecture theatres are air-conditioned these days. They weren’t in the early 80s. Motivation to go to my aquarobics classes is NOT a problem.

Surely the climate change warnings are being proved frighteningly right? Extreme weather in the form of floods and a cyclone has hit Queensland. The citizenry are copping a beating but why is EVERYTHING reported on and mulled over to the enth degree? A guy at work told me his cousin was cleaning up his property in regional Qld after Yasi hit when a Channel 9 crew poked a microphone under his nose. He told them to ‘fuck off’. What an excellent response to the voyeuristic, prurient hacks! If only others weren't so set on their 5 minutes of fame.

Fashion: What is it with those pants some young people are wearing with the crotch at approximately knee level? They look like they are wearing a nappy that is long overdue for changing. The maxi dress has made a comeback and for the most part looks cool and comfortable however spaghetti straps are not for everyone. It turns out that 'budgie smugglers' have not been completely eradicated (blame Tony Abbott); they still seem to be the swimwear of choice for some over 5os men. Sad, sad, sad.

The heat interferes with one's grooming

Reading: What a joy to read David Sedaris’s Holidays on Ice straight after Christmas! Every review I'd read said Sedaris makes you guffaw in public. They were so right. His account of working as an elf at Macys is hilarious. The day he and the other elven brethren realised 'satan' was an anagram of 'santa' and started urging the queuing customers to 'step this way to see satan' or reminded them to 'thank satan for the Baby Born he gave you last year' makes side splitting reading. I have just received his Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim from the US. Will try to defer opening it until I have finished the letters of the combined Mitford sisters which are a joy of another kind.

Socialising: At two gatherings I have been to my hosts have been gracious enough to train a fan on me out of doors. It was the only way I could cope with the heat. Sizzling one's steak and snags on a barbecue though is cruel and unusual punishment in 30 degrees plus! The cold collation comes into its own in summer. While lumps of protein have fried, tempers have flared. My book group has fractured. Characters have been analysed with little or no charity. Reproaches and ultimatums have been published online. It is all very wearying. In a heatwave where effort is required to do almost anything such bickering is a powerful disincentive to retain my membership. A few 5 Seeds ciders or a nice bottle of Screaming Pig or Sacred Stone with friends at the pub is however a very pleasant way to pass the time!

Telly: When it's been bad it's been very, very bad but when it is good it still gets me in. Enjoyment has been had with Robbie Coltrane in Murderland, everyone in Ashes to Ashes and with the return of Big Love. QI is almost always a hoot. Looking forward to the new Matt Lucas and David Walliams series Come Fly With Me.

This is blog lite. Hard to be profound when it is hot enough in here to boil a monkey's bum in here, your majesty!

Next post: surrogacy, cancer and conduct at work! Please follow.

Not fade away

The Death of St. Joseph, c. 1740, Piazzetta Giambattista. (St Joseph, Jesus's earthly dad, is the patron saint of peaceful death and of anti-communism)

What does it mean to 'make a good death'? Media reports state that Dame Joan Sutherland 'died peacefully in the early hours of (the) morning after suffering a long illness' and that she 'died at home with her husband, conductor Richard Bonynge, and son Adam at her side'. She was 83 and appeared to have achieved all her ambitions. She died at home with those she loved around her. She had been able to convey her wishes to her family about the kind of funeral she wanted and (not surprisingly) the music she would like at the funeral.

It would appear that Dame Joan's death met many (and may have met all) of the British Medical Association's Principles for a Good Death:

• To know when death is coming, and to understand what can be expected.
• To be able to retain control of what happens.
• To be afforded dignity and privacy.
• To have control over pain relief and other symptom control.
• To have choice and control over where death occurs (at home or elsewhere).
• To have access to information and expertise of whatever kind is necessary.
• To have access to any spiritual or emotional support required.
• To have access to hospice care in any location, not only in hospital.
• To have control over who is present and who shares the end.
• To be able to issue advance directives which ensure wishes are respected.
• To have time to say goodbye, and control over other aspects of timing.
• To be able to leave when it is time to go, and not to have life prolonged pointlessly.

How many deaths meet these criteria? None in our family has. It is just not possible that a hospital, however humane, will be sufficiently attuned to each individual patient's decline to alert family members in time for them to make it to the bedside for their final moments. I heard too late to be at my grandmother's bedside and got to my mother's about half an hour after getting the call with the news. To die at home may be a fond wish for many of us, however, dying at home alone and lying undiscovered for days as my Dad did is a godawful way to go.

Knowing when death is coming and understanding what to expect implies a level of acceptance. My mother and my mother in law both felt angry and cheated to know that death was imminent when they, at 65 and 72 respectively, still had a few things left to do and were not ready to leave their friends and families.

Then there are the suicides - my grandfather and my brother. Maximum control over the circumstances and means of their deaths, exercising the ultimate in pain and symptom control but completely bereft of dignity and support.

In his 1951 poem Do not go gentle into that good night Dylan Thomas urged his father/us:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan beseeches his dying father, and by extension all of us, to express our indignation at death and to leave an indelible impression of our vitality with those left behind. Not for him reclining in the arms of Jesus and Mary and fading away as St Joseph is depicted as doing.

As an atheist, the modern tendency to celebrate a life at a funeral rather than to seek comfort by proclaiming the existence of continuing meta existence in some ethereal hereafter obviously appeals to me. But the new ceremonial is by no means send off 'lite'. I was at funeral recently that was planned and conducted in difficult circumstances. It was another died at home unexpectedly and not discovered for some time situation. The police were involved, an autopsy performed and an inquest required. The person himself was reclusive, moody and obsessive and had had fallings out with several friends and family members. He was also a committed gardener and environmentalist, the compassionate rescuer of a stray dog and a custodian of our local history. In his eulogy the dead man's brother did not omit references to his some of his prickly qualities but his words and the reminiscences he invited other's to contribute all struck a note that was both tender and reverent to the man's memory and that truly celebrated the value of all life. To be one of that gathering was to feel a sense of community, of human connection and of wonder at what can be contained in this 'brief hour in which we strut and fret upon the stage and then (are) heard no more'.

The ideal of a 'good death' is a rarely realised. The good marking of a passing is eminently achievable.

LOL cats remind us of the reverence with which most aspects of life (and death) should be treated.

Footnote: Not only was Dylan Thomas anti death with good grace, he was, according to Socialism Today (the monthly newsletter of the Socialist Party of England & Wales) 'a thinker with a grounding in Marxism, and a self-proclaimed revolutionary socialist'! Perhaps Thomas is a candidate to become the patron (anti) saint of wealth redistribution and shamelessly shambolic death? Weren't his own last words: 'I've just had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that's the record'?

Expendable Women

The ultimiate eroticised felmale victim, Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks.

In the past few weeks I have finished reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and seen the Swedish film of the novel, watched the last two episodes of series 2 of Breaking Bad and seen In My Father's Den , a NZ/British co-production of 2004. Something that strikes me about all three of these dramas is the extent to which the vulnerability and potential or actual victimhood of women is key to their plots. Our book group voiced real concern about Mikael's and Lisbeth's decision to leave the series of sexual tortures and murders unreported at the conclusion of the first Millennium novel and I hear, from those who have read ahead, that this decision does not sit easily with the protagonists in the next instalment.

In the NZ movie, an adaptation of a 1970s novel, the character of Celia is at once the personification of freshness, hope and the will to transcend a stifling, brutal, closed culture and the fated victim, sacrificed to the tawdry, melodramatic conflicts that bedevil the family at the centre of the plot. The film is very dark but the most distressing element is undoubtedly the confirmation of Celia's death. I think the film maker, realising how completely devastating and demoralising this denouement was, played with the chronology so the last shot shows her walking confidently toward a new future.

The seductive magic of Breaking Bad has been that whatever new low Walter White has sunk to we have had a grudging or even a right on, sympathy for him. From the moment he stood and watched Jesse's girlfriend, Jane choke on her own vomit without raising a finger to help her because her death would cement Jesse's dependence on him, it has been a whole lot harder to like Walt. As the concept has gone on to Seasons 3 & 4 I can only wonder at what the writers, and Bryan Cranston, who is superlative in the role, will do to make me give a solitary damn about him from now on.

Even Lynda La Plante, queen of the telly crime thriller genre and creator of feminist icon, Jane Tennison, peppers her plots with plenty of tortured and mutilated women. While Wire in the Blood also originally the work of female crime writer, Val McDermid, at least distributes the sexual voyeurism around by showing Robson Greene strung up, the helpless, hapless victim of a sadist at least once.

I am not trying to be a political purist here. It is because women and girls are vulnerable and because rape and murder are crimes primarily perpetrated by men against less powerful victims that they become the stuff of crime drama. Steig Larsson's Millennium trilogy has been hailed for giving us a strong female heroine and the film adaptation of the first novel in no way exploits its subject matter. Our perspective is always Larsson's, Lisbeth's, Mikael's, Harriet's - we are never titillated by the situations or recounted incidents, even with the addition of film imagery. It will be interesting to see if , the entirely superfluous, Hollywood remake can tread such delicate path.

Caption Contest

This photo of the late La Stupenda was just crying out for a caption. Winning entry from Boolomo "Ai, yi, yi yiiiii, Get off my taiyil". Runner up, Wol with "Adam, if I've told you once, glassware goes on the top rack"

Is TV's Top Gear secretly a witn(l)ess protection program ?

According to Wikipedia the first name of Stieg Larsson, author of 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo', 'The Girl Who Palyed With Fire' and 'The Girl Who Kicked a Hornets' Nest'...' crime thriller trilogy, was originally Stig, the standard spelling, but in his early twenties, he changed it to Stieg to avoid confusion with his friend Stig Larsson, who went on to become a well-known author before he did.

Now isn't this an all too convenient story? I contend that it has been fabricated and put about to disguise the writer's actual career move in the years 2003-04 immediately before his purported death from a heart attack.

Larsson's anti right wing activism is well known. He and his partner Eva Gabrielsson were subject to frequent death threats and required police protection. Surely a chance to adopt new identities would be irresistible? And who would be more likely to offer this duo of democracy champions an opportunity to assume those new identities, to 'hide in plain sight' so to speak, than the internationally renowned humanitarian and playful host of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson?

My exhaustive research suggests it may very well be so.

Study these images:

Stig Secrets
Is it possible the crusading Swedish couple have been
morphed into the cast of Top Gear?

In the press at least two famous racing drivers - Perry McCarthy and Ben Collins - have been rumoured to take the role of The Stig in Top Gear. The Stig is a character whose face is never seen and whom Clarkson and his producer allegedly created and named for the nickname given to new boys at their boarding school. There have been law suits threatened when either of these drivers has attempted to take credit for portraying The Stig. But now, how likely is it that Clarkson and his producer, Andy Wilman, would have indulged in teasing and name calling at an English public school? Or that they would think that a silly fictional character from their childhood would even vaguely capture the imaginations of their viewers? Ockham's razor - my explanation is both simpler and more feasible!

While I am asserting that Stig Larsson IS The Stig I am not suggesting that James May and Eva Gabrielsson are actually the same person, just that it has been arranged so that Ms Gabrielsson can slip seamlessly into his spot on the show (thus earning an income and remaining near Larsson). What else can account for May retaining that humiliating and completely outre hairstyle?

The ultimate proof: in a world where celebrities - whatever the source of their fame - constantly rub shoulders on all sorts of occasions (e.g. Naomi Campbell, Nelson Mandela, Liberian President Charles Taylor and Mia Farrow all at the same dinner in 1997), The Stig and Stig Larsson, Eva Gabrielsson and James May have never been photographed together nor are there any recorded witness accounts of their ever being in the same place at the same time!

All the speculations about which professional racing car driver is behind the full face helmet on Top Gear are just (Swedish) red herrings... No wonder the Brits wanted Clarkson for PM, he is a genius!

Roselands We (I) Love You!

The Fenwick Estate, 1800 (Lakemba, now Roselands)

When it was built in 1964 Roselands was probably the first, and was certainly the largest, shopping centre in the southern hemisphere. What has since come to be termed a 'mall' was a new phenomenon back then, an attempt to create a 'city in the suburbs', enabling south west Sydney residents, by a short drive or bus ride, to reach a retail precinct that offered more delights than they could have previously imagined. The original Roselands contained hundreds of variety shops and was dominated by a Grace Brothers department store. It had the country's first food court (Papa Guiseppe had his genesis there), a ladies rest room - the Rendezous Room - where one could relax and shower and even iron a frock before seeing a film at the Roselands Cinema Beautiful or dining & dancing at The Viking licensed restaurant. And of course, Roselands had the famed Raindrop Fountain (below left) a series of nylon wires down which a mixture of water and glycerin trickled into a faux rock pool at its base!

When the Premier of NSW, Robin Askin, opened Roselands in late 1965 (a view of opening day appears below), he declared that Roselands was a ‘million dollar spread of merchandise… bring(ing) the city to the suburbs in a glittering way that must rival even the fabled Persian Bazaars’. He also referred to it as the essence of 'the motor age' - a quaint description to use just 4 years before we landed on the moon! But however you looked at it, Roselands was the stuff of dreams! A quaint blending of nostalgic and futuristic vision*. It had contemporary art, CCTV coverage of the childminding centre, illuminated signage (mermaids & pirate ships that lit up on the seafood outlet), held massive trade promotions and civic functions and offered live entertainment as well as having its unique boutique cinema.

People flocked to its opening - cars were bumper to bumper along the approach roads. Their interest was maintained and many developed an abiding loyalty and affection for the centre.


There were dozens of variations on it's signature tune the 'Roselands we love you/need you' jingle. The one I particularly recall from 1970s 2SM is - 'Roselands we love you - we think you're Christmas'. At about the same time Edna Everage (yet to be made a dame) went one step further and said she imagined heaven as 'one big Roselands'. Even if heaven was/is more delightful than Roselands in its heyday, Roselands could not have been much more heavenly! Apart from all the attractions I've mentioned, I remember the amazing animal sculptures for kiddies to climb on up in the Leopard Spot play area on the roof. My archive trawling reveals that the ground level boasted a wishing well/water wheel as well as the so 60s chunky copper the Rose Fountain (pictured below).

Roseland's funky Rose Fountain - the height of hip in south west Sydney in the era of Graham Kennedy, Charmian Clift and Bandstand.

Roselands had the most extensive and convenient parking lot a shopping centre had ever had (no customer need walk further than 100 metres from their vehicle to retail bliss) - it pioneered the colour coding of levels. And although praised for its compact 3 tier car park, Roselands had more than enough land around it for the additional parking lots that have appeared since the 1980s.

Roselands was built over (and named after) a 9 hole golf course (that was a sub-divided 18 whole golf course) owned by local mayor and business man Stanley Parry. Before that the area was known as Fenwick's Paddock recalling the Fenwick Estate (see top picture) established in the 1880s by a tug business operator. It's homestead Belmore House became the golf clubhouse and stood on the site until the 1940s. Before all that the region was the traditional land of the Daruk (or Darug) people.

Roselands was first refurbished only 5 years into its life when it was damaged by a spectacular fire allegedly caused by fireworks Grace Brothers had in stock for the Queen's Birthday weekend. It has since been remodelled and 'made over' out of recognition with each passing decade. Most of the innovative features, including the fountains and the cinema, that made it remarkable when new have now vanished. I think the remnants of the Viking Restaurant remained until the 1990s as I vaguely recall eating schnitzel there when my kids were little.

Ironically Roselands has gone from being the biggest mall in the country to being one of the most human in scale. The extensive spread of land around it (which contains several houses, a bowling club, a memorial rose garden and an aquatic centre) contrasts pleasantly with complexes like Miranda Fair and Chatswood which loom too large, dominate their locations and where queues of cars can build up at the entry points. Entry to Roselands is via one of three leisurely stretches of road and I have never known it to run out of parking spaces (even at Christmas time).

Back in the 60s, as a newly arrived pommy immigrant, Roselands enticed me with its scale and modernity. Now it has won me over anew with its proximity, manageable size, variety of goods and services (I went to Weight Watchers there and now I go to aquarobics at the Roselands pool) and its rambling setting that, with a little imagination, can still evoke Fenwicks Paddock (below) .


* chronicled in Michaela Perske's meticulous 1998 broadcast on the ABC radio program Hindsight, an MP2 of which the staff at the ABC very generously created and provided to me.


POSTSCRIPT:

Right is a lovely sharp focus picture (particularly for a mobile phone image) my daughter took of the ugly rusted sculptural evocation of a rose (?) that dominates the memorial garden in the grounds of Roselands adjacent to the pool and opposite the auto service centre. Circa 1960s I'd say.

It is in the centre of what must have been a pool of reflection but which is now an empty litter collector. Does anyone know anything about its history/origin? Will do a little more research.

The Dorriteers show their vesatility

Being a charming, worthy Mr Nice Guy is so boring - do you mind if I play a control
freak wife abuser? (Fine, Matt, see 'Criminal Justice' 2008)

As far as Matthew Macfadyen goes I seem to be a late convert - I found 'Spooks' portentous and totally lacking in credibility. I somehow missed him playing D'Arcy to Keira Kneightly's Elizabeth Bennett in the 2005 film version of 'Pride & Prejudice' (but I, like everyone else, was in thrall to Colin Firth then any way). The trailer for the 2004 NZ film 'In My Father's Den' looked good, and he looked good in it, but I haven't seen it (one for the Quick Flicks list). I thought he was a competent, pudgy, but hardly charismatic, straight man in 'Death At A Funeral' (2007).

'Little Dorrit' (see last post) was the breakthrough for me - Macfadyen brought to Arthur Clenham (so boring on the page) wonderful humanity, warmth and humour. I'd put him up there with James Stewart in 'Harvey' for making niceness* acceptable and admirable on screen.

'Little Dorrit' was full of fine performances and I was tantalised to see three of its stars, Macfadyen, Eddie Marsan and Maxine Peake, reunited in 'Criminal Justice' which the ABC has just run as a 2 part drama over the last two Sunday nights (but which was actually filmed to be shown as a 5 part series in the UK the same year as 'Little Dorrit', 2008).

I have enjoyed Eddie Marsan's work since I first saw him in as the hyper tense driving instructor with stalking tendencies and anger management problems in 'Happy Go Lucky'. His Pancks in 'Little Dorrit' was a wonderful blend of grotesquery and zeal. He outdoes them all for wearing his east end Jewish heritage like a badge, making Bob Hoskins seem like Ralph Richardson by comparison. In 'Criminal Justice' he was clerk of chambers in the practice where MacFadyen's character worked as a barrister and god father to his daughter. We saw him seemingly callous, 'I've go a nice rape for you in Manchester', but also touching in his obvious regard and love for his colleague and when recounting how his character's father came to London in WWII as part of the Kindertransport.

When I saw Maxine Peake as the enigmatic and manipulative Miss Wade in 'Little Dorritt', I thought 'I know that face', then I read her screen credits but nothing rang a bell until I saw she was Twinkle in Victoria Woods' Dinnerladies. Hard to believe it, but her recent performance surpasses even that sublime creation! John Preston in Britain's Daily Telegraph called her work in Criminal Justice 'a marvel' and so it was. To quote him further, the production suceeded in:

ratcheting up the tension with 'Hitchcockian precision' and (using) the weight of the character's dilemmas to drive the narrative forward

Can't omit reference to the performances delivered by Sophie Okonedo and Alice Sykes either - all the cast were just outstanding. Superlative telly!

* Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd in 'Harvey': Years ago my mother used to say to me, she`d say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me".