Living Rock Aquarium & Tailoring

The Campsie/Canterbury area where I live is highly multicultural and burgeons with the enterprise of immigrants. Earlwood shops cover every facet of the bridal industry: bombonerie, page boy & flower girl outfitters, florists, solariums, manicurists and businesses offering deluxe wedding photography and video packages. It also has two serious Greek Tavernas. Campsie has halal butchers and Turkish coffee and nut shops, Vietnamese bakeries and Fijian grocers as well as purveyors of saris, sushi, kebabs, Indian spices and DVDs and twee kids' fashions from Taiwan &Hong Kong.

Canterbury Road specialises in appealing to renovators and petrol heads with most automotive services offered, car dealerships inBMWs, minis and Japanese imports and three car seat cover businesses. It has lighting, plumbing and tile emporiums aplenty and shops selling both new and second hand furniture.Ausland Furniture is not, as I first thought, a store specialising in furniture for the deaf, but one that sells the flashy bedroom suites and gigantic ceramic leopards beloved of some of our middle eastern neighbours.

However, by far the most original experiment in commerce on Canterbury Road was Living Rock Aquarium and Tailoring where in a single visit you could be measured for a bespoke suit and pick up a couple of guppies for your lounge room tank. This combined business lasted for about two years until piscatorial supply nudged out budget couture and we now need to go a bit further to get a pair of pants altered. The tropical fish business has also relocated but the sign proudly announcing this bold entrepreneurial venture remains. See photo below (we have enhanced it a bit).

We are abject - we can no longer order a suit and top up our aquarium at Canterbury's one-stop supplier of tailoring services and tropical fish.

Post script: If you go looking for the original Living Rock Aquarium & Tailoring sign you will be disappointed. It was painted over a week after I posted this!

TOFU SNAFU

Tonight I made my first attempt to cook tofu. I decided my stir fry needed a bit of protein and that defrosting chicken fillets would take too long. We had a packet of tofu in the fridge from when one of the kids' vegetarian friends came to stay that I thought would be just the ticket. Don't be fooled into believing that tofu's bland appearance and taste infer simple preparation! A site called vegetarian.about.com provides a helpful video that stresses that before you do anything with tofu you need to squeeze all the moisture out of it. Their recommended method is putting it on paper towel with a board and two tins of tomatoes on top of it. However, in my case this method did not result in a neat rubbery block like the man in the video held to camera but more of a white squishy mess reminiscent of cottage cheese but gelatinous! I did use tins of soup, not tomatoes, so that may have been my mistake...

Appearance isn't everything so I soldiered on and attempted to fry fragments of the mess in the wok in sesame oil with ginger and garlic. The tofu did not go brown & firm like those perversely yummy wettex-like lumps you find in laksa. It stayed basically the same except that it was now covered in tiny specks of burnt ginger and garlic! Oh, well taste is the ultimate test so I tried some. Yuck! It was pretty much how I imagine mixing warm cooking oil with plain yoghurt would taste. It went in the compost and I defrosted the chicken!

I am completely open to critiques of my method and hints for future attempts but in the mean time the only tofu I will be eating will be cooked by experts in Asian restaurants!

If I could be you, and you could be me...

Above: Everyone's favourite doppelgangers (and such sound genetic science!) 'identical cousins' - Patty & Cathy.

Alter egos, parallel universes, out of body experiences - there has been something of a recurring theme in my telly viewing over the past two weeks.

Starting with 'Drop Dead Diva' in which the 'soul' (for want of a better word) of bimbo model Deb, gets a second chance to make something of her life in the body of lawyer Jane who is on the operating table having just taken a bullet for her adulterous boss. The twist is that while shallow Deb is a toned, blonde size 8 slinking about in a body hugging sheath of a dress, Jane is a fat, virtually make-up less supposed frump who, despite an addiction to self help books, is quite intelligent and gives a damn. I was ready to be un-amused but did find it mildly entertaining. I'd probably give it a second go if it didn't clash with 'Ashes to Ashes' (see below). The 'net is full of reports about its poor ratings and imminent axing so a third chance may be out of the question.

Now 'Ashes to Ashes'* is not 'Life on Mars' II. Except that's exactly what it is of course but sans John Sim and sans the wonderful poignancy and unease that gave the hairs of the back of my neck and my tear ducts a regular work out. This time the protagonist is female, DI Alex Drake, and she goes back in time to 1982. And who does she encounter but the still delightfully un-PC Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) and his team, now based in London. It isn't 'Life On Mars', but it does get you in, not least because of the sassy and sarcastic commentary Alex (Keeley Hawes) maintains on what she assumes is a shock-induced fantasy world and then there's all the lovingly fabricated 80s popular culture references. Think I'll stick with it - which, I've just read in the Herald Guide, means sticking with 2 series and 16 episodes!

'Wire In The Blood' has been transplanted too, but not just from north to south England, it's gone stateside, to Texas to be precise (shamelessly evoking Ry Cooder's music at every opportunity). The formula had started to get a bit tired in gritty old serial killer capital of the UK, if not the world, Bradfield, and is really just a bit too wheezy and predictably gratuitous now. Robson Green is milking his Tony Hill character to get every last drop out of the franchise but at least he is still Tony Hill and it isn't a ghastly US remake a la The Office, Kath & Kim etc (Wikipedia has a list of US remakes - it is telling how many say 'cancelled after 2 episodes' or 'pilot only made' - Kirstie Alley as the Vicar of Dibley, pulease!)

'Our' Toni Collette gives a virtuoso performance as Buck, Alice and T, multiple personalities (or manifestations of dissociative identity disorder as we've all learnt to correctly call the condition) of the eponymous heroine of 'United States of Tara'. I feared this Spielberg produced series might be smugly & self consciously 'out there' but in fact it achieves a directness and believability in its dialogue and situations rare in US TV productions. It reminds me of Spielberg's early films like 'Poltergeist' where family dynamics and conversations were so authentic. I believe this is down to Diablo Cody, the screen writer, whose work I haven't seen before but will look out for in future. The support cast is all excellent especially Keir Gilchrist as Tara's knowing, gay son Marshall. He gets my award for TV quote of the season: "I think I know my literary boners" asserting his interpretation of an E M Forster (I think) novel to his English teacher in class.

The silliest ever showcase for comedy actors to show off and explore alternate versions of themselves remains 'Red Dwarf'. I caught one of the 'Ace Rimmer' episodes last night where Chris Barrie gets to be marginally attractive (if also a bit of a 'smug git') as an Indiana Jones type hero for a few scenes. This classic sci-fi spoof has explored the concept of parallel universes and different realities in many episodes perhaps most strikingly in 'Parallel Universe' where the crew meet alternate versions of themselves: the analogues of Lister, Rimmer and Holly are female and they inevitably hook up with their counterparts, while the Cat is revolted by his alternate, a scruffy dog lacking all grace and finesse.

My absolute favourite out of the body, walk a mile in my (high heeled) shoes, psyche swapping, gender bending TV comedy drama though has to be 'Boy Meets Girl'. In this ITV series a man's and woman 's identities get transposed by a freak lightning strike. I just love it! Rachael Stirling deserves a BAFTA or three for a knockout performance as Veronica Burton, a yuppy fashion journalist suddenly 'inhabited' by morose, breakfast cereal addicted, conspiracy theorist, Danny Reed. Martin Freeman (already doing a lovely job of voicing Danny's thoughts trapped inside Veronica) will no doubt get to flex his acting muscles a bit more in coming episodes. I can't wait!

*Footnote: Having been an incredibly daggy teen I didn't know that 'Ashes to Ashes', like 'Life on Mars', takes its title (and its recurrent clown figure imagery) from a David Bowie song & video clip. I only learned as much on this week's 'Spicks & Specks'! A spooky Mulder coincidence or a triumph of cross promotion?

Buy polar bears

Just for a change, instead of talking about my pets, I’m going to talk about an important toy animal. Brumas is a toy polar bear cub I’ve had all my life. I’ve just dug out a picture of me (above) with him taken when I was about 3 (so around 1959). He must have been given to me at birth or soon after as Brumas toys would only have been on the market for a few years.

Created in 1949 to commemorate the birth, at Regents Park Zoo, London, of the first baby polar bear successfully reared in the UK, these toys were one of the earliest instances of a public institution merchandising its attractions. (Brumas holds the record for bringing the most visitors to the zoo in any one year of its existence, 3 million people!) Research reveals that Brumas shaped soaps were common Christmas presents in 1950 and that Brumas and Mum, Ivy featured on advertising posters for Fox's Glacier mints!

'Brumas' is a portmanteau word combining the names of two of her keepers, Bruce and Sam. The cub was initially misreported as male in the media. In those pre -feminist days even when the mistake was corrected (see Pathe News announcing her actual gender with a series of quaint anthropomorphic gags) no-one really took much notice, so my Brumas remained 'he'.

The zoo was a favourite haunt of mine so I may have been taken to see the real Brumas, I don't remember. It would have had to have been before I was 3 because by the time this photograph was taken the real Brumas was dead. She only lived until 1958.

My Brumas has endured partly because he has been loved and treasured and importantly because my husband was kind enough to have him restored at the Dolls' Hospital in Kingsgrove for my 40th birthday!

And the moral to that is...

So much for that pretentious rave about Candide/Voltaire. The refrain "You have been a fool and so have I" still applies - we had learned nothing until life imitated art! We just spent $1k plus to send our 14 yr old to a Department of Sport and Rec winter camp at which she lasted a mere 48 hours of the intended 7 days! Too depressing to relate the details here but the morals to be drawn from this experience are:

• never select an activity reactively - because you think you ought to or because all the other kids are doing it; ask is it right for my kid?
• don't dismiss your empathy/gut feeling about issues like homesickness, feeling they don't fit in etc; if you believe that's how you would have felt at 14 there's a good chance that's how your offspring will feel
• don't use your child's life to try to expiate/redress shortcomings in your own childhood
• don't clutter up school holidays with elaborate plans - just hanging out is all important
  
• often planting a veggie garden and visiting the local pool are more satisfying than expensive junkets.

So, neither pure, nor wise, nor good, and $1K the poorer, we'll tend our home and prune our trees, we'll make our newly established veggie garden grow, we'll relish each others' company and that of our little furry charges and do the best we know.

`Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess. `Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.' And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice's side as she spoke.

Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess was VERY ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice's shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.

`The game's going on rather better now,' she said, by way of keeping up the conversation a little.

`'Tis so,' said the Duchess: `and the moral of that is--"Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!"'

`Somebody said,' Alice whispered, `that it's done by everybody minding their own business!'

`Ah, well! It means much the same thing,' said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into Alice's shoulder as she added, `and the moral of THAT is--"Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves."'

`How fond she is of finding morals in things!' Alice thought to herself.

Chapter 9, Alice in Wonderland

Non sequiter: check out these wonderfully altered episodes of the classic anime series Yugioh. My son introduced me to them today. They are really funny!

On being human

Voltaire is my kind of guy. I am ashamed to admit I haven't read 'Candide' but it's adaptation as a musical by Leonard Bernstein is a delight!

Here's the finale, 'Make Our Garden Grow' which is the characters' conclusion, after all sorts of tragic, fantastical and testing ordeals, that all we really have is this flawed existence and we should try our best to be good and productive:

CANDIDE
You've been a fool
And so have I,
But come and be my wife.
And let us try,
Before we die,
To make some sense of life.
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
And make our garden grow.

CUNEGONDE
I thought the world
Was sugar cake
For so our master said.
But, now I'll teach
My hands to bake
Our loaf of daily bread.

CANDIDE AND CUNEGONDE
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
And make our garden grow.

(ensemble enters in gardening gear and a cow walks on)

CANDIDE, CUNEGONDE, MAXIMILLIAN, PAQUETTE, OLD LADY, DR. PANGLOSS
Let dreamers dream
What worlds they please
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers,
The fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.

ENSEMBLE (a cappella)
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow.
And make our garden grow!

To me this is not only Voltaire's damning of Dr Pangloss's foolish philosophy of optimism (that we live in 'the best of all possible worlds') but an antidote to religion's promise of a sublime hereafter and to man-made hierarchies of worth.

A bit of on-line research and I've found out that Voltaire was not an atheist but there's no doubt that his championing of reason and civil rights and his rejection of nationalism and a corrupt church and aristocracy make him a founder member of the secular humanist team that I bat for.

And on the subject of being human, with all the tedium, pain and ecstasy the condition implies, check out 'Being Human' - refreshing, clever and stylish television with a level of enlightenment I think Voltaire would condone. It's writer, Toby Whithouse, has done for my relationship with werewolves and vampires what Annie Proulx did vis a vis cowboys!

Mrs Slocombe’s pussy - more than just 9 lives!

Vale Mollie Sugden who left us at the respectable age of 86 last week. Hearing about it on the radio news I commented on her passing and my daughter asked ‘how come everyone is dying?’ An impression she had gained from the reported deaths of Farah, Michael, Karl Malden and Mollie within a few short days more than from the 140 or so casualties in rioting Xinjiang which have received rather less coverage.

I don’t know how many members of the show business world pass on in a typical week but it does seem like it’s been a bit of a bonanza for the eulogy writers lately! Of course these 4 celebs are not all from the deep end of the talent pool. It seems universally acknowledged that MJ was the ‘King’ of Pop and that Mr Malden put a few high quality performances on celluloid before paddling in the shallows with American Express and The Streets of San Francisco. Ms Fawcett seems to have been considered a ‘nice person’ who endured a lot of suffering with cancer but I can’t actually recall ever seeing her do any (good) acting.

Now, Mollie Sugden is a different phenomenon altogether. Graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama she may have been, but her cult status rested firmly and solely on her creation of Mrs Slocombe in "Are You Being Served?"

This joyously contrived, formulaic, smutty tour de force of stock characters enjoyed an initial seven year run and then countless re-runs and brought John Inman and Mollie Sugden adulation of the sort today enjoyed by the Little Britain artistes. Which is fitting as they further immortalised Mollie in a series of sketches where David Walliams (in drag) insists loudly in public on every possible occasion that she was Mollie Sugden’s bridesmaid. I believe there is an episode in which Mollie herself contradicts this. I will have to Google it.

Mrs Slocombe’s haughty demeanour, frequently fraying to expose some North Country vulgarity, her hair, bigger and more wisteria coloured than Dame Edna’s at the time, and her undying solicitousness for her ‘pussy’ were all hallmarks of the ultimate pantomime dame. But, as a real woman, rejoicing in projecting a self parodying persona, she won genuine affection from audiences.

Her ‘pussy’ will of course remain immortal – it is already enshrined in the title of Stuart Jeffries’ excellent book of reminiscences about British telly between the 60s and the 90s. Its plight, whether ‘frozen solid’, ‘soaking wet’ or ‘tearing at the walls’ because she is late home, will be referred to for years to come. See http://tvblips.dailyradar.com/video/mrs_slocombe_s_pussy/ for a compilation.