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November 08 A good time was had by allOr so it seemed, anyway. Last night I put on a champagne, pizza and memories do for the 6 "kids" (all of whom are now in their 20s or 30s) plus those who helped bring them up plus current partners. So a small family do ended up with 17 people present around a long set of tables -- rather Italian in fact. But we have always had a lot of family occasions like that. The kids probably don't know it but in some ways they had a typical Italian upbringing -- though none of us are in fact Italian. I had 10 pizzas delivered from the local Pizza Hut so all I had to do was make sure that I had plenty of my favourite Seaview champagne in the fridge. Jeff came over the day before to mow the lawn, set up the party flares etc. And the ladies brought desserts along, including some yummy trifle. The theme of the evening was for everybody to tell stories about the funny bits they remembered from the 6 respective childhoods -- with Paul and myself taking the lead. I hope the partners present found it at least interesting and maybe enlightening. Those who were present at the time in which the stories were set certainly enjoyed it all. I was sitting opposite Lady Von for most of the evening and I could see that she enjoyed it from beginning to end. I think Timmy really enjoyed it too -- seeing he was in a lot of the stories concerned. I had lots of jokes and silly games with the kids when they were little but my "Two cents for blood" game was probably the funniest and Tim was usually the central character in that game, though he took it very seriously at the time. Ken came well prepared with a small collection of things that the kids had written when they were young -- including a love-letter from Davey to Vonnie that praised her to the skies. I had thought that Ken was too unsentimental to keep such things but I obviously misjudged him. Ken really liked the idea of a family-tales night and several other people said to me what a good idea it was too. We had the do in my recently returfed backyard with 6 party flares for illumination. Fortunately, the rain held off. Paul and his Susan seemed to be taking a lot of video shots so some of the stories should now be preserved indefinitely. I think one of the reasons why Paul and I get on so well is that we are both great sentimentalists. We appreciate the past. That also of course makes us both conservative politically. I forgot some of the stories I should have told and others probably did too so I am thinking about having another such night some time in the new year in which everybody will be encouraged to make notes in advance of things that they remember. There might even be some "favourite" stories that people like hearing again. November 03 A complex worldAll conservatives agree that the world is a complex place that is very resistant to summarization. But sometimes it is also complex enough to be amusing. A couple of weeks ago I arranged for my son Joe and me to have dinner together so I could point out to him a few things he should know about England -- on the safe assumption that he will go there someday. I left him to choose the restaurant but he is (like me) very pro-Asian so he drove us out to Sunnybank Hills, which is almost entirely inhabited by people with straight and very black hair, good skin, patient attitudes and narrow eyes. It was almost like being in Asia. We were definitely the odd ones out. Joe wanted to get us into a very good Japanese restaurant that he knows but there was a long queue of the said black-haired people waiting to get in to it so we went to a nearby Korean restaurant instead - where the food was of course first class. So the mildly amusing thing is that we discussed England over Korean food amid East Asians! No roast beef or spotted dick in sight! I did of course mention to Joe the importance of real ale and the inadvisability of shell-suits! I may even have mentioned the significance of Watford to him. October 28 An unusually good morningIn my view I have a generally pleasant and easy life but every now and again, one day is better than most and today is such a day. I woke up a bit before nine after a good night's sleep and sat down to do the the day's updates on my Immigration Watch blog -- which is my custom for that time of the day. Instead of having to look for interesting news in that field, however, I found two press releases in my inbox which I liked so I posted them without further ado. I then went in to the long-departed Mr Stone's Corner for a haircut from my usual barber. I was in the chair within 10 minutes of arriving and had a good chat with the barber while he was civilizing my appearance. I have been going to him for years now so I was in familiar teritory, which I like. I then went to the Cafe down the road for a bacon and egg breakfast as they always do a good one. While I was sitting there waiting for it to arrive, my brother Christopher walked past. I waved and he came and sat down for a chat. We talked a bit about the latest follies of the global Warmists and about family matters too, of course. I am pretty conservative but Chris could be described as "so far right he is almost out of sight". He is a very pleasant person, however, with lots of friends. I was pleased to hear that his business is doing well, despite the economic doldrums. I then went over the road to see Paul Brandon, the local bootmaker, a lovely man. I had a very small clock that needed new batteries and he does clock and watch batteries. He showed me that the clock in fact took AAA batteries so did not need his services. He was of course perfectly pleasant about it. I then took a stroll through a nearby bookstore and saw a book that would be good for a preschooler. I bought it to give to Suzy's baby at some future time. When I got home the council roadgang were still fixing up the guttering and footpath in my street and the foreman came over to check how their work had affected my ability to get my big Humber in and out of my garage. It was courteous of him to ask. I assured him that access was now better than ever and he told me that they would bring over some special concrete tomorrow to fix up a small part of my driveway that adjoined the work in the street. It was an appreciated courtesy. So after that start, I am looking forward to the rest of the day. October 06 Those Chinese ladies strike againThe Han make a big impression wherever they go and the Chinese ladies are certainly doing their bit. In both Australia and the USA they tend to snap up Caucasian men (particularly the taller ones) and thus leave the Caucasian women rather high and dry. The latest example in my life of that was last Sunday, when Davey and Olivia had a combined engagement-party/baby shower. Olivia is pregant and both parents are happy about it. Olivia is a 3rd year psych student and Davey is a spare parts interpreter. Davey and Joe were great mates during their childhoods but are not so close these days as Joe's great patience has led him into academe whereas Davey's tendency to lack of patience has led him away from such pursuits. But both have felt the Asian influence. Joey's Sam is half Han and Olivia is wholly so. Her father is a restaurateur, unsurprisingly. And the party included a LOT of Olivia's friends and relatives: Stylish Chinese ladies to a woman, all very fashionably dressed. And that means sexy these days. So I had to be cautious where I looked. I did not talk to any of them but I admired them from afar. As usual at family gatherings, I spent most of my time talking to 3 people: Joe, Paul and Ken. This time I spent quite a lot of time talking to Joe. As we are both academics, we mostly discussed academic matters. It seems that, like me, Joe is fast at doing academic things. At that rate the prospects for him getting lots of publications are good. Like father, like son. I don't think anybody in the family takes it amiss when I don't talk to them a lot, though. They know me of old and would probably be amazed if I was any different. I help various family members out financially from time to time and in all of human history putting your money where your mouth is has always been a pretty good proof of goodwill. Paul and Suzy have both been slimming in recent months and I think Paul has overdone it a bit. He was as skinny as a rake on Sunday. Still, he has bad bones so taking the weight off them is probably a very good move. I tried to talk Paul's Suzy out of taking any more weight off. She always looks good regardless. We had the do at Oxley's on the river and, somewhat to my surprise, the food was very good. Their shish kebabs were outstanding. Suzy Rohde nee Johnson (Lady fun) was there looking very pregnant and she has sent me a lot of good pics from the occasion so I am putting up some below: The happy couple  The 3 brothers  Jenny and Nanna  The gorgeous Von was there with her very smart but very quiet Dutchman 
September 20 Fathers' day(Originally posted on 6th) I always look forward to Fathers' day as Jenny always gives me a very nice lunch on that day. And she did again today, with lots of fresh bread rolls, various cheeses, cold meats, avocado etc. It was a little sad today, however. Joe's girlfriend Sam gets upset on Fathers' day because it brings to mind her own late father, whom she greatly misses. So Joe arrived a little late after spending some time with her to comfort her. She was invited to come to the do at Jenny's place but was too upset to come. So there were just Jenny and I, Anne, Nanna and Joe present. We had the do on Jenny's back deck, which is a very pleasant environment. August 19 A Grumble about GlyndebourneGlyndebourne is of course the pinnacle of the opera experience in England and I myself went down to Glyndebourne once -- in 1977 accompanied by the beauteous Susan Brooks and wearing a suit kindly lent to me by the quietly affable Hyman Katz of Baker st. I go to opera/ballet for the music, however. Opera libretti are usually absurd and I cheerfully accept that. Anne and I have recently finished watching the three DVDs of Giulio Cesare which she bought at Glynebourne while she was there recently. Handel's music is of course superb and the singers and orchestra did full justice to it. But the staging was somewhere between absurd and obnoxious. I suppose it was inevitable but Glynedbourne has fallen victim to the cancerous modern conceit that the producer of a show has every liberty to show his HIS creativity in how he presents the play/opera. And he usually shows how creative he is NOT. The clot concerned in this case seemed to think that having airships and steamships in the background of an opera set in ancient Egypt was somehow clever -- not to mention the revolvers, rifles, sunglasses, cocktail dresses and pith helmets. Why is deliberate anachronism clever? I have no idea. And particularly in Act 3 a lot of the arias were sung with the actors lying on the ground. How is that for moronic choreography? Most of the live audience would have been able to see nothing at such times. Glyndebourne is of course known for Mozart performances and Mozart operas are mostly in the opera buffa genre. And such operas can perfectly well be staged in modern settings. I think Glyndebourne should either stick to Mozart or avoid anachronisms. That does not seem to me to be a particularly hard choice. As for me, I now play the DVDs with the video off. The staging is just a distraction from Handel's marvellous music. And Cleopatra's long triumphant aria towards the end of Act 3 is particularly superb (Track 19 if you have the DVD). July 31 A small bouquet for the wallopersThere are a lot of goons and drongoes in the Queensland police "service" but there are some decent people too Last night I was pulled up for a breath test and the lady cop with the test kit took one look at me, smiled, said "I think you're OK", and waved me through without testing. I was stone cold sober, neatly dressed and had Anne with me so I suppose we just looked like an elderly couple out for the night -- which we were. So the lady cop got it right and behaved to a higher standard than duty required. I congratulate her. A couple of months ago another lady cop stopped and helped me change a tyre, as I was in fact having a spot of bother with it. And she was most pleasant too. If only all police were of that quality! July 26 A birthday and a graduationJoe recently had a birthday and not long after graduated from the University of Queensland with First Class Honours in Mathematics. I could not be more pleased. Having a son who is tall, good-looking, nice natured and brilliant is hard to beat! And his only artificial euphoriant is computer games. Though I believe he does have a weakness for iced coffee also. At his request, his birthday dinner was low key, with just myself, Jenny, Nanna, Anne, Joe himself and his old friend from school -- Andy -- invited. Jenny managed to seat us all in her living room and cooked us egg-rolled pork with rice and Kim Chee -- a dish of Korean origin which is a great favourite in the family. Samantha had an open-book exam to do that night so could not come. Andy is a most personable young man. He is Han Chinese and was dux of the school when Joe was there. I hear that he is quite tough, too, which rather surprised me. I didn't associate that with charm and politeness. After dinner more family members were invited over for the cutting of the cake and coffee afterwards: Suzy, Paul and Von with respective partners. The graduation ceremony was for the Science Faculty only and about half the graduands would have been of Han origin. The Arts faculty graduation would be where you would see a majority of Anglo-Celts. When Joe stepped forward to be handed his degree, it was something of a notable break. After a parade of small Chinese, there was this 6' tall blond getting a degree! There were apparently quite a few bright sparks in the Maths Dept., as you might expect. One of Joe's fellow students there was awarded student of the year for the entire faculty! So Joe has been keeping august company. He has already started work on his Ph.D. programme. We had a VERY small celebratory dinner for him on the night of his graduation: Joe, Sam, Jenny, Anne and myself. There was a special reason for keeping that dinner small. I opened a 16-year-old bottle of Grange to have with dinner -- at a cost of $600 for one 26 oz. bottle. I suppose that there might have been better uses for $600 but how often does one have a son graduate with First Class Honours in Mathematics? Jenny made us some excellent steak with Bearnaise sauce to go with the wine. Grange goes best with French cuisine. Joe tells me that academic publications in mathematics are dominated by the Han, regardless of which country they may be writing from. The most recent recipients of the Fields medal included Terry Tao, an Australian-born Chinese, partly for work in PDEs, which is Joe's interest. And journals actually published in China are important sources of advancement in mathematical thinking too, apparently. With Chinese friends, a Chinese supervisor and a half-Chinese girlfriend, however, Joe is already in the right company for that. But he is seriously thinking of learning Mandarin as a long-term project. In the meantime, his very pleasant Chinese supervisor will be there to alert him to any developments in Chinese journals that he may need to know about. July 18 A wedding and a birthday
My gorgeous stepdaughter Suzie was married a little while ago but I have just got hold of a DVD of wedding pictures with n pictures on it. Joe has done a fair bit of statistics so he will understand my usage of "n". So how does one choose from n pictures? Arbitrarily. I reproduce just two above. The old geezer lurking under the panama is I and below that is a picture of the happy couple. See my blog note of Feb 9th for more details This week was my birthday week. Jill invited Anne and I over for lunch on Sunday 12th. and produced an excellent roast dinner. True to my British heritage, I always appreciate a roast. The dessert was Pavolva, however, a great Australian specialty and favourite. On Wednesday Anne came over and cooked me some of my favourite foods -- including cabbage. Liking cabbage is about as humble a taste as one can have but Anne does it very well. And she brought over a big dish of apple crumble, another of my favourites. I am afraid that there was very little left in that dish by the time I got to bed. As a birthday present, Anne gave me a 3 DVD set of Handel's Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar) which recorded a live Glyndebourne performance and which she had bought at the Glyndebourne shop while she was there. I had already emailed her about how wonderful the Glyndebourne performance of that opera was so I was delighted to have it. It is great to hear the richly deserved applause after the spectacular bits -- such as the long aria towards the end of Act 3. I have so far managed only to listen to it (several times). Seeing it as well as hearing it could well be a bit overwhelming for me. Joe was also over on Wednesday to work on a project we are doing. I have converted my old Windows computer back to a DOS computer, with the aim of making it a museum for the old DOS software -- particularly games -- that we used to play around with back in the pre-Windows era. I had forgotten a lot about how to set up a DOS machine but I finally got everything running. And yesterday, Friday, Jenny made the "kids" (now all in their 30s) and I (plus relevant partners) that prince of Indian dishes: A Dhansak -- complete with Parsee pillau, green chutney and an excellent raita. It was a great party, with the kids and I swapping memories of the days when I was helping to bring them up. There was much hilarity between us back then and it was probably nearly as hilarious remembering it all. I had completely forgotten some of the jokes I played on them back then but they remembered heaps! July 17 A good toonThe cartoon below sums up one reason why I usually avoid fancy restaurants and eat ethnic instead. I like waiters just to take my order promptly and answer questions if asked. Waiters who want to talk and talk just give me the pip. I imagine that chatty waiters suit some people but they don't suit me. I would much rather talk to the person I came there with. 
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