Porridge, possums, politicians and solo parenting

 First published in Column 8 on the 11^th August, 1993

 Having negotiated the twisting sands of a local newspaper last week, I decided to go on to the big time – a metropolitan daily from the CER. This distraction was necessary as my wife has gone to England for five weeks, leaving me a solo parent.

I discovered there’s a square in Sydney lumbered with a motormouth cognomen. (‘Where do you live?’ ‘Sesquicentenary Square.’) I discovered that if everybody in Australia obeyed the law, the treasury coffers would be depleted. Let’s not tell Ruth. With our parlous state of economy she’ll make it compulsory to be obedient.

Someone in Britain is encouraging us to be green even after we’re dead. The trees will grow better if we’re buried beside them and cleanly turn ourselves into mulch.

On this basis, trees in the year 2126 will do very well. In 2126  (when I’ll be shifting into my 80s) a comet named Swift-Tuttle will loosen a barrage of space debris and drop it on the Earth. The meteors will be the size of city blocks and will wipe out entire countries – if they don’t fall in the ocean.

To give us a foretaste, Swift-Tuttle will be doing a mini-version of its trip next Saturday, the 14^th. Meteorites on that day will only be the size of peas and grapefruit. (Meteors always seem to come in city block, pea and grapefruit sizes; you never hear of banana, kiwifruit or paddock.)

I know last week I said No Politicians, but since this one’s Australian we can make an exception. The Victorian Premier, who is apparently very popular, appears on the front of a magazine (without his permission) apparently very naked.

His head was in the picture all right, but the body belonged to an unidentified person. The magazine’s intention was to prove that the eye can be deceived. The Premier’s eye was not deceived, and he threatened to sue.

The editor, with dubious logic, said he had no case. The Premier, she said, wasn’t held up to ridicule (!), wasn’t defamed (!), and nothing had been done to detract from his reputation (!!!). Her eye wasn’t deceived, just her brain.

As if to keep up with us, the Australians have gone in for some cultural sensitivity. Only this time it may upset the sensitivity of 51% of the population.

In an Aboriginal art exhibition, one room has been genderly segregated: they call it the men’s room. In this area, culturally sensitive paintings are on display. I understand their point, but could male pakeha painters get away with it?

Here’s an item of interest. Up until the last century the Welsh donned clean white stockings and went up to a warm dry room (usually the bedroom above the kitchen) where they trampled and stomped upon porridge oats laid in an oak chest, aiming to compress them. (The oats, not the stockings.)

No peculiar custom here: merely an attempt to keep the mites out. Try this at home if you’re heavily into porridge.

And talking of keeping things out, I finally found out how, if I was an Aussie, I could keep the possums out of the roof – and from the eating the roses. Unfortunately the rose-protecting method seems likely to keep humans away from the roses as well.

Take a number of woollen dags, the scungy bits that don’t make good knitting, and hang them on the rose bushes. Possums object to having one of their favourite foods so spiced, and keep away.

And how do you keep possums out of the roof? You set up a light in the attic, and leave it on for two or three nights. The poor possums soon suffer from insomnia, and go away in a dozy huff. At that point you nail up the gaps.

Not forgetting to turn the light off first.

And talking about turning off the lights, you will suffer from poor sleep hygiene (disturbed nights) if you go to bed at erratic times, drink coffee beforehand, read, or watch television in bed.

Or allow your wife to go gallivanting.

 

 

CER: I think by this I meant: The Australia–New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement, commonly known as Closer Economic Relations (CER).

I was plainly confused when I wrote that I was only going to be in my 80s in 2126 – I should have said I’d be in my 180s (!) Furthermore, telling people the oddly named Swift-Tuttle was coming a week later, in 1992, seems to contradict Wikipedia’s hindsight version of the facts.

The photo of Jeff Kennett appeared just three years after Photoshop came on the market. The magazinewas the Good Weekend Magazine, July 31, 1993.

Incidentally my wife, thirty years or more since this was written, still goes to bed at erratic (usually late) hours, drinks coffee in the evenings, watches television late at night (but not in bed). Her sleep hygiene isn’t much impaired by any of this…