Preparing for spring

Spike's tools on a sunny day for planting garlic & tulip bulbs then hacking down a dead bush

Avengers: Age of Ultron - summed up in a selfie

#SummedUpInASelfie. Pic by Spike

The excellent BBC Radio Five's film review programme with Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode invited followers of its Twitter feed @wittertainment to sum up Avengers: Age of Ultron in a selfie without words.  I asked Spike to take the photo here.  I know it's not a selfie and it may be a bit harsh but I was terrifically bored by episode two of the Avengers' tale.  And the selfie made me smile. Perhaps I am easily amused.

The Finkler Question

What is it makes a novel a Booker-prize winning novel?  I've just finished reading The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson and I'm not sure I could tell you why the folk who judged it to be a winner reached their conclusion.  (Later I shall read the other finalists from 2010 to see if there's any answer there.)

First impressions?

I had to start twice - at least.  It was not easy to get beyond the first few pages because the central character, Julian Treslove, struck me as an irritating, narcissistic pain in the arse; a misanthrope.  I asked myself, why would I want to spend more time with such a man?  I don't know that I answered my own question.  But does the immediacy of my reaction against the character indicate I was in the presence of great writing; a character so well constructed I took against him within three pages?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

I did stick with the novel in the end and I'm glad I did, although I'm pretty sure I didn't like it.  Do you have to like a book to read it through?  Clearly not.  Would I recommend the novel to anyone to read?  I'm not sure that I would.  In fact I'm pretty sure I would not although I admire Howard Jacobson very much - mostly as a result of watching his cultural criticism on television and reading his columns in The Independent.

On the plus side there is the forceful, energetic voice of the author which is never far from the surface of the page.  There are times when one can almost hear Howard Jacobson declaiming in the distinctive, insistent, impatient tone his public persona offers up in interviews, polemics, documentaries.  Coming from a man as witty, perceptive and intelligent as HJ that voice is no bad thing.  The novel is, as you might expect, remarkably clever, just like its author.  It is laugh out loud in places, which is a real achievement in any novel but that wit and humour and well-placed sense of comic timing about the absurd contradictions of the human condition is built upon a melancholic foundation of inevitable loss and ultimately death - loss of youth, loss of love, loss of faith, loss of identity, place, purpose and self.  It asks searching questions about the place of Jewish people in human history, the modern world and the unknown future offering no firm answers (at times it feels as if the author is arguing on the page with his own convictions and self-doubt).  The novel seems to veer towards the fatalistic inevitability of a recurring doom in history in which Jewish people and non-Jews misunderstand Judaism, Jewish people and the relationships with non-Jewish cultures that ensue.  The case against anti-Semitism is powerfully made. Its history, current (and resurgent) manifestations and consequences are worthy subjects for any writer to touch upon.

You can tell there's a 'but' on the way, can't you?

I felt throughout as if the author was shouting at me.  Proclaim it Howard long enough and loud enough and the mere reader will eventually understand. Nothing in this world was ever quiet, contemplative, self-reflective even when we were told that a moment was supposed to be one, two or all three of those.

And I found it difficult - ever - to suspend disbelief.  I was never persuaded that Julian Treslove and Samuel Finkler were real people in a successfully realised fictional world (the contrasting idea of  "imaginary gardens with real toads in them" from Marianne Moore came to mind).  The character of Libor seemed real to me - fondly drawn with fewer words than the archetypes / caricatures that were the two other principals.  All the women are problematic - barely realised at all and - sadly - deployed most of the time as devices to tell us something about one or more of the men rather than being fully formed fictional beings in their own rights.  Does Howard Jacobson have a female character problem?  Evidence for: it's a woman who mugs Julian; Julian's past partners are essentially breeders identified solely as the mothers of his two very thinly painted sons; all women in Sam's life are objectified as not much more than possible sexual partners, his own dead wife is an adulterous, disappointed and vindictive woman.  Evidence aganst: there's Hephzibah who arrives late in the piece but may be the most complete female character and Malkie, the dead wife of Libor, the most sympathetically portrayed but, you know, irrevocably dead.

The UK Daily Telegraph called it an "exuberant comedy of Jewishness".  The Guardian review proclaimed "there's so much that is first rate in the manner of Jacobson's delivery that I could write all day on his deployment of language without once mentioning what the book is about."  Elsewhere, The New York Times is less impressed and The New Yorker positively hostile.

Me?  I may be that worst of things.  Neither here nor there.  I've finished reading it and I'm moving on. I suspect never to return.

It seemed like a good idea at the time

Worked through the night.  I should have left that way of being back there in my student days when I was young, lacked wisdom and could rely on black coffee to see me through.

Now ... I am just a wrecked, old hulk waiting for dawn to come and birds to sing.  So what if my work is further forward?  A week from now no one will care. Not even me.

The artist formerly known as Cat Stevens.  He'll see me through.

The season of mist and mellow fruitfulness ... Keats tells us.

Choosing is a serious business: Pic by Spike

After a couple of cold, rainy days, just to make the point that summer is long gone, the sun has returned.  As soon as it did I was out there, in the garden, soaking-in the autumnal glow, basking in it like a retired lumberjack in my stylish -  euphemism for cheap - flannelet shirt. Spike captured the moment on camera - somewhat surreptitiously I may say - as I searched the Diggers Club catalogue (The Fruit Edition) which arrived in today's post, to identify the best buys of the season.  

As if I would know the first thing about about which plants to buy.  Not that I'd let a small matter such as absence of expertise stop me.  

My suggestions - which the resident gardener may accept or reject - were as follows:

• a Macadamia nut bush, which I concede is a bit speculative.  It may not like a frosty Canberra morning but if it survives there's the worry it could grow to 3 metres high by 3 metres wide.  I look forward to the day I suggest to Spike she harvests nuts from the top of that bush;
• a blueberry bush - superfood apparently - but not cheap so there's a bargain (if you discount all the hours of labour the gardener will need to put in);
• three types of raspberry - a favourite of the gardener - so I'm trying to curry favour there;
• a loganberry - because one can;
• a marionberry - because they look delicious in the photograph;
• broad bean seeds - because breadth is never a failing;
• spring onion seeds - because you never know when you'll need a spring onion; and 
• kohlrabi seeds - "a cool climate fast growing vegetable that tastes like cabbage but grows like turnip" apparently.  Now there's a root vegetable I never knew existed until today.

ceci n'est pas un navet ...

When the plants arrive - and throughout the growing season - I shall, no doubt, offer the layman's advice.  And the resident gardener,I suspect, may choose to ignore me.

Only in The Guardian

A headline in yesterday's Guardian caught my attention ... as it understandably might.

Uncovering the face value of beards

Written by Fanny Arlandis, the piece, which you can read here, began with this paragraph:

A beard has both social and political meanings. “A powerful distinguishing mark, the appearance of facial hair plays a key role in the process of asserting or stigmatising identity,” says ethnologist Christian Bromberger. “Being hairless and clean-shaven, or not, is far from neutral,” says Stéphane Héas, a sociologist at Rennes 2 University. “One’s appearance impacts directly on the way others judge us.”

I was tickled, read on then - a bit tongue in cheek - left the following comment below the line:

Scottish man with beard

Forty years of me having a beard may be explained by this ...

“The patriarchal, male-dominant nature of western society in the 19th and 20th century almost certainly explains the appeal of sophisticated beards and moustaches,” Héas says. “Policymakers made their presence felt through their discourse and facial hair.”

Or ...

I do not like shaving.

Answers on a postacard to ... any French deconstructionist you may still be able to find anywhere on the planet. No ... seriously ... I'm quite fond of Derrida, love Barthes; really. But guys. It's a beard.

After a good night's sleep I awoke (on what was still 6 April in the northern hemisphere) to discover over my breakfast reading of The Guardian that my smart-arse comment had provoked a response, seemingly less tongue in cheek than my own from a fellow Guardianista, one Andrew the Gaunt, who wrote as follows:

I think you missed the point. Sociology does not care about individual cases, but is concerned about trends. Why did men all shave during the 18e century, but not at all during the 19? Why was it reserved to marginalised groups in the 60s and now is popular amon the youngs? You can hardly argue that it's mere coincidence, suddenly people hate shaving, and yet all like it back in the same time.

Sociology tries to explain this, why do we behave the way we do and what led us into behaving that way...

I could not resist a further riposte, I'm afraid, which I posted today. 

I'm reasonably sure I didn't miss the point, Andrew. 

I am not as sure, however, that what may or may not be a sociological trend warrants this article in the Guardian at this time because there are already very strong indicators that the most recent trend for facial hair peaked some time ago and in our Capitalist, post-industrial societies the resurgence of the clean-shaven metrosexual, now setting up porridge cafes, social media consultancy services and home-delivered vegan frozen dinners, is already apparent. The beard thing is already a bit like Hush Puppy slip-on shoes. SO last cultural wave.

As for an old geezer like me ... I'm keeping the beard because someone has to hold on to pre-Capitalist fundamental principles. Don't shave. It only accelerates the commodification of one's double chin.

You see, I thought I was simply having a laugh.  Clearly I made a mistake.  

Are sociologists entirely bereft of humour?

The Young Victoria

We watched a movie I've wanted to watch for a few years but missed until this evening: The Young Victoria, directed by Jean-Marc Vallee, starring Emily Blunt as the Queen and Rupert Friend as Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.  They were both excellent at the top of a pretty impressive cast all round (even allowing for the slightly paradoxical fact that the then 26 year Ms Blunt plays the 18 year old Princess Victoria of Kent who becomes Monarch alongside 36 year old Paul Bettany playing the 59 year old Lord Melbourne.  Go figure ... but I nitpick)

The impeccable Jim Broadbent

I'm no great fan of Royalty nor of chocolate box - not to say soap opera - reinventions of history ... and yet.  I quite enjoyed this superior farrago of an ahistorical fiction.  The palace gardens, interiors and facades looked sumptuous, elegant and imposing although not, I think, Buck House.  The frocks were lovely.  The gentlemen's suits looked appropriately rigid and the uniforms quite dashing.  And the acting was engaging which allowed the willing (and necessary) suspension of disbelief in a script that was entirely what you would expect from the man who has given us Gosford Park (which I liked very much despite its established-order predilections) as well as Downton Abbey (which I've never seen) and would go on to be 'elevated' (I believe they say) to the position of Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, a Tory Life Peer (quelle surprise).

One is required to take the ways the script is - at best - 'economical with the actualite' with a pinch or two of salt.  Did Victoria and Albert really discuss the game of thrones that was 19th Century Europe over a symbolically breathless game of chess (not unlike but more restrained than Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in the original of The Thomas Crown Affair)?  And we know, do we not, that Prince Alfred never took a bullet for his Royal Mrs at any time (let alone in the manner of Kevin Costner protecting Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard - a connection neatly made in the Guardian's deconstruction of the Fellowes' screenplay here)?

But what can I say about this film, of which one should not expect too much given Sarah, Duchess of York is credited as a producer?  (On the other hand, so too is Martin Scorsese, who has no need to prove his cinema street-cred to anyone; least of all me).  The truth is, I think, it's a well-constructed fairy tale in the revisionist, centrist, patriarchal mainstream manner.  Not history but ideal telly for a wet bank holiday evening. Despite myself - despite my prejudices perhaps - I enjoyed it.

Won't you roll away the stone?

Sleeping man dreams of chocolate, Easter Sunday 2015. Pic by Spike

One is ready and willing for neither the message of Easter nor a return to Mott the Hoople and 1974.  

The chocolate I will engage with.  But later; much, much later.

Amateur shoppers

There is an art, perhaps it's a craft, to shopping well.  We do not posses it (whatever "it" may be).  The plan was simple but like the best laid schemes o' Mice and Men ... you know the rest.

We were in search of an eclectic mix: a Saturday-special bargain, garden mulcher from our local ALDI; breakfast; fuel for the car plus the tyres inflated; a table (maybe) from the Resource Management Centre, Mugga Lane (better known as the local tip)  then finally, groceries.  As events turned out, had it been the Eurovision Song Contest we'd have gone close to scoring nul points.

We were late making it to the local ALDI store at Chisholm to try to buy our Saturday-special, $199 garden waste mulcher.  We arrived about an hour after the store opened so that would be ... nae chance!  An ALDI store on a Saturday morning is a sight to behold.  It's a bit like watching the ants teeming back and forth across the brick paving outside our front door.  Pause to catch your breath and you'll be trampled beneath the many feet of shoppers and bargain hunters who know from experience that the Normandy landings are but a template for a truly effective sortie into the land of cheap garden equipment. 

Is that a spider I see before me?  Pic: Look and Learn

I can be a stubborn beast however - inspired (as are all Scottish boys of my generation) by the story of Robert the Bruce, the cave and the spider.  Never say never.  If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again.  

So we drove to an ALDI store in a suburb called Conder (sold out of mulchers) then the ALDI store in Tuggeranong (likewise bereft of mulchers).  It's not that we gave up.  It's simply that we ran out of ALDI stores.  And all of them had run out of bargain mulchers.

Breakfast then: My first suggestion - a very pleasant cafe in Chifley with good food named A Bite To Eat - turned out to be closed until Tuesday, which explained the ease with which we parked.  My second thought - Idelic in Kingston - was exactly the same; Fachado ... as we learned to say last year in Brazil.  Two other Kingston favourites - Penny Univesity and Two For Joy - were teeming, infested in an ant-like manner with diners who had reached the tables first and may have clambered over others to claim a seat.  Spike found us a cafe on the Kingston foreshore that we'd not died at before - 38 Espresso - with a limited menu on offer because of the Easter holiday.  But the smashed eggs on toast were very welcome and tasty, the chai was well-brewed and Spike's cappuccino looked rather marvellous.  So ... not entirely unsuccessful.

Fuel, we more or less managed.  We had to use a Caltex filling station because I was paying with fuel cards I'd received in lieu of cash reimbursement for my travel costs for a meeting last month up in Sydney.  The service station counter guy was less than wholly helpful, which Spike (on the verge of tears) told me on her return from paying with the fuel card whose mysterious ways of transacting business neither of us had encountered before.  Maybe the guy had been having a difficult Saturday.  Maybe he too had failed in his endeavours to snaffle a bargain mulcher or chain saw from his local ALDI.  But that's no reason to be a dick and / or shouty.

Air for the tyres was beyond us.  There was no nozzle on the end of the hose down which the pressurised air should flow when one pushed the lever on the aforementioned nozzle.  Like many service stations, I imagine, the necessary but absent part of the apparatus was kept behind the counter inside the shop.  The prospect of re-engaging with Mr Angry / Disappointed-Shopper was not one I wished upon Spike so we skedaddled.  The tyres can wait.  No pressure.  I exaggerate, of course.  There's enough pressure for us to survive.

Spike brings her own door to the party

Second-hand furniture shopping at the local tip - the excellent Green Shed on Mugga Lane - we could manage.  Spike is always in her element here.  I wander around like Bilbo Baggins in Smaug's lair under the Misty Mountain.  So much treasure my eyes bug out - but to be honest there are only so many upright pianos, thermo-nuclear barbecues and 90's style three piece suites a man can take home.  None is the exact number given Spike is in charge of purchasing decisions.  We bought a door that's now a work bench in Spike's sewing room; one of what I suspect was once a set of five or six nested tables from a primary school to use as a reading desk in our book case alcove (library is way to big a word to describe half a dozen Billy shelf units from IKEA) and a small bedside cabinet that'll be fine once Spike deals with the womb-coloured coat of paint.  I''m assuming wombs are a shade of pale pink.  But I'm guessing.  All in all then I'd say 'Mission Accomplished' when it came to recycled goods.

As for groceries.  Well that was easy.  I sat in the car because there were no spaces free in the car park that would give me room to deploy the ramp.  Spike could, therefore, enjoy the tranquility that is a Coles supermarket on a Saturday afternoon without the benefit of my helpful advice.

Sometimes it's hard being as hip, happening and groovy as this Saturday suggests we may be.  We shall need a rest tomorrow (at least I shall).  Thank goodness it's Easter Sunday.

Spike and the bean stalks

Planting beans in our garden's soil ...

... can be hard work