SMB in the mid-90s

l-r Br Kipper, Br Eel, Br Hake, Br Garfish, Br Flounder

Looks like a fair bit of the sucking in of the stomach. What a fine looking bunch of larrikins!

If you ever feel like going to a dirty, shitty, disease ridden, pestilential city, try Bangkok! I arrived at 6.00am on my way to Hua Hin (more work) . Dawn broke, it got light, but you couldn’t see the sun because of the thick fug of pollution that hung over the country like a wino’s doona.

Fortunately I was headed for Hua Hin which is three hours south. The smog sort of cleared by the time we got two thirds of the way, but was replaced by a humidity haze. The Sheraton there is new, apparently designed by the people who designed the Mirage resort at Port Douglas. Very comfortable and probably the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in.

The problem was I’d arranged to return to Bangkok to do some Christmas shopping. Bad mistake. Imagine all the crap at the Chinatown markets and multiply by a million.

In the evening I decided to go to the restaurant next door to the hotel, sat down, ordered a Singha beer, only to be told that there was a moratorium on the service or purchase of alcohol for the next 30 hours due to the Thai elections, that applied to everyone everywhere in Thailand. As I was only staying another 34 hours, this presented a problem.

I checked with the hotel, and they were in the same boat – all bars closed. Not to be deterred (which I had to be after returning to Oz) I found a friendly tuc tuc driver who found a “tell ‘em Joe sent you” bar.

After I got home, I ended up being sick, had an asthma attack for the first time in twelve years, and took a week to recover. Not going back there, mate.

You can always tell how good a place is by the dunnies, and the Sheraton at Hua Hin gets 6 stars out of 5.

Mind you, Mensa could have a good test of “what do you do here?” from some of the others. On the way to HH, I felt the call of nature and the pressure of dodgy Thai airline food. The taxi driver stopped at what looked like a perfectly respectable truck stop and I headed off to ablute. When I opened the cubicle door, there was a European pedestal (bonus!), a tiled square tub with clean water in the corner, and a white hose with a tap in the tub. No paper, no instructions, no clue. I decided to pass (well not really) because I couldn’t figure out the correct permutation of things to do without getting dysentery or looking like a water pistol gang had attacked me.

I also didn’t feel like asking the taxi driver how to use the toilet. He didn’t speak English all that well, and I wasn’t up for the Marcel Marceau.

There’s the beach in the distance beyond the umbrella, except you can’t see it because of the haze. Gimme Mooloolaba any day!

Unfortunately even JOFs (see hat article) have to work, so reluctantly, I packed my bags and headed off to Israel. Times are tough as you can see, What I was impressed by was the fact that there is surf on this beach at Herzliyyah, north of Tel-Aviv and there were a few dudes out there enjoying it.

I’m glad I don’t live there though. I was having lunch on the marina and at the next table was a young soldier with his girlfriend. No problem except that he had an M16 on his knees during the meal. Nearly put me off my prawns. (Prawns aren’t kosher by the way – all the more for us gentiles.)

A day at the beach Korea 

A day at the beach Mooloolaba

Let me see, Korea? Mooloolaba?

Korea? Mooloolaba?

Hmmm

Thanks Brother Anchovy.

Another brother has been inducted into the exalted ranks of the world-wide head grotto of the SMB Bretheren. He has been initiated with the fin, warned of the danger of the hook and whispered the Martina motto.

He was anointed in the class of “roe” and immediately elevated to “fingerling” as he has touched the lighthouse. While he has spoken of the sacred spotto, he has not yet witnessed the miracle that will allow him to the order of “schoolie”.

You will note that Bros Eel and Anchovy are wearing the SMB hat MkIII.

The only two active Brothers of rank “Predator” moved a motion to distance themselves from the American influenced cap in a secret meeting conducted in the environs of the sacred “Underwater World”.

The design chosen was the:

white – signifying purity of soul

bucket – signifying ancient seawater container

hat – reminiscent of headgear of old.

Emroidered on the hat is the coat of arms:

The arrow device, signifying the carcasses of long gone fish friends, the secret name of the club, and the subscript *”jof“, noting the passing of time.

*junior old farts

GEOGRAPHY LESSON

From Wikipedia.

” The Ok Tedi Mine is located near the headwaters of the Ok Tedi, a river in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The mine opened in 1984 to exploit what was believed to be the largest deposit of copper in the world, as well as substantial gold deposits.”

” It is one of the most diverse countries on Earth, with over 850 indigenous languages and at least as many traditional societies, out of a population of just under 6 million. It is also one of the most rural, with only 18 per cent of its people living in urban centres.[2] The country is also one of the world’s least explored, culturally and geographically, and many undiscovered species of plants and animals are thought to exist in the interior of Papua New Guinea.

The majority of the population live in traditional societies and practise subsistence-based agriculture.”

THE TALE

Before the mining could go ahead, the tribal elders had to give their agreement. The mining company told them they were going to dig a hole in the ground.

“How big?”, asked one of the elders.

“Really big” answered the company representative.

“Big enough to bury a man?”

“No, bigger than that.”

“As big as a house?”

“No, bigger than that.”

It became apparent to the mining company representatives that the elders had no conceptual framework around which to imagine the size of the hole. They lived in this remote area all their lives and were only aware of their very restricted world. The mining company’s solution was to offer the elders a trip to far away Bougainville Island where there was a giant copper mine, in fact the largest open cut copper mine in the world It was still in PNG, but the people were a totally different ethnic group.

The elders agreed and were sent to Port Moresby on the first stage of their journey. Flying to the nation’s capital, they were amazed by the vastness of ocean, which they had never seen before; and on arrival, astounded to see hundreds of people walking around the streets, more people than they had ever seen before, bigger than their whole tribe.

After nightfall and dinner, the elders were taken on a tour of the city and were dumbfounded that the people had disappeared. Back at their accommodation that night, they conferred. Their consensus position was that the people in Port Moresby were sea-dwellers, who came out of the water during the day and returned to their homes in the sea at night. What else could the explanation be?

The next day they flew to Bougainville, where they were taken to the huge copper mine. The people’s colour changed from light brown on the mainland to jet black on the island. Remarkable, but not unbelievable.

When they were taken to the hole in the ground at the Panguna mine, they really couldn’t believe what they were seeing and became most agitated.

They returned to their village and conferred again, deciding that the events were so extraordinary, that they must have dreamt the whole experience.

True yet.

POST SCRIPT

The mine operators discharge 80 million tons of contaminated tailings, overburden and mine-induced erosion into the river system each year. In 1999, BHP admitted that the mine is an ecological disaster.

The landowners are suing the mining operator for USD$4 billion.

We all love a barbie. It’s the great Aussie male ritual, and we refuse to acknowledge anyone other than antipodeans can cook a good barbie. What about this image from Argentina? The caption is:

“A slab of meat on a spit is starting to roast by the fire. The ring will be filled with similar slabs in order to feed the large numbers of people who attend the harvest festival, or Vendimia.”

Now that’s just bungin’ on a bit of side. The old Paul Hogan, “That’s not a barbie, this is a barbie!”

This is what I reckon a real barbie should look like – apart from the kee-babs – someone must have let a sheila do the preparation. Snags and chops, a bit of onion, that’s it. Eminently portable, feed an army.

Br Kipper’s First Law of BBQs

You know how you’re havin’ a good time, pushin’ the chops round with the Wiltshire Barbie-Mate, stabbin’ the snags with a fork, pourin’ beer over the onions? Some bastard’ll come along and tell you you’re doin’ it wrong.

I’ve heard:

• Boil the snags first to get rid of the fat.
• Don’t stab the snags because you lose the tasty fat.
• Only put garlic salt on the cooked side.
• Only turn the steak once (well then how do you achieve the above?)
• Put the onions on first.
• Put the snags on first
• Clean the barbie with beer.
• Clean the barbie with water.
• Never clean the barbie with water.

and on and on and on and on. So the first law is:

“There’s always someone who knows a better way of doing it”

Once you accept that and ignore any advice given, the better you’ll achieve inner peace. Remember – “events lead to thoughts which lead to feelings”, and also remember – “There’s one in every village”, and it’s probably the person attempting to give you advice.

The Worst Barbie Ever

Those great days of youthful bliss. Gary Beach near Sydney. Secluded, brilliant sunshine, rolling waves, bevies of beautiful bikinied shielas and bronzed bonzer blokes, ice cold beer, steaks, etc. What more could you want?

A flamin’ barbecue plate and bread, that’s what! Some drongo forgot to bring them and for those of you who hadn’t been to Gary Beach in 1968, there were no roads, it was a national park, and you needed a cut lunch, a compass, carabiniers and ropes to get down the cliff face to the beach.

No one was real keen on trekking back to get the plate and bread. Needs must and we improvised. In those days the beer can was made of good Aussie steel and we removed the tops with the triangular beer can punch, put the steaks inside the cans and threw them on the fire. Ever tried to eat a sandy blue steak and sauce with your bare hands? No napkins, crud everywhere, wipe the hands on the shorts, five blokes drive to Canberra smelling like the back of a hamburger shop.

The girls were good though.

Dumb Guy BBQ Award

Br Flounder had us in stitches. One of his mates has a surname like “Nobody” , but I don’t want to identify him. Whenever the cops pull him over and ask for his name, he says, “John Nobody” doubles over and protects his vital organs, waiting for the inevitable hit.

John’s father doesn’t speak English all that well, and in the manly Aussie tradition, never reads the instructions. He purchased a barbecue – four burner with plate and grill, some assembly required. Some flamin’ assembly! I don’t know if you’ve ever tried assembling a Chinese barbecue , but instructions include:

“Turn base over, then screw up”.

So he’s got the barbecue assembled but there’s a large vacant space under the grille. Head scratching, he decides to RTFM and sees a picture of rocks in top of the burner space. Back to Mitre 10, looks around, sees a bag of rocks, heads home, lifts the grille, places rocks in assigned space, steps back, beams.

An hour later, John picks up the phone to hear general wailing and gnashing of teeth, punctuated with “Santa Maria”, “porca madonna” and general imprecations to come quickly. You can see the hand movements over the telephone. He drives. About a hundred metres from his father’s place, John notices a pall of white smoke curling from the back yard.

“Maybe they’ve elected him Pope. Probably not. Maybe this is a hick-up*. Probably.” Delete “hick” insert… never mind.

John surveys the scene, like Patton surveying the battlefield. The wooden frame of the barbie is charred and smouldering. The bakelite knobs have melted like a Dali clock. The ironwork is twisted and bent.

There is much back-of-hand slapping the manual and whole-hand palm-up pointing at the charred barbie. John does a bit of a recce.

“Dad, you’re s’posed to use volcanic rock!”

“Que?”

“You’ve used fkn heat beads!”

The Brothers decided to have an out of session meeting today – Thursday instead of Sunday. What the hell, it’s Christmas, we deserve a day off, we’ve worked hard all year, and if the boss doesn’t like it, ” go bile yrr heed” as the Scots are wont to say.

Life continues at it’s normal pace, things happen, people appear, other things happen and sometimes the toilet smashes into a thousand pieces.

Yep. There I was 8.00 pm in Brisbane on a Tuesday, asking my Boss where he wanted me to be in Sydney on Thursday. Newsflash!! Tomorrow! Oh bugger, bum, poop. Frantic reorganisation of airplane schedules.

Contemporaneously, Mrs Kipper puts her head around the door to the cave (my secret business room, computer, guitars, books etc) to tell me that the toilet was leaking from the cistern into the bowl. Oh frabjous day! So I got up from the computer went to the toilet and took the three kilo ceramic top off the cistern, placed it on the side shelf and used all my technical skills to fix the problem. Basically just waggled the centre bit around until the leak stopped. Success so far.

The Great Buddha of Buggery decided at this particular moment in the universe time system that I was unworthy and needed a reminder. As I went to replace the cistern top, it slipped from my hands, fell into the toilet bowl, smashing a great hole in the side and shattering into a thousand dagger-like shards, one of which cut my leg.

I remeber thinking about the incident, “Gee I wish that hadn’t happened.”

The upshot (upsh1t?) was Mrs Kipper had to cart me off to hospital, I needed six stitches in my leg, the crapper was uncrappable, or anything elseable for that matter and I still hadn’t booked my flights.

I did however manage to ring Will the plumber, who promised to come out the next day. As Mrs Kipper dropped me off at the airport, she moaned angrily, “What am I going to do in the meantime you bastard?”

“Just crapeau in your chapeau” I replied, cowardly running into the Qantas departure terminal, where there were enough witnesses to deter her from dismembering me on the spot.

If you’re in Brisbane, and need your toilet fixed, call this bloke – he’s great.

The Moral of the Story 

Don’t cut your own hair – Forrest Gump

Don’t make your own airplane – John Denver

Don’t try to fix your own toilet – BillyK

The other week, the Brotherhood was fortunate enough to induct a new member, Brother Carp. Why the name? It’s vaguely homonymic and eponymous and has nothing to do with introduced species that have become pests. Carp has not been fully inducted because he has not participated in the Martina Navratilova ceremony, however he has been given the dispensation to carry that out in his home state, Tasmania, or his place of employment, Antarctica! See this post.

Digression

This week was craptacular, with howling winds an generally unpleasant conditions, so Eel and I decided to have breakfast instead. Our various musings led Eel pontificate on the cultural cringe.

From this post you’ll remember that Eel drives a limo, the Holden Calais a true blue upmarket Aussie icon. Minor conundrum – why did they give it this name? Surely there are upmarket places in Australia. They could have called it the Holden Prahran, except that nobody would have been able to pronounce it correctly, or the Holden Hamilton Hill, a nice bit of alliteration there.

In fact Calais is a clapped out fishing town most notible for hordes of non-washing poms vying for duty free grog and fags. It is famous only for being part of England once, and has a rather macabre background:

King Edward III of England in 1347, after a siege of eleven months following the Battle of Crécy demanded reprisals against the town’s citizens for holding out for so long and ordered that the town’s population be killed en masse. He agreed to spare them on the condition that six of the principal citizens would come to him, bareheaded and barefooted and with ropes around their necks, and give themselves up to die.

What were the name designers at Holden thinking? The Holden Decapitator!
Conundrum - why don’t the French have a car model, the Citroen Port Kembla ? Or aren’t we good enough for them?