Saturday, December 25

 

 

 

A very Happy Christmas to Everyone who reads this.

 

Friday, Decmber 24

 

 

After yesterday’s (very biased) list of the ten best Christmas poems, I went looking for the ten best poems I could find written by Australians.  It wasn’t easy.  Banjo Paterson wrote a couple: Santa Claus Comes to Camp was written during the first World War and Santa Claus in the Bush where he, bizarrely, gives the farmer and his wife a Scottish accent.  

 

It chanced out back at the Christmas time,
When the wheat was ripe and tall,
A stranger rode to the farmer's gate —
A sturdy man and small.

"Rinn doon, rinn doon, my wee son Jack,
And bid the stranger stay;
And we'll hae a crack for Auld Lang Syne,
For the morrow is Christmas Day."

 

Henry Lawson’s poem, A Bush Fire, was set at Christmas time but, apart from those, most other stuff is very lightweight.

 

There are parodies of northern hemisphere poems with an Australian flavour: the most famous probably being Six White Boomers (written by a convicted paedophile) where kangaroos replace the traditional reindeer.  Tim Minchin’s White Wine on the Beach, like Boomers is a song but better captures the essential nature of a winter celebration translated into a summer setting.

 

But, for me, the best of all the Australian Christmas poems is Les Murray’s The Barranong Angel Case.  It’s too long to reproduce in full but here’s the beginning.

 

You see that bench in front of Meagher's store?
That's where the angel landed.
What? An angel?
Yes. It was just near smoko time on a sale day.
Town was quite full. He called us all together.
And was he obeyed?
Oh yes. He got a hearing.
Made his announcement, blessed us and took off
Again, straight up.
He had most glorious wings . . . .
What happened then?
There were some tasks he'd set us
Or rather that sort of followed from his message.
And were they carried out?   
At first we meant to,
But after a while, when there had been some talk
Most came to think he'd been a bit, well, haughty,
A bit overdone, with those flourishes of wings

Thursday, December 23

 

Every now and again you come across one of those insufferable people who seem to be good at everything.  Today, it’s Allie Esiri.  She’s a British person with a good degree from some posh university, married to a merchant banker, published author, actor in TV dramas, popular guest on talk shows, etc.  Her latest publication to hit the shelves (just in time for Christmas!) is Christmas Poems, following on from Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year and A Poet for Every Day of the Year.

Here is her list of the ten best Christmas poems:

1.         Ring Out Wild Bells by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

2.         Talking Turkey by Benjamin Zephaniah

3.         A Visit from St Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore

4.         The Oxen by Thomas Hardy

5.           Christmas by John Betjeman

6.         Christmas Carol by Paul L Dunbar

7.         The Christmas Rose by Cecil Day Lewis

8.         I Saw a Stable by Mary Coleridge

9.         Journey of the Magi by TS Eliot

10.      A Christmas Poem by Wendy Cope

At first sight, it’s a very ‘safe’ list of mostly well-known English middle-class Establishment writers with a nod to the US with the ‘done-to-death’ Moore poem which starts “Twas the night before Christmas …” but the inclusion of Dunbar is inspired.

    Ring out, ye bells! 

     All Nature swells

With gladness at the wondrous story,—

   The world was lorn,

   But Christ is born

To change our sadness into glory.

 

   Sing, earthlings, sing!

   To-night a King

Hath come from heaven's high throne to bless us.

   The outstretched hand

   O'er all the land

Is raised in pity to caress us.

 

   Come at his call;

   Be joyful all;

Away with mourning and with sadness!

   The heavenly choir

   With holy fire

Their voices raise in songs of gladness.

 

   The darkness breaks

   And Dawn awakes,

Her cheeks suffused with youthful blushes.

   The rocks and stones

   In holy tones

Are singing sweeter than the thrushes.

 

   Then why should we

   In silence be,

When Nature lends her voice to praises;

   When heaven and earth

   Proclaim the truth

Of Him for whom that lone star blazes?

 

   No, be not still,

   But with a will

Strike all your harps and set them ringing;

   On hill and heath

   Let every breath

Throw all its power into singing!

 

It’s interesting that Wendy Cope made the list and her poem is fairly innocuous.  Pam Ayres might have made more of it.

 

At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle,
The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle
And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle
And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful, if you're single.

 

Wednesday, December 22

 

Nobody buys me Christmas presents any more but I still like to check the web for the latest gadgets that I would like to have.  There’s so much around but not a lot of interesting stuff.  Here are a few I came across this week.

NUUBU – an all-natural, eco-friendly solution to relieve your body of toxins.  It seems like some sort of pads for your feet which you spread with this solution, attach them to your soles in some way and leave them for a while.  I can imagine wearing them watching television except that the magic of our relationship seems to be diminishing anyway and wearing these unsightly objects certainly wouldn’t help.

PEEPS – designed for cleaning glasses.  Soft carbon microfibres attached to a plastic applicator cleans both sides of lenses at once.  I suppose I’d have to keep it in my pocket with all the other stuff I can’t do without: comb, handkerchief, keys, and so on and I wonder how this gadget is better than a tissue.

KEYZMO - Advertised as being perfect for outdoor adventurers and handymen so clearly aimed at people like me, the ad asks the question, ‘what do a dangling wire, a broken bicycle and a bottle of beer have in common?’  I don’t know but, clearly, Keyzmo plays some part in the answer.  Yes, Keyzmo is a vaguely key-shaped mini-tool which will solve all those problems and others.  Do people really carry things like this around in case they come across a broken bicycle?

Tuesday, December 21

 

Within hours of the first planes arriving when Tasmania opened to the world on December 15^th, we had two confirmed cases of the Omicron variation of Covid.  It’s not surprising: the Government must have known it would happen and the systems were already in place to deal with it.  The two victims are in quarantine, contacts have been isolated and safety measures have been tightened.

 

Mostly, in our little bubble we remain unaffected by what’s happening in the real world but we can’t stay immune for ever.  Tomorrow is our Probus Christmas lunch and we’re going to a pub in Latrobe for a change. Because of the Omicron scare, the government has decreed that masks will be mandatory for people meeting in public indoor spaces, like hotel dining rooms.  Of course, we can remove our masks for eating but it’s still a pain.  Two or three people have pulled out of attending because they don’t want to take any chances. 

 

We’ll still be there; you only live once and we’ve had our booster shots.

 

We have decided, though, to cancel our trip away to Richmond.  With regulations in place, lots of places will shut and having to wear a mask everywhere we go is just too much bother.  We could see ourselves tired of going out and forced to sit on the bed in our hotel room watching rubbish on a small TV when we would be much more comfortable in our own home, watching the same rubbish on a bigger screen.

 

Shame really, but we’ve cancelled the hotel booking and will stay home.  When we rang the hotel to give them the bad news, the manager said that everyone else was cancelling too.  It must be hard being in the tourism business.

Monday, December 20

 

I thought it was just me but I read this morning that on-line retailers are missing out on millions of dollars worth of Christmas sales because potential customers hate having to have their shopping experience spoiled by the demand for them to provide their password.  It’s true: you find just the thing you are looking for at a great price, click the BUY button and your heart sinks when you are asked for your log-in and password.

 

If I could use a generic, easily remembered combination of letters and numbers, I would be reasonably happy but they always want more.  There is nothing more annoying than being told by an inanimate website that my password is inadequate.  It’s sneering taken to a new level.

 

I always remember the magazine ads from the 1950s featuring the sad sack who suffered from having sand kicked in his face at the beach.  ‘Face up to the bully,’ it said.  ‘Sign up for the Charles Atlas course and never have trouble with bullies again.’

 

Password arrogance is the new bullying but where is the 21^st century equivalent of Charles Atlas to provide a solution?

 

I wasn’t surprised with the tone of this article.  I love Amazon and Kogan and eBay but the on-line experience is not always wonderful.  I can only imagine how much better my life would be if I could have all the wonderful things that are only available on-line if it really took just one click of a button.

Sunday, December 19

 

It used to be a ‘thing’ to drive around the suburbs in the weeks before Christmas looking at the extravagant Christmas light displays that some householders set up. Local newspapers and radio stations would alert people to the addresses worth visiting and there was a real sense of community as people gathered to Oooh and Aaah at the magic before them.

 

Maybe it doesn’t happen so much now or maybe we don’t bother finding out about them.  Without children in the house we become a little blase about Christmas believing we’ve seen it all before.

 

I was reading an article about how people are now taking to social media to share their display ideas. Tracy from Moranbah in Queensland calls herself a ‘Christmas addict’ and is already planning her extravaganza for next year.  She frequents the group ‘Christmas Mums Australia’ which has 49000 members.  One woman in the group has had her display up since July because ‘it gave her something to do.’  If you want to know whether it is still acceptable to hang candy canes on the branches of the Christmas tree or where to buy gold sequin Santa hats in Perth, this site is the place to look.

 

Another site, ‘Outdoor Christmas Decorating’ was started by Chrissy Nuts (probably not her real name) and now has more than 2000 members.  Apparently, she has 17 Christmas trees on display in her house, along with life-sized polar bears, penguins and musical elves. She’s waiting for the delivery of a huge candy nutcracker that she’s been paying off all year.  It doesn’t say whether she has a husband.