At my disk
Some of the editorials from Wilson's Almanac
Second Quarter (April, May, June), 2002
On to Third Quarter, 2002 editorials »
Apr 20, 2002
McOverheard: "All right, a bit of quiet please, Team. Thank you. Bit of shoosh please Kylie.
Good morning, Team. OK, it's Saturday morning and we have a lot to get through before we open the McDoors at 6 a.m.
First things first. Jason Two, are you listening? You might have 72 badges but you're not Family Restaurant Manager yet, so please pay attention. Thank you. Team, it's come to my attention that one of the men's toilets wasn't blocked yesterday. Jason, you're in charge of the men's room, will you please make sure everything's as it should be today? Sheesh, I play golf just one afternoon and everything screws up. Thank you.
The next thing on the agenda is service. Now, I don't mind occasional slip-ups, but I've gotta say the queues have been very , very short this week. Please remember Rule 27: "Ten of us cooking, three on cloud nine, one of us serving, twelve dudes in line". OK? Have we got that?
Now, the breakfast rush is from 9 till 10.30. Remember, this is Saturday so we'll get all the McAccess dads. What do we do? Kylie One?
That's right, Kylie One. Kylie Seven, you could learn from this: yes, we put out one copy of a respectable newspaper and 30 copies of the crappy local free paper. If anyone asks why the reading matter is so terrible, just say we're doing our bit for family relations. We're encouraging the Weekend McAccess dads to talk to their children. Jason Four did a very good job of this last week, so please learn from him, Jason Six.
Now, have you all been up all night having illicit sex and drugs? Good, good, good. But Kylie Five, you look like you've slept a few hours. Quick, we've got five minutes ... into the ladies' room and rub some mascara around your eyes at once. And for God's sake, see what you can do about that acne. Kylie Three, will you help Kylie Five paint something on her face that looks like acne? Lord, do I have to think of everything here?
Now, Jason Four, yesterday I noticed how you were greeting customers. What do we say to a middle aged gentleman when he finally gets to the counter?
No, no, no, no, no, Jason!!! Do we have to go over this every Saturday? The man's old enough to be your father
– maybe your grandfather. Now, what do we say?
"Good morning sir, may I help you?"? Oh, Jason, don't you ever listen to a word I say? Try again.
That's better! "G'day champ, ya right?" Everybody, let's say it together:
Team: "G'day champ, ya right?"
OK, I think we've got it. Kylie Two! This is no time to doze off. You have all day for that.
Now, let's get out there and serve up some scrumptious breakfasts for all those visitation rights dads. And remember, I don't want to see any food that looks like the big pictures, OK? We served one up on Thursday that looked authentic, but I think we got away with it.
OK, Team, let's go! All together now:
"Ten of us cooking,
three on cloud nine,
one of us serving,
twelve dudes in line"!
Great stuff!"
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
Apr 22, 2002
Psychonauts: Hi, my name's Pip and I'm a recovering TV addict.
It's TV Turnoff Week (see at foot of this page).
This week, the Planet Directory will be featuring sites that have something to say about television. Let's get into the spirit of the week. I believe TV has a negative effect on the psyche, almost regardless of what is programmed by the masters of commerce.
Do you think you can live a whole week without TV, or are you addicted, as I was years ago? Next week I'll publish some emails in which Almaniacs tell the rest of us what readers did for TV Turnoff Week. No prizes, but I think I can safely say that a week without television will bring rewards that regular watchers will be pleasantly surprised to experience. Please put "TV" plus other words in your subject header to help me file.
I grew up above the family's TV shop, but turned off my TV several years ago and have found absolutely no need to turn it back on. I love being in TV recovery! I can get all the news I need from
NewsRadio (and it's far more comprehensive than any TV news I've ever seen, plus it has programs from several countries
– UK, USA, Australia, Netherlands and Germany). What can I find on TV that I can't find more efficiently on the Net? I don't miss EV (Electronic Valium) at all, and I don't miss having my senses assaulted by stuff that not only wastes my precious time away, but which is designed to stupefy and commodify my life.
People ask me I guess a couple of times a week how I get so much done. Apart from my Net work, I go out at night to socialise about six or seven nights a week. Not watching TV has liberated hours of time to do other things, and I truly enjoy the clarity of thought that comes once one is a few weeks down the track of TV Turnoff.
What anyone else does with their time is their own business, but I hope you'll consider what TV means to you.
So, I hope next week we can all read in the almanac some fascinating reports (to 200 words, please) of your week without the idiot box.
Do you know if the moon is waxing (growing) or waning (reducing) this week? Will you see the rare conjunction of the planets? What are the birds and flowers doing now in your neck of the woods? What will you do with the kids? What decisions will you make about television in your family's life? In what ways has your consciousness changed?
I have a feeling a lot of Almaniacs will want to read your brief report. Bright blessings to one and all, and happy psychonautics!
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
Apr 26, 2002
Turnoff: At the beginning of the week (TV Turnoff Week), I asked if members would send in their recollections (in brief) about living this week without the boobtube.
I look forward to your emails early next week. I don't know how many will be sent in, but I'll try to publish them all.
There's still time to get in on the action and have a TV-free few days. I recommend it for undoing the toxic frequencies that TV seems to establish in the brainwaves. Remember: the life you waste could be your own!
Enjoy tomorrow night's Full Moon. Weather permitting, I'll be between her and a hilltop.
You have just listened to a kookaburra from Australia, one of my totems. (Source via
www.findsounds.com.)
Kookaburras’ laughter wakes me most mornings, and I am listening to them now as I write
– perhaps they are responding to the sound from my speakers. Last week I approached a kooka after it had swooped startling close to where I was gardening and picked up a worm. It allowed me almost to stroke its beak, but wasn't quite sure of my intentions. When I was young, in fact, I often used to hand-feed kookaburras strips of meat. This they would take up to a tree and beat against a branch as though it were a snake to kill and tenderise. I once watched in horror as one performed the same ritual on one of my pet mice.
The maniacal laughter of this bird, so quintessentially Australian, is often used by Hollywood for jungle background audio
– African and South American jungles included. However, the kookaburra is as likely found in dry sclerophyll forests as in rainforests
– but only in Australia. When you hear one next time in the background of a Tarzan movie, consider how many other fallacies films might be conveying.
The kookaburra is a kingfisher, a member of the Halcyon family, named after the Greek mythological halcyon bird that supposedly lay its eggs on the ocean when it was calm. (Hence the expression 'halcyon days'
– the best days of our lives.)
I hope these are the halcyon days for you, and that they will keep growing more and more halcyon.
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
May 7, 2002
Dawn: I was still rubbing the sleep from my eyes a few hours ago when I picked up the newspaper in the cafe and saw the headline:
Democracy leader set free.
I pointed to the front page as the waitress made my coffee, but she didn't share my excitement, or that of so many people in the world who have waited for this day
– especially 42 million Burmese people. Aung San Suu Kyi is free!!
However, as the Nobel Laureate and great leader of Burma's democracy movement herself said as she emerged from house arrest:
"My release shouldn't be looked at as a major breakthrough for democracy. For all people in Burma to enjoy basic freedom, that would be the major breakthrough."
This is only the beginning of the dawn for benighted Burma, and a difficult 'road to Mandalay' lies ahead. The dictatorship is obviously buckling, not under the weight of calls for democracy; nor yet under international opinion; not even under the moral authority of the charismatic Suu Kyi.
The juggernaut of globalisation has rumbled up to the borders of 'Myanmar' (as the SPDC regime calls Burma) and it has stood at the gates demanding entrance. There are bucks to be made. (Note that the democracy movement still asks that we boycott Burma, including the global phenomenon of rampant tourism.)
We know that those countries that have opened their borders and markets to the forces of globalisation (read: international corporate control) are enjoying certain benefits, including increased GDP per capita. This is indisputable, and makes great ammunition for the econo-rats and other proponents of
untrameled trade.
Let's not, however, be beguiled into thinking that the figures the number-crunchers proffer are valid in anything other than corporate terms.
For example, the economist sees a page of statistics that show that the coffin industry is booming. This is great news to the number crunchers, the coffin makers and the government. "Look," they cry, "Things are getting
better!" Likewise, big numbers for armaments, tobacco, mental health programs and dialysis machines show up on a ledger sheet as signs of a healthy economy.
The poor countries that are showing incipient signs of numerical improvement in certain core statistics as beloved by the true masters of this world (I speak of corporation executives, not elected representatives), are now having to deal with issues and problems of which economists are unaware.
The McDonaldisation of local food supply, for example, and the consequent eradication of agricultural diversity. Increased flight of economic
refugees from rural areas to cities; wage slavery in factories; loss of cultural heritage; subservience to sick Western pop culture
– these are just a few examples of the price that the poor are paying. Follow this almanac in future for more examples, and more solutions.
We all (except perhaps my delightful coffee waitress with whom I chat most mornings) wish Burma well, and congratulate Aug San Suu Kyi. We applaud her tenacity and courage. We must, however, be wary of what may come to the longsuffering people of Burma. Solutions for all countries in the juggernaut's way are needed now.
On a lighter note, the sky is bright blue in Sydney today, and the air is warmer than we are used to (Almaniac 'MMM' informs me today that 2002 is shaping up to be the warmest for 1,000 years:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/04/26/nhot26.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/04/26/ixhome.html).
However, it's a glorious day to enjoy, and I am champing at the bit to get outside as soon as I can.
This time of year brings Sydneysiders a decrease in the bounty of fruit (our summers are incredible in the fruit shops), but one delicacy that comes in autumn is the
custard apple.
I remember some years ago, one May late afternoon, I was walking down Sydney's main thoroughfare, George Street, when a fruit barrow vendor accosted me (I suppose being a
costermonger that's his right). It was time for him to pack up, and he had to get rid of some over-ripe avocadoes and custard apples, so he could go home.
"What's the damage, mate?" I asked. In Australia, that isn't an insult. It means "How much?"
"Fifty cents a bag!" he said. "This bigga bag."
"Sold!" I said, and proceeded to lug two heavy bags of fruit down to the Brass Bar where in those days I used to wet the whistle each afternoon with my mate Joe the Gypsy.
Now beginning to panic about what to do with umpteen kilos of nearly 'off' fruit (not having a compost heap in my flat), I asked the gypsy what the hell I should do with them. This was after our obligatory long bearhug and publicly mortifying "Joe, no!! Not the tongue! Not the tongue!" hairy gypsy kiss.
Joe (he's a chef) excitedly looked at the near-runny produce. (He does everything excitedly. I imagine he goes to sleep flailing his arms.) He scratched his wild beard, and provided what has come to me to denote one of history's great culinary inventions. You should try it sometime.
"Pip! Pip! Pip!" (Joe talks like that), "Blend up equal quantities of the avocado and custard apple flesh," he said. "Add some Tabasco, some salt and some white wine vinegar. It should make an OK dip. Zut!!" He always says "Zut!" So do I. It's a quaint habit I picked up from Joe years ago, and I just can't shake it.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the Gypsy Dip. It looks like guacamole, but it has the sweetness of custard apple. This is tempered with the heat, sour and salt of the minor ingredients.
I have never seen people eat and "mmmmm" as when they have plunged a cracker into Joe's Gypsy Dip. And I have never had people scramble for a recipe as when I take a bowl of
Gypsy Dip to a party. Give it a try – there ain't no copyright. Like gypsies, like imaginicians, like freedom and the dawn of democracy in Burma, this one belongs to the planet.
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
May 10, 2002
Passing: On Saturday night I was on a hilltop in Sydney's western suburbs, the same place where I generally go on nights of the Full Moon.
It's a perfectly ordinary suburban hill, named Rotary Park, and it overlooks a railway station, a bus parking lot, a car parking building, a pub, a highway, and small streets. You might have a Rotary Park like that near you. Have you made yours magic yet?
I was with about 50 others who joined together to commemorate Samhain, one of the eight dividing points of the year
– in Celtic terms part of the Wheel of the Year. Halfway between the Equinox just passed, and the next Solstice.
Because the eight 'sabbats' as they are known in pagan circles, are very much linked to the seasons, and were developed in the Northern hemisphere, we in the South have a bit of a problem
Consequently, when it's early May and the North is celebrating Beltane (May Day), we down under are having Samhain (which became Christianised as Halloween). So last weekend was a kind of Halloween for us, on a cool Autumn night.
Especially for our enjoyment and involvement of our evening, a number of good people enacted a moving ritual/play written by a gifted lady I don't know, Rhiannon Davis.
We were led silently around the hill by torchlight, and stopped by a tree, where an actor dressed to represent a fox came and greeted us, with suspicion. "I can see you in the dark," he said. "Why have you come to my earth?"
The woman leading us replied that we were travellers who wished to ask him a question. The fox replied "No questions", but soon agreed to exchange an answer for a gift.
"Who are you?" Fox was asked.
"I am the creature of Flame who lives in the Earth, Sharp tooth, sharp mind
The Thief, the Trickster, the Shadow that nips at your heels.
I am Death, I am Life, I am Wildness. I am Fox.
Now, where is my gift?"
Our guide refused to give Fox a gift unless and until he could answer us our Samhain question: "What is death?"
His answer:
'Death is the greatest joke of them all - The laugh with the teeth, the accident in your prime. Death is the trickster that leads you on a merry dance, a wild goose chase, a hunt for a fox that isn't there. That is Death.'
And when he was given his gift, we moved on.
At different parts of the hill, as we wound silently around in the darkness, we were met by various creatures. Raven told us what death is, and so did Owl:
"A silent wingbeat under the stars, a journey of knowledge,
A joining of self to self - an alchemical understanding of the soul
A flight lifted on the small currents of the winds of change. That is Death."
Soon we came upon the Crone, and from her we learned some things "of stone of stone, and bone of bone" ... but I will leave it there. These are our secret things that you will have to find yourself, when next you and your friends gather under the stars on some ordinary suburban hilltop.
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
May 11, 2002
Equality: Now that in Western countries it's illegal (or at least highly inadvisable) for advertising agencies to regale us with advertisements that demean women, why is there such a double standard when it comes to men?
Any ad that shows women as morons or sex slaves would, quite rightly, cause an uproar in Australia. Heads would roll in corporate corridors by day, and activists with spraycans would be out spraying by night.
What we have now, however, is a regime that is full of hypocrisy. Women are protected by law and convention, but men are not. (The same holds true in terms of sexist jokes, of which many are sent to me each week, about 80% of them anti-male. Similarly, many women's computer monitors in workplaces have desktop images that, if they were of women, would have men summarily dismissed and robbed of their livelihood.
The Voodoo winter hosiery billboard seen around Sydney is not unique, but part of an onslaught of similar double-standard adverts. However, the Advertising Standards Bureau of Australia doesn't see it that way. In the face of an avalanche of complaints, this bureaucracy that comes down heavily on an ad that shows women in a bad, light, has ruled that if males are seen in degrading situations then it is 'satire'.
Read their incredible reply to my letter, and make up your own mind whether there is a double standard, at
http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/voodoo.html.
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
May 14, 2002
Baaaa!
“We the leaders of the Commonwealth of Australia, united in our love of this great land celebrate this day, 1st January, 2001, a century since the colonies federated to form the Commonwealth of
Australia."
So begins the document signed by Australia's Prime Minister and State premiers on the first day of the millennium (just as the huge subscriber base of
1
– yours truly – was enjoying the first Wilson's Almanac).
Hang about! "We the leaders"?!
Take a look at Australia's Constitution. Where is any word derived from the verb 'to lead'? If you find one, let me know please.
Do a Search and Find on words derived from the verb 'to represent' and what will emerge is a total of 62 words that describe what our elected politicians are supposed to do for us.
Leaders need followers. They won't be getting me – will they get you?
When you think about it, the flags of the world are not only divisive of humanity, but also not very well designed.
Take, for example, the flag of the President of Finland with its German Iron Cross and swastika. Is it any wonder that the former President of Finland was rejected as the Chief investigator of the alleged Israeli atrocities at Jennin?
Almaniac Tim from the room next to Pip, Narrabeen, Australia, sends
this page that rates the world's national flags for
design.
But, of course, we all know the best flag in the world is found here.
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
May 17, 2002
Genius: It was long ago, about 1986. The Professor admonished me. "I must make it clear. Editors must publish my words precisely as I instruct them to. I will not tolerate misspelling. I frequently tell editors exactly how to present my words."
So began my meeting with the late Professor Julius Sumner Miller, that wonderfully cantankerous Merlin who had been a part of Australian TV almost as long as anyone could remember. His off-screen was no different from his famed on-screen eccentricity. Hadn't I suspected that? The strange ways of the wacky Professor Wonderful, as
Walt Disney called him, could only be the product of a life whose eccentricities had worn deep channels in the man by their constant coursing through his being.
I was then editor of a magazine named Simply Living, and this was an assignment I loved setting myself. When introduced to our photographer, Graeme Davey, the Professor asked me for the spelling of the surname of the British scientist Sir
Humphry Davy. On discovering my ignorance, Professor Miller started proving the answer— D-A-V-Y — by reading from a book on the shelf.
"But you're quoting from your own book." I baited him.
"What of it?"
"You can't go to a book of your own writing as corroboration of your claim that Davy is spelt D-A-V-Y." I needed to stand my ground to not be swamped by this expansive personality.
"Notice," said the Professor, in the characteristic manner he always exhibited on his
Why is It So? TV program, which, as I said, was his only manner. "Notice, if the editor had had any competence, would he not have corrected ..."
"But you might have told the editor not to change a word," I broke in. How would he react to this cheek from me? He paused long, looked at the others, and turned to me with a sheepish smile.
"Wilson, you're a right honourable son-of-a-bitch!"
The interview over, I dined with the Professor and his Australian assistant of 23 (patient) years (a man of
"uncommon allegiance", the Professor confided), Raymond Anderson.
After the meal, as I walked with Professor Miller through the city streets, his hand in the crook of my arm, we were accosted by a mixed group of teenagers who argued amongst themselves the matter of his identity.
When the Great Man himself resolved the question, one of the boys called out, to the delight of us all, "Hey, anyone got a milk bottle?!"
Famed for his candles, funnels, bottles and eggs (one commercial alone netted him 70,000 letters offering solutions to his brain teaser), the American Professor Julius Sumner Miller was certainly Australia's best-known visitor. He was also a living testimony to the days of rigorous education, a subject on which he would readily expound.
He loved dew drops and spider webs, and hated the rat race and the way kids are taught these days. He told me that if he were Minister for Education he would close all the schools. He was never loath to share with others his many opinions and the vivacity of his personality.
I am honoured that when he came to Australia again, he phoned me. "Wilson!" he bellowed down the line. “You owe me a Chinese dinner!" I did not, and he knew it. But he was The Professor, and who was I to question his authority? After all, I had done that once too often on our first meeting.
Now, 15 years after his death on April 14, 1987, he leaves a grand legacy of fascination and knowledge. I have met many characters, but not all characters have genius. The Professor’s genius was anchored in imagination and passion, without which we are doomed, and on his birthday I thank him for helping me realise this.
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
Click to see a letter the Prof wrote me
May 19, 2002
Peter: On Friday at 2am I opened the email newsletter from
Pagan Awareness
Network, and learned that a friend of mine, Peter English, had died suddenly and his funeral was to be that day.
A freight train of grief hit my heart, and it was difficult to sleep.
But this isn't about me, it's about Peter. He was well known in certain circles in Australia, for his work as a psychic and palmreader and for his activities to do with Nature-based spirituality.
Though I met Peter not so long ago, we became close in many ways, as we shared the conversation space of my car on enough occasions for us to tune into each other like old mates.
I'll always remember Peter in his long turquoise velvet robe, carrying on his back a full knapsack, a small table, a chair, and other items with which he conducted his noble but poorly paid profession on the streets of Sydney. A scientist as well as a psychonaut, he was writing a book, and I've been assured that it was as good as finished and the manuscript is in the hands of someone who will honour it.
Never a gentler soul has crossed my path, and seldom such an individual personality. At quite a young age he was taken to the other side, where he has already done considerable exploration and which he has come to know better than most of us. I have no doubt he's already made himself at home with a glass or three of moselle, a wee dram of sherry, some homegrown tobacco and a Vangelis CD.
Bright blessings, Peter. You'll smile to know that at your funeral we were all in black, and not the multicoloured fashions of the modern Christian funeral which I'm sure you wouldn't have liked. And we had a wake for you at the El Rancho pub.
Travel safely, mate.
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
May 31, 2002
Competition: My flatmate's a funny guy. I was in the kitchen on Wednesday night (just to refresh my memory) and he said to me, "You know what I think when I see our sink as full as that?"
"What?" I asked.
"I think, 'We need a bigger sink'", he said. I went to hit him, but we have such a small place there was no room. He went to duck, but there was no room. We both started to laugh, but
– you guessed it.
Sometimes I earn a buck or two (you can save me from
this) doing some gardening in a garden that overlooks Pittwater and Lion Island. (This is the view from where I work
– maybe you can see why it's called that):
There's an old joke I like about the bus to Pittwater. This guy gets on the bus and sits down next to a bloke with a black eye.
Hang on, I just remembered I can't tell that one here!
Anyway, back to my flatmate. He calls my job 'Wildlife Relocation Officer' because I always scratch for five days after the Pittwater job. The ticks, man, the ticks. They're tiny, but pack a punch. Where I live is the Ozzie centre of
Lyme Disease, so if your almanac doesn't hit your in-tray for a few days in a row, maybe I've carked. Otherwise, the problem might be that your in-tray is bouncing (full)
– today I have only 1715 members, but 351 bouncers. I think it must be a Yahoo! glitch.
If you ever miss your daily almanac, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WilsonsAlmanac/ and check Edit My Membership, and My Groups and maybe you can fix it up. Otherwise, talk to your ISP (Internet Service provider).
Anyway, back to the garden. In front of it is Lion Island, and behind is a busy Western city of four million people. The pressure on the environment is extreme.
Today in that garden I played with a frog. It's the first frog I've seen in Sydney for I don't know how many years. I held it in my dirty hands and enjoyed the experience more than I can tell. Then I let him go in the lush, jungle-like park that adjoins my client's garden.
Mister Frog gave me an idea. David Briscoe, one of our members who regularly sends in wonderful original photos
imprinted with inspirational text, as a favour and blessing to us all, has offered one of a variety of great original Briscoe T-shirts as a prize.
When I got home, I googled the words Sydney, frog, extinction and came up with
this, which leads to magnificent reading about those poor amphibious friends of ours.
That's where the idea for the competition came from.
If you want to have some googling fun and maybe win a Briscoe T-shirt, then please go
here.
Hope to hear from lots of Almaniacs. Good luck!
Excuse me, I have to scratch where the sun don't shine. Ribbit!
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
June 5, 2002
Smile: Sharon knows all there is to know about follicles. But yesterday when I sat down for a haircut, before we even got onto the subject, she mentioned the camera
– had I seen it? I said yes, that I had noticed a cameraman outside the dry cleaners next door, just before I came in.
"He's from Candid Camera'" she smiled. "I asked him what he was doing, and he didn't want to tell me, but I got it out of him." If anyone could, Sharon could.
Someone once said, "If you sit in a garage, it doesn't make you a car, but if you sit in a barber's chair long enough you get a haircut." I don't know what it means, although I use it a bit.
Anyway, soon we were chatting about hair, as Sharon and I sometimes do, and sooner or later we would certainly get onto follicles. However, the subject close at hand was Sharon's new hairdo. I had hardly recognised her, with her Neapolitan-flavoured gelato look. It was because she'd broken up with her boyfriend last week, and I recounted to her several instances I recall in which people I have known have cut off their beards or locks in moments of relationship severance.
I think in such cases it's also common for young women to gelato their hair. I suppose on any one moment in Australia there is at least one Sharon or Kylie breaking up with a Brett or Jason, which perhaps goes a long way to explaining young women's hair colour these days.
As this nice young lady snipped and I gazed idly in the mirror at the opposite side of the street, it happened.
Sharon got onto follicles, and, as she did, I was ever so slightly awakened from torpor by a comely wench across the street. She was standing with a bicycle, and as a middle-aged man walked by, I saw her touch him on the arm and ask him something. He nodded and she handed him the bike.
Some minutes had already elapsed since my lovely hairdresser had mentioned the cameraman, and I'd quite forgotten about it. However, as I saw this exchange between Bloke and Bicycle Girl, part of my consciousness shifted from follicles to the great drama of life, and just after musing that it was fascinating that I was party to some minor act of social intercourse between strangers, suddenly my lightbulb lit up. "This looks like a Candid Camera situation!" I thought.
Imagine how excited I was when the bike girl ran off, apparently having asked the chap to mind her bicycle for a moment. The Bloke sat on a low wall and looked rather
nonplussed. A few moments later, I saw another comely lass pass by the man who was nonchalantly holding the bike, and then she stopped abruptly. She looked closely at the bicycle, and engaged the man in conversation.
I rather rudely interrupted Shazza and drew her attention to the two characters across the road, who now were animatedly gesticulating and apparently arguing. Shaz rested her comb hand on my pate and pointed outside with her long scissors for the benefit of her colleague, whose name (and phone number) I regret to say I don't know, but we can safely assume is Kylie, or Sharon.
Then the two elderly ladies who were sitting amidst the execrable women's magazines near the shop window were twisting around, in that elderly full-body-twist fashion, and laughing with the Sharons and me at what was unfolding. One had to feel a little sorry for the other elderly dears in the hairdo chairs, who, unlike me, were rather incapacitated by the confinements of women's hairdressing.
Back across the road, Woman Number One returned and Woman Number Two engaged her in some kind of dispute, while poor old Bloke tried, but failed, to escape. Your guess is as good as mine what it was all about, but soon another comely woman appeared with a clip-board and broke up the fight, and in a moment there were four people laughing and pointing across the street at the camera next to my hairdressers'. Bloke slapped his forehead. D'oh! ... Laugh!
For the duration of my haircut, the same comedic entrapment snared two more blokes, each of them good-naturedly minding the bicycle and then, apparently, being mock-accused of having once stolen it from the second actress. To think that I saw it all in a mirror, like a TV with the sound tuned off. Once again I've saved myself the expense and
anaesthesia of watching television.
When I left my friends the Sharons, I was going to cross the road to see if I could get accosted by the bike lady (my idea was to get on the bicycle and ride down the street, waving), but Sharon always takes care and time with my hair, far beyond its worth, and by then the three Candid Camera ladies were all standing around chatting, looking idle in that TV crew kind of way.
I don't know who said that thing about garages and barbers' chairs. Who makes up these sayings? I would find it so hard to think up anything original. Another one I like is "Only boring people find boring situations boring". That's a ripper, and I wish I'd thought of it, because I've never been bored. Frustrated, yes. Frustrated that the days are too short by a factor of about ten to one ... but never bored. How can boredom coexist with everything happening on this planet? Beats the hell out of me.
We're surrounded by windows and mirrors of fascination, portals of experience that shame the Masters of TV. What a treat! How exciting!
Don't be surprised if somewhere, some day, when you least expect it, someone comes up to you and says,
"Smile! You're on Planet Earth!!"
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
June 6, 2002
PR: What an amazing sight this week.
Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 50th anniversary as Queen on June 4. As the almanac noted on that day, the fourth of June was the day on which King George III (he who lost the American colonies) was born in 1738, and during his lifetime, June 4 was a huge public holiday, with fireworks and all kinds of celebrations. (On June 4, 1788, a ragtailed party of British officers and convicts, who had just arrived as the first European settlers on the Australian shore on January 26, celebrated mad George’s 50th.)
The timing of Queen Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne of Britain was, no doubt, originally set by her minders to coincide with the old public holiday. That holiday, of course, comes at a time of year in the UK which is conducive to outside events.
What was most striking about Betty Windsor’s Diamond Jubilee on Tuesday was the line-up of performers for what her son Chicka referred to as a
“pop concert”. Take a look at some of them, and marvel:
And so on. The only ones missing were Johnny Rotten, Sid and Nancy, and two of them are dead anyway.
Is there anything the British establishment will not do to cling to power? Not since George W Bush invited Ozzie Osbourne to the White House have we been able to have such a good laugh as the doyens of 'traditional values' reach out pleadingly for public support. Mr Bush and Mrs Windsor must have more PR consultants by their sides than any Catholic Archbishop in Christendom, and it’s rumoured that even the Pope is getting a wee bit jealous.
Wonder what the Vatican has in store? The Dylan concert His Holiness put on a while ago pales into insignificance.
Man, the oldies are getting groovier by the year. Vive PR!
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
June 11, 2002
Stitched: In Australia, there is a term, 'stitched', not widely used in the community. It's criminal argot, and it means 'framed', as does the term 'loaded up'. Police regularly load up, or stitch up, other men and women with incriminating evidence, such as firearms or drugs, as
recent events in Sydney have shown, not for the first time.
In 1983, three bothers Mickelberg from Perth, Western Australia -- Raymond, Peter and Brian
– were convicted of defrauding the Perth Mint of $650,000 worth of gold. Two of the brothers served lengthy periods in jail as a result; Raymond Mickelberg served eight long years of a 20-year sentence. Jails are not nice places to be.
The whole time, the Mickelbergs have protested their innocence, and claim to have been framed by Western Australian detectives. Today, news comes that one of those detectives has made a written confession and jumped the country. From today's
Sydney Morning Herald:
"The West Australian Attorney-General, Jim McGinty, said yesterday that Anthony Lewandowski had given an affidavit to the Director of Public Prosecutions admitting he and the former CIB chief Don Hancock, who was murdered last year, had lied and fabricated evidence to convict the Mickelbergs."
Well, well, well! Bent coppers? Who ever heard of such a thing?
In about 1986 one of the Mickelberg family gave me a copy of the book about the case,
The Mickelberg Stitch, so I could do some campaigning, and I did a little. I admit that over the intervening years I had almost forgotten about the whole affair
– the Tim Anderson-Hilton bombing frame-up had been one thing that had diverted my attention after meeting Anderson, and besides, Perth is 4,000 kilometres from my own town. The Aussie tyranny of distance struck again
– perhaps another reason the Mickelbergs went down and stayed down.
The book described how one of the brothers' fingerprints had been allegedly forged by the cops. This brother had as a hobby the craft of making latex moulds and poured sculptures. It was claimed that the police stole one of the moulds of the Mickelberg's hand, from his home, and forged a fingerprint from it. It sounded just implausible enough to be true, I thought.
Stay tuned. We shall be hearing a lot more in coming months, about the Mickelberg Stitch.
See the story here.
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
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