Although we are a family of fairly avid readers, other than a few coffee-table staples, books do not feature in our living room. Well-leafed and generally abused volumes are neatly filed on bookshelves in bedrooms and on our upstairs landing, or unceremoniously dumped in unlikely corners of the house (I stumbled on a haphazard pile on the staircase…
The 2012/13 Overture
In the '70s and '80s there was a major movement worldwide to gently nudge the Soviet authorities to "Let my people go". Mass rallies, protests and disruption of Russian cultural events were the order of the day from London to New York to Sydney. With the collapse of Communism, the '90s saw the influx to Israel…
Starbucks gets roasted
It is a tribute to the emotional power of poetry that, when I think of "Four Weddings and a Funeral", I remember the single funeral rather than the multiple weddings. "He was my North, my South, my East and West" - Matthew's rendition of WH Auden's Funeral Blues as he eulogized Gareth, lent pathos to one of…
Living off the fat of the land
Flying Cattle Class tends to bring out the worst in me. After being herded through check-in, security and boarding I make a beeline for my aisle seat , generally having boarded early enough to lay claim to the corner of an overhead baggage compartment that is actually over my head. Flying Cattle Class is all about marking territory.…
Blessed are the consumers (part 2)
When former US President Herbert Hoover flew down to Argentina in 1946 it was to request that the newly elected President Juan Peron order a massive grain shipment to Europe aimed at staving off a post-war famine. Following his successful mission, he commented that Peron's young wife, Eva, had the brains of Eleanor Roosevelt and…
Blessed are the consumers (part 1)
One of my first memories as a child is of the working forge across the road from our home where rag-and-bone men and other deniers of the 20th century could take their carthorses to be shod. A couple of days ago I was driving with my son through an ultra-orthodox enclave, where the regular upkeep of roads…
Faulty Powers
A month shy of the 40th anniversary of its first broadcast, I was impressed when my teenage son asked me last week whether I had ever seen the Cheese Shop sketch. He was astounded when I started quoting from it and informed him that Monty Python had defined humour for my generation (sorry Yanks, it…
Far East in deep water
If the motto of the United States is "In God we trust", the motto of Australia should be "No worries". We northern hemisphere folk who, unlike our antipodean friends, have summer in the summer and winter in the winter believe that, come Christmas, an Aussie's problems boil down to finding room for another shrimp on the barbie while his guests…
Pole position
Several years ago we went on a family trip to Holland. Sitting in the front passenger seat of the taxi taking us south from Schiphol, I tried to keep the driver's attention while the kids re-enacted the Second World War in the rear of the van. Observing that signs on the motorway to Uit appeared over…
Composing tax laws
Returning to the gym last weekend after a fortnight, literally, off the treadmill, my rendition of "I'm back" in a passable Austro-Californian accent failed to register any reaction on the face of the young lady manning the reception desk. Instead, she merely ordered me to furnish my annual medical certificate that covers them if I suddenly keel over pulseless on…
Tax Break 