Rubbish is in the eye of the Beholder

When you see people searching through rubbish bins you probably have one of two reactions: pity or disgust. Save your reactions. You could be looking at me.

I am a student of Neology, the science of going through what people have thrown out on the street. As a pioneer neologist, I have turned “field walking,” which is an archaeological term for walking over fields in search of ancient pot-shard dumps, into the new art of “city-scrounging” which is searching for hopefully whole pots.

In the old days I would spend hours rummaging around on building sites for a few bricks or bits of copper pipe - and in those days there were no safety fences to keep children out. Scrap was good business. “Where there’s muck, there’s money”. Collecting old copper tube, bits of lead (not always from church roofs) and even the odd discarded aluminium road sign brought in a few extra coppers. Many a time I had to whack a few people over the shoulders who tried to beat me to a good bit of brass.

Now, with the local government organising ‘hard waste collection days’ I have to sprint to beat the antique dealers and hold them off with my walking stick just to pick up a discarded china dog with a chipped ear.

How times have changed

Free Milk for Schools

Yesterday I touched on a subject which remains vividly in the memory of many readers. The Free Milk for Schools scheme.

I’m not the only one who suffers recurring nightmares of forgetting to shake the bottle before opening and copping a mouthful of warm, lumpy cream, but fortunately no one else endured the horror of Miss Callanan who policed the crates in our school playground making sure no child got free without a bottle.

Even when the magpies had already pierced the top of the lid, there was no escaping the forced ingestion of Free Milk in all its curdled foulness.

It was the defining childhood experience that taught me the absolute necessity of being able to lie convincingly. “That’s mine Miss!” pointing to any old empty bottle in the crate.

It also taught me that some boys will do anything for a dare.

Goodbye Popeye

I’m shocked. Not so much by the news of the entire population of the North American continent going down with food poisoning from eating bagged spinach, but by the lack of respect shown to growing childen.

” Marina Zecevic said she made the mistake of serving creamed spinach to her kids the day the story (of the contamination) broke.”

No, Marina, your mistake was the heinous creaming of the spinach in the first place. In my day, no self respecting child would stand for such a blatant disregard of Human Rights.

Food plays such a large part in our character, it shapes our very souls. My generation gained tolerance through the wheatgerm which marred our porridge, fortitude from the boiled cabbage, and the daily teaspoon of cod liver oil constantly strengthened our righteous anger.

We survived the hideous institution of Free Milk in Schools and dutifully swallowed, every day at lunch, a warm bottle of clotted, curdled milk which had been sitting in the sun since sparrow-fart.

We were a tough bunch.

And no one would have dared to serve us creamed spinach.

Mysterious Places

I had a lovely comment from that well-known commentator Anonymous who told me that there is a place left in the world where you get good fish and chips. I had to sit down and have a little glass of sweet sherry to celebrate.

And this place is the mysterious Anstruther on the East Neuk of Fife. Anstruther, the Royal Burgh of Kilrenny, Anstruther Easter and Anstruther Wester. That’s in Scotland (to save you the trouble of looking it up.)

Apparently, the little town attracts many visitors during the summer months. So there’s something else that I learnt today, they have Summer in Scotland. See the nice photo of Summer in Scotland to prove it?

This internet invention is opening my eyes to the mysterious parts of the world, like Tuvalu, Long Dong, and the East Neuk of Fife.

Sherry and vegemite

I interrupt this blog to thank the kind young lady at Labyrinth of Learnings, who bought me a nice soothing glass of sherry this morning.

She tells me that scoffing down a meal of fish and chips, the fat-saturated variety, is still a popular pastime where she lives. Of course, the poor dear lives in the bush, and you know what Bush people are like. They haven’t the slightest idea what to eat besides boiled lamb and damper.

Heavens, I don’t think they even have vegemite, it’s found only in those scattered outposts on the bullock run. To show my appreciation, I’m sending the kind thing some vegemite recipes in case she suffers from boils, ulcers or bladder troubles. (I believe bladder problems are rife in the Outback - it’s so far to go to reach a toilet)

Whatever happened to fish and chips

Remember Fish and Chips on Fridays? That’s how we knew what day of the week it was, by the greasy bits of flake wrapped up in old newspaper. (We never minded the print dye running into the batter, it gave the potato cake an extra zing.)

You just can’t get fatty food like that anymore, all these young people want nothing but low fat, no salt, no sugar, biodynamic batter and organic cold pressed oil for totally taste-free flake.

Constance Brown, 98, has been frying fish and chips for 80 years in her little corner fish and chip shop. She’s been eating them too. “That’s all I eat. I don’t eat any vegetables at all.”, she says. “So I’m living proof you can eat nothing but fish and chips and still be healthy.”

You can’t tell me that Connie has been tucking away this new-fangled low fat fish since the war.

April Fools’ Day

Well I managed to stay inside for all April Fools’ Day. No one has managed to pull my leg for a while, but I kept an eye out through the venetians for suspicious activity just the same. Some of the nippers around here need a firm hand. My goodness, back in my day if I used the language I hear from these neighbourhood cherubs, it would be paddy whack the drumstick so hard I wouldn’t be sitting down for a week.

One year in primary school I pinned a note which read ‘Kick Me’ to Father Camilleri’s back. There was absolute hell to pay. I was hauled up to the Head Nun and she rang my father at work! I was nearly expelled, at the age of seven.

Father Camilleri wasn’t fashed about it, he liked the fact that I could pronounce his esoteric name. At the time of this lamentable incident, it was only a few years after the lifting of a ban on migrants from Malta. They couldn’t come here because of the White Australia Policy. Too dark, you see. Too swarthy, too somehow black. And these were Maltese! Fellow Members of the British Commonwealth and war allies.

And we haven’t moved forward since then either. We just don’t pick on the Maltese anymore, especially when they make such superb jockeys.

Deus ex machina

So I spent the morning with some Young Thing checking my blood pressure, bone density and asking me questions to which I answered almost truthfully.(Who tells the whole truth in a health check-up?)

Anyway, the upshot is I have an exercise regime to follow which includes a cross-country ski machine and lots of bouncing around with some big coloured balls. Whoever heard of such a thing. When I was a young nipper we had drills where we marched up and down. Exercise was for the athletes who did a bit of swimming to represent their country in the Olympic Games in between their work at the boot factory and signing autographs for the local children. Now exercise has to be with things

Green Ham and Eggs

My tenant Stephanie at Mystickal Incense is having fun with paint at the moment (I thought only kindergarten kids did that) but the pigs at National Taiwan University are green from the inside out. Yes, green. And they glow in the dark.

Back in my University days when the world was young, I would have loved to been part of breeding a green pig. Or better still, one that could fly. Fabulous for Protests. We all did a lot of chemical experimenting in those days, and at times I may have glowed green myself. I certainly flew.

While on the subject of trivial mutations, whatever happened to Alba, the Green Rabbit who was created by French genetic researchers for artist Eduardo Kac? She had green jellyfish genes, and glowed in the dark.

What good are these creatures? Not much at all, unless you’re a Raelian clone and glow in the dark yourself.

I suggest bedside lamps