IMMORTAL MORTIMER

The newly discovered (or invented) New Zealand composer named Aubrey Sedley Mortimer is immortal, because he never died; in fact, he was apparently never born.

When the alarm-clock radio came on at 9 am today (Easter Monday) the RNZC announcer, Clarissa in her most serious voice, said (or so it sounded to me in my dazed state): "We interrupt this program with a news flash". Anyway, that was the tenor or basis of it, and it sure was flash news; in fact (or fiction?) it was a flashback to the nineteenth century, a memory of a fantastic past or a Fantasia of murky history (apologies to Disney). Instead of the programmed Lutoslawski, the composer of the week, we were to hear an up-to-date account of Aubrey Sedley Mortimer (or whatever), a nineteenth-century New Zealand musico, the composer for the first day of the month.

The documentary was produced (in every possible sense of the word) and presented (also pre-scented for sleuths) by Roger Wilson (a long-standing personal acquaintance of mine, who does indeed stand taller than myself), an eminent *musicologist (a veritable grey eminence in this instance) and no mere academic but a practising and performing *musician; and what a practised performance this was: he not only sang but also did ventriloquism, producing voices from far out; for economical reasons, presumably, he was mimetically declaiming (with no hint of disclaiming) the alleged comments of Heath, Des, Elric, Douglas, and more.

Apparently it was all Roger's own work (not to say entirely of his own manufacture), but eventually it transpired that Rebecca Blundell was implicated. The biographical details of this missing predecessor of Alfred Hill and Douglas Lilburn certainly rang true, but do not bear repeating.

(PS: it was actually replayed at 7.30 pm, by David Morriss, but will Mortimer make it to the daily and sabbatical listeners' request programs, like Helen Moulder's operatic legend Cynthia Fortescue?)

A.S.M. was a typical Trollopian wastrel of an honourable English lineage, but his family (like the Quills of Bal-ham) paid for him to study music abroad, thereby hoping to see the last of him; in this case Aubrey left Leipzig (where he conceivably had pregnant encounters with Alfred Hill and
Arthur Sullivan) and migrated to New Zealand, the furthest bastion of British civilization.

Aubrey's Mâori connections (including a Mâori consort and a consort of taonga instruments) were striking, and one particular chord he struck at the opening of one of his operas, in which a miscegenational Pâkeha-Polynesian relationship occurs, turns out to be the mystical Tristan chord. Roger Wilson and his Scottish expert on Wagner, found this astonishing and inexplicable, since it could not have been heard in Aotearoa at that time.

Well now, I have *news for them, and it is no mere *flash in the pan: that chord appears in Haydn's oratorio THE CREATION, which would have been performed by local choral societies. I have heard this fine point demonstrated on the radio by a polyphony pundit; I think it is on the first page; but I digress.

There was a reference to a pair of star-crossed lovers under Mâtâriki (the Pleiades) not to mention the Southern *Cross (and they wickedly failed to do so).

Wondrous to relate, there is a love duet between a basso profondissimo and a contralto: at last a heroic role for me (a third bass for whom composers never provide a part) to sing with my beloved Helen (she will complain if the notes go too low, though). Incidentally, it was Helen who pointed out to me what day of which month this lecture was being delivered.

Like the French composer Messiaen, who collected birdsongs to include, for example, in his opera about Saint Francis of Assisi, who talked to the animals (but it is not correct to say that he was wont to do little else) Mortimer was observed transcribing the calls of the avian fauna of this land. We can forgive him for not recording the cry of the moa, but he overlooked (or overlistened) the huia, and bequeathed a puny piano piece representing a tui (in the flax).

It is not my intention to be hypercritical; as I have often reiterated to you, I am not a reviewer but a previewer; but I did not know this pseudo-doco was coming; it took me by surprise.

I will simply say that anything that satirizes academic pomposity is all right by me.

I am a gullible gull who will gulp anything down the gully of my gullet; I can swallow anything fishy; and I now think I have been the victim of wishful thinking and fishful winking. I have been codded by a load of codswallap.

Fortunately, I had a mental set that alerted me to be circumspect: the report of a box of music manuscripts being found in Hawera (which has a bovine statue as its symbol) reminded me of the discovery of a box of old film reels, which was engraved with the figure of a bull.

The solution to the puzzle of the ultimate source of ASM is here, with CMcK.



It brought to mind a pseudo-documentary that our celebrated Peter Jackson made, named FORGOTTEN SILVER, about an early film-maker in NZ; a Biblical epic (and moving pictures of the NZ aviator who actually  got off the ground before the Wright brothers) was found in a chest with a magnificent bull pictured on its lid; it was a hoax that fooled us all, since Leonard Maltin was included as an authenticating witness; but in the analysis afterwards nobody but myself , it seems, picked up his bull-reference.

Subsequently, the thing was shown on television in Australia. I happened to be there at the time; it was being advertized by David Lange! He was urging people not to watch it!

My son Michael and I were at the Australian National University one day, and we visited the national film and sound centre; we were surprised to see a plaque bearing the name of a significant person in Australian history, who had the same name as PJ had used in his spoof: Colin McKenzie.

R and R

RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION
   Renaissance or renascence is about re-birth, being born again.
   Reformation is about re-form, regenerating something (a political, social, or religious institution) by removing faults and errors; it implies re-shaping, but basically it aims at restoring the thing to its original form.
   Both terms are applied to movements in the culture of European Society in the 15th and 16th centuries.
   It could be said that both the Renaissance with its re-birthing and the Reformation with its re-generating produced ‘born-again Christians’.

THE RENAISSANCE
   The movement known by the French word Renaissance should be given the Italian name Rinascimento, since it began in Italy (with Dante), was felt in Germany and France, and eventually reached England. This renascence marked the transition from the medieval to the modern world.
   If it was the period of the emancipation of reason it was also the age of the florescence of the arts (meaning everything that can go into an arts degree, though social sciences had not been discovered or invented at that time).
   It saw the beginnings of modern science and the application of genuine scientific methods to the study of nature (as defined by the name of the current scientific journal entitled Nature).
   But already in the thirteenth century, Germany (specifically Swabia) and England had given birth to great doctors of science (or philosophy, as in PhD).
   Albert of Cologne, Saint Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), was a member of the Dominican order of Preachers (O.P.); his conections were with monasteries in Padua and Cologne, and the University of Paris. He was known as Doctor Universalis on account of his universal knowledge in the sciences of botany, zoology, alchemy-chemistry, astrology-astronomy, metaphysics (rather than physics), and theology (which is the queen of the sciences, of course). He promoted Aristotle and Avicenna [Ibn Sina] in scholasticism.
   Roger Bacon (1214-1294) was an Englishman and a Franciscan monk. He was accorded the title Doctor Mirabilis (Wondrous). He actually performed experiments (not mere alchemical games).
   Such seekers of knowledge did not do much experimental science in laboratories, but they wrote a lot of scientific reports. And, as Christopher Beckwith has now demonstrated, they used what he has dubbed as “the recursive argument method”. This was the “disputed questions” structure (also used by Saint Thomas Aquinas), as opposed to the older simple structure of “sentences” or “questions”.
   The recursive method is a rigorous approach to formal analysis, which examines a problem systematically, logically, and in detail. Basically, (1) (question) a main argument is presented; (2) (first recursion) it is argued about by subarguments (often numbered), pro or contra, including the author’s view; (3) (second recursion) a third section of subarguments, arguing all the items in the first recursive set in sequential order (hence the numbering); an optional “author’s view argument” may be included.
   This method does not guarantee attainment of objective absolute truth!  
   Looking at the subjects investigated (Beckwith, 101-118), we see Avicenna on the question of the soul (“psychology”), whether the soul is one or many. 
   Two English students at the University of Paris (perhaps they stayed in the college for Englishmen, the first college founded in Western Europe) employed the new method: Robert of Curzon on usury (economics, another suspect science), whether in certain cases it is admissible (he died on a crusade in 1218); Alexander of Hales, who settled in Paris, had a collection of “disputed questions”, such as whether God is omnipresent, and whether God’s foreknowledge imposes predestination on things.
   Albertus Magnus wrote a commentary on Aristotle’s book On animals, asking, for example, whether every animal breathes air.
   Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, asks whether it is permitted to kill oneself.
   Beckwith (159-165) attempts to show that the recursive scientific method is still in use, in the Humanities dissertation (having the structure of a single recursive argument), and particularly in laboratory reports in experimental psychology. An example is : Why does language interfere with vision-based tasks? (This relates to using a telephone while driving a car, I suppose.) The first subarguments are the hypotheses; then the author’s view arguments are the exposition of the experiments; the second subarguments are the results of testing the hypotheses; finally the author’s view (conclusion).
   He concludes (164) that the method went out with the Enlightenment, when (as I see it) the baby was thrown out with the bathwater (all the absorbing questions that the “warriors of the cloisters” loved, such as the number of angels dancing on the point of a pin, and arguments for the existence of God). Moreover, historians and philosophers of science can not agree on anything, including the meaning of science itself, so there is no clear model for writing scientific books in most fields (160). I often hear it said that scientists are much too busy to be thinking about philosophy of science and the history of scientific method.

Christopher I. Beckwith, Warriors of the Cloisters: The Central Asian Origins of Science in the Medieval World (Princeton UP 2012)
“Beckwith traces how the recursive argument method was first developed by Buddhist scholars and was spread by them throughout ancient Central Asia. He shows how the method was adopted by Islamic Central Asian natural philosophers--most importantly by Avicenna, one of the most brilliant of all medieval thinkers--and transmitted to the West when Avicenna's works were translated into Latin in Spain in the twelfth century by the Jewish philosopher Ibn Da'ud and others. During the same period the institution of the college was also borrowed from the Islamic world. The college was where most of the disputations were held, and became the most important component of medieval Europe's newly formed universities. As Beckwith demonstrates, the Islamic college also originated in Buddhist Central Asia.”

  
   The Renaissance encompassed the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo in astronomy, and the foundation of anatomy by Vessalius.
   Exploration was in vogue; in 1492 Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to America, although this was some 3000 years later than the Bronze Age seafarers who made the same crossing and taught the Mesoamericans to do all the things that were done in the Mediterranean world (notably writing and building pyramids); my evidence for this is an inscribed copper cup from that era, found in Jamaica, bearing a line of West Semitic script.
   In the wake of the travels of Marco Polo, paper, printing, and noodles were brought from East Asia, though papyrus was an equivalent  writing material used in the ancient Egyptian empire; stamp-printing on a clay disc was practised at Phaistos on Crete in the Bronze Age; spaghetti has not survived, naturally, in the archaeological record of the Etruscans.
   The Renaissance was focused on reviving art and literature, as result of renewed acquaintance with the masterpieces of classical antiquity, Hellenic as well as Latinic. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio were the leaders in the awakening to new perceptions of beauty and bliss.
   The Papacy fostered the Renaissance, let it not be forgotten. Pope Nicolas V (1447-1455) was the very model of a Renaissance man, living a life of sincerity and simplicity (books were his only luxury); he had assisted Lorenzo de Medici in setting up his library, and he was the founder of the Vatican Library in Rome, bless him; that is where I obtained most of my Syriac manuscripts on mysticism, which have been objects of my academic attention since 1966, though they were added to the collection in the time of the librarian Joseph Assemani (1687-1768).
   Pope Julius II (1503-1513) aspired to be the leader of the intellectual and artistic movement, and in this regard he requested Michelangelo to represent him as Moses in the great statue with horns.
   But patronizing the arts and erecting cathedral churches, such as Saint Peter’s in Rome, required monetary resources.  Here my definition of religion, as a system for extracting money from people, definitely comes into play. Scientists and religionists have that in common: their chief concern in life is finding funding for their projects, to fulfil their mission statements. (The Finnish composer Sibelius made a similar complaint about musicians, as constantly talking about finance and funding, whereas businessmen loved conversing about music and art.)
   The solution to the impecuniosity of the Roman Catholic Church came through divine revelation, presumably, since its pontifical bishop, as the vicar of Christ, had an infallible line of communication with God, whose sovereign will and instructions were mediated to the subjects of the Kingdom of God by the priests. On the other hand, it might simply be that the doctrine evolved out of the sacrament of penance, with a little help from the aforementioned English theologian Alexander of Hales, followed by Thomas Aquinas: the system of Indulgences, as pardons for sins. The ecclesiastical discussions about this phenomenon (a technical term for “thing” in religiology, be it understood) bring in Purgatory (the halfway house to Paradise, as Dante demonstrated), and the store of merit accumulated by Christ and the saints (an idea long established in Mahayana Buddhism), but do not mention the simple point that indulgences can be bought with money. As with the tax-collectors of the Roman Empire (the so-called publicans in the Gospels) large profits could be made from managing these certificates of pardon. Indeed, this was a factor in the rise of capitalism (Lindsay, I, 83-84).

THE REFORMATION
In a religious reformation the pattern is that a prophet arises, and he (Joe Smith) or she (Ellen White) speaks for God; that is what the Greek word “prophet” means, “speaking for”, a spokesperson (speaking in the name of Yahweh, like Moses, for example). There may be some pre-dicting (saying beforehand) or fore-telling in the message, but prophecy is not primarily about predicting but about pronouncing judgement. I am privileged to be privy to an ancient oracle from an unnamed prophet of Israel; it is written on a shard known as the Qeiyafa ostracon, which was found in the ruins of a fortress overlooking the Elah Valley, where David confronted and slew the Philistine Goliath. The prophet pronounces divine judgement on the giant Goliath for uttering a curse against David the servant of God, and I assume that David has already done the heroic deed; then God promises to reward his servant and his people for his virtuous actions. So there is past, present, and future tense in the prophecy.
   The prophet is a reformer, not an innovater. This divine mouthpiece might inject some newfangled beliefs and practices into the reformed system, but the call is for a return to the original form (and spirit) of the religion. The prophet and the believers sing from the same hymnbook: Give me that old time religion. Certainly, Christian churches chant and sing and recite the Psalms of David.
   In the European Christian Reformation they did continue to sing the old hymns and say the old prayers. The words of the mass, translated from Latin into English, passed into the Anglican service of Holy Communion, and then into little prayerbook of the heretical people called Methodists. Incidentally, the hymns of Charles Wesley are sung by all denominations. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
  I said as much last Sunday (17/2/2013) to an old lady on Broadway. After the Wesleyan church service, while everyone else was feasting on “finger food”, I strolled down to see what was happening at the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, alias Saint Patrick’s church. I discovered that they are under the same ban as the Anglicans of All Saints’ and the Wesleyans of Saint Paul’s; their building has been declared earthquake-prone, and therefore:  enter at your own risk and don’t sue us if the walls come tumbling down on you. Mary is a member of that church (she is a pensioner but still working as a librarian) and we had an “ecumenical” conversation. She used that word because we had both been singing in an ecumenical congregation in that church for a television program entitled “Praise be” (which also included the community choir with Massey professors Tim Brown and Graeme Fraser in its midst; wonders never cease under the sun).
   Mary and I shared other experiences: we have both visited Assisi, but my tourist guide would not take us to see the original little chapel of Saint Francis of Assisi (now housed against his wishes inside a large church); but we were taken through Vanity Fair up the hill to the church with the paintings (which suffered devastation in an earthquake after my visit, as the York minster had been struck by fire from heaven after I had been there; I will not continue the catalogue of disasters that have followed in my wake; but as happened in Brunswick in Melbourne, there were four Methodist churches when I joined that parish, reduced to one when I left; same story in Palmerston North, where the remaining one of four has been condemned and is due for demolition).
   The point about Francis of Assisi is that he was a prophet and a reformer, harking back to the simple piety and poverty of the first Apostles. But the Pope clamped down on his reformation by isolating the Franciscan friars as an “order” with a legitimate place inside the established church.
   Then there was Erasmus of Rotterdam (1467-1536), a humanist who wanted internal reform, without schism. He was a loner, and his approach was through satirising the institutions and practices of the Church. As he saw it, the Christian Church had become Jewish. This sounds offensive, but it is true: the Roman Catholic Church was a priesthood (and yet the only priests in the New Testament were non-Christians); its priests were divinelyempowered to mediate redemption by blood sacrifice. But the dispersed children of Israel had stopped doing that when their Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70 of the current era. Judaism was now the spiritual religion that Christianity was designed to be. So the Jews are, in that respect, I respectfully submit, better than the Christians, but they can not be called Christians, because they do not accept that the Messiah, the Christ, has come yet (although ... recently an old Rabbi was considered to be the Moshiakh by his long-haired and bearded followers, and when he died they were going about preaching his gospel, and here we go again).
   But in Germany the real prophet-reformer stood up, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther (1483-1546). He became a celebrity, and was hailed throughout the land (Heil Luther!); his appearance at the Assembly at Worms has the makings of an opera (he was a lute player). Standing before the new young Spanish emperor, Charles V,who understood only Spanish and French,  Martin made his defence, first in Latin, ending with Dixi (I have said [what I have to say]), then in German, the language he bequeathed to his people, closing with the words Hie bin ich (Here I am, but always translated as Here I stand). It was deemed by some who were there to be a re-run of the trial of his Lord before the priests Annas and Caiaphas, and Herod.The result was a whole lot of “reasons” to have more wars, peasants revolting, and more of the usual same, for hundreds of years.

YULETIDE 2012

ON XMAS DAY
WHO WAKES EARLY
TAKES GREAT CARE
BAKES  THE FINEST
SPINACH  CAKES
ADMITS NO FAKES
IGNORES HER ACHES
FOR ALL OUR SAKES
NEVER APPLIES BRAKES
OR EVER HAS BREAKS
NOR FLAKES OUT
HELEN OF THE FLACKS
MAKES A CHRISTMAS
THAT WORKS

HELEN CHRISTINE COLLESS
MOTHER OF ALL OUR
JOYFUL NOËLS

ETERNAL TANGAROA

It was exciting for me when I finally met a  Mongolian person for the first time in my life (and that means that I had been waiting a very long time). In the past I had studied the history of Central Asia and China, with a special interest in the religions that have popped up there, among Mongols and Turks.
   Ariunaa turned up at our local supermarket a few years ago, serving at the checkout section. "I am not Chinese", she explained (not to say exclaimed) to inquirers.
   In our brief conversations while packing and paying, on one occasion I mentioned to her the Mongolian film I have seen about a camel who would not relate to her new-born offspring, but music was the solution to the problem.
    Learning of my interest, Ariunaa lent me a book which would refresh my memory about Mongolian history and inform me about Christianity in Mongolia at the present time. The book has a clever title: STEPPE BY STEP.  I know the author, as I had dealings with him at Massey University when I was a teacher there ("Senior Lecturer"); he is now in England, and I sent him a message to let him know I am reading it. The book has 543 pages, and I have not finished studying it yet, but I will have to part with it soon.
    More recently I have heard Ariunaa speak about her land and people, in an illustrated lecture at the Palmerston North public library.
    At our first encounter at the counter I had a particular question for Ariunaa. I remembered from reading Mircea Eliade's monograph SHAMANISM (1964) that the peoples of Central and Northern Asia had a celestial great god, like "our Father in Heaven", who went by such names as Tengeri and Tangara. She confirmed that the Mongolian word for "sky" or "heaven" is tenger (the g is sounded as g, not j).
   In this connection, Hugh Kemp  reports in his book (p. 493), that a new translation of the New Testament, for use in Inner Mongolia, will have Tenger for "God". (I would add that the Gospels speak of "the Kingdom of God" or "the Kingdom of Heaven", and this shows that God and Heaven are interchangeable.) Hugh notes that Chinggis Khan worshiped munkh tenger, "eternal heaven".
   Now, as I told Ariunaa, I have long been thinking that there is a connection between Asian Tenger or Tangara and the Polynesian divine name Tangaroa or Tangaloa.
   In Mâori religion, Tangaroa is the deity of the sea and all its wealth; but in Samoa and Tonga the equivalent god Tangaloa is supreme creator; in Hawaii he is called Kanaloa and rules the underworld.
   In the Mâori form, Tangaroa, the roa can mean "long" or "longlasting" and this reminds us of Mongolian munkh tenger, "eternal heaven". (Of course it is also found in the name of New Zealand, Aotearoa, the land of "the long white cloud").
    The Polynesians and other Pacific peoples must have come from the land originally, and all indications are that their ancestors lived on the mainland of Asia, rather than America. When they took to the sea, their great god Tangaroa watched over them from above.

KASPAR HAUSER

This year a young man came out of the forest and presented himself at a police station in Germany, claiming or pretending to be a homeless waif (or a bear with very little brain. or whatever); he turned out to be Dutch, if I remember rightly, running away from home.
    This was reminiscent of an incident that took place two centuries ago. For our Collesseum video movie this month we showed a highly rated German movie that has been waiting on the shelf for several years.
    For those of us who love puzzles, this is a treat. My son Michael gave me the video disc, which has a label identifying it on the box, but locating it in the film guides is a long search.
    In the Time Out Film Guide (Penguin) it is found under its original weird title: JEDER FÜR SICH UND GOTT GEGEN ALLE.
    Leonard Maltin has it in English: EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AND GOD AGAINST ALL (with his highest rating  ****).
    Halliwell has: THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER (**** in a system that mostly awards one star or none). This was the title given to its English version, with the German title (in translation) as a subsidiary title.
    Yes, Kaspar Hauser is the name you should put into your searcher.
    He appeared out of nowhere in the town-square of Nürnberg/ Nuremberg in 1828; he was possibly born into a princely family in 1812; maybe even a child of Napoleon;  he died of a stab-wound, perhaps by his own hand, in 1833.
   His tombstone has this Latin inscription: HIC JACET CASPARUS HAUSER, AENIGMA SUI TEMPORIS, IGNOTA NAVITAS, OCCULTA MORS.
    He was thus "the enigma of his time, birth unknown, death mysterious".
    The film is considered to be Werner Herzog's  best piece of work (do not be afraid, Klaus Kinski is not in it, though the wrath of God is ever lurking): "a sorrowing, darkly comic meditation on the pitfalls of 'civilization' and the way education destroys man's innocence" (Time Out, 2007, p. 607c).
    The leading role was played brilliantly by a man who (like Judy Garland) needed a lot of encouragement to get the self-esteem going on the set. He is listed as Bruno S. (yes!). An internet quest will unveil him as Bruno Schleinstein (1932-2010; Jewish?), a performing music-man who came out of a terrible childhood. He was aged forty-one when he played the adolescent Kaspar.
    The composers in the musical soundtrack are classical, starting with Mozart and his Magic Flute. But the Albinoni piece is not genuine; it was foisted on the 20th century by a modern Italian musician.
    This is not to be confused with KASPAR HAUSER (1993) also German, in which Kaspar is a pawn in a political power game. The rumour that he was a scion of the royal family of Baden is accepted here, but DNA comparison has falsified this idea.
    Michael Colless also gave me a play entitled KASPAR, by Peter Handke (1967), English translation 1969, seeking which (in the vast library that is my home) has occupied me frequently during the writing of this essay; I found it in the literature section (in the garage, among the books belonging mainly to my daughter Laurel) under K!  (I had better mention the third sibling also: Nigel is an educational psychologist, and this would certainly be of interest to him.)
    "Handke's play is a downright attack on the way language is used by a corrupt society to depersonalize the individual” (Michael Billington, Guardian).
   Werner Herzog's film is in German, with English subtitles, 1975, 110m, colour. The running commentary by the man himself is illuminating and engaging; he points out his mother in the audience of the circus side-show scene, where Kaspar is set before the public as an oddity (or a freak, like the elephant man).


 

Philrel

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

This is defined as philosophical exploration of religious beliefs and practices. Religion impinges on every area of human life, and it has to be investigated by all scholarly disciplines:
history/anthropology/sociology/psychology/philosophy of religion.

The basic science of studying this subject is phenomenology of religion; it gathers data from the religions, describing and explaining the phenomena (the technical term for the things in a religion), constructing typologies, and comparing (‘comparative religion’) the types of things across the range of religions, but without making value judgements.

Defining Religion
A system of symbols; a religion is like a language, which breaks up into dialects, or sects in the case of religions; these can become new religions.

Analysis of Religions
(A religion is a set of sacred beliefs, practices, objects, and persons)
Persons Traditions Writings Times Places Rites Objects Doctrines Rules

Philosophy of religion is where the question can be asked: Is it true?
But don’t expect a yes/no answer.

When logical positivism ruled philosophy, religious statements were judged to be non-sense, meaningless, and religious beliefs were absurd. When I had to study philosophy of religion in the 1960s, it was a battlefield, with A.J. Ayer and Antony Flew firing the cannons at me. The bombardment was eventually silenced, and the attacks *flew away into the*air.
Still, there were lessons learned about tidying up religious language.

Arguments for the existence of God.
Ontology (we have an idea of a perfect being, so it must exist; unicorns too?)
Cosmology (the universe exists, someone must have brought it into being)
Teleology (the marvellous universe must have a purpose and a maker)
Morality (based on commandments, so who gave these commands?)
Thaumatology (miracles show that God is there, and acting)
Experience (religious experiences, if you have them, put you in touch with God)

Defining Divinity (What is God?)
Monotheism (God is One; there is no God but God)
Polytheism (God is many; a multitude of deities)
Polymorphomonotheism (God is one, but in many forms; Trinity or 330 million)
[I made that word up; you might see it elsewhere as polymorphic monotheism]
Pantheism (God is all; everything together constitutes God)
Panentheism [God is the universe, and more; in it and beyond it)
[I usually take the most paradoxical option, but can not decide which]

Belief Positions
Theism (belief in Divinity; all the above 5 forms go under this heading)
Deism (God wound up the universe and lets it unwind with no interference)
Agnosticism (we do not know, can not know, whether God exists, but we care]
Atheism [to Hell with God, but actually neither of those concepts exist)

Divine Attributes
Omnipotence (God Almighty!) Omniscience (Big Know-all) Omnipresence (ubiquity)

God is SPIRIT (like wind, breath; but Mormons allow God to have a body) LOVE

I have no absolute fixed religious beliefs; but I am an advocate for everyone's religion (unless it includes female circumcision).

If anyone wants to take the label atheist, or theist, the qualification agnostic must precede it (Graham Greene was an agnostic Catholic, for example.) We must all be agnostics.

However, I accept that the universe is there (not an illusion), and that it is alive and kicking; and I want to have a loving relationship with it.

In the beginning God created humankind in the divine image.
Or: Humans created God in their own image?
(But remember: male and female he created them in his own image. (Genesis 1)
This is what really happened:
In the beginning humans created their mental image of God in their own image (male and female).

Brian Colless PhD ThD

THE GOLDEN RULE:
DO UNTO OTHERS BEFORE THEY DO ONE TO YOU.

GOLIATH

Goliath of Gath lieth down and dieth, 
but now riseth again

Lately (indeed, constantly)  I have been spending a lot of time on attempting to decipher ancient Semitic inscriptions (Canaanite and Hebrew). Because I am known through my CRYPTCRACKER website, people send me pictures of their  prized antiquities, hoping I will be able to read the writing on them. For instance, I have been sent a lot of photographs from a mountain in the Negev desert in Israel, named Har Karkom (Mount Saffron) which is  a candidate for being the  true Mount Horeb (or Mount Sinai), with a cave on its summit,  where Moses and later Elijah (properly Eliyahu, "Yahu is my God") communed with God (full name YHWH). Being conversant with the proto-alphabet I can read the markings on several stones along the track leading to the mountain: they say YH, that is YaHu (as in Hallelu Yah). So the name of the God who was worshiped there is written all over it.

Another object that has been brought to my attention is a bronze cup (apparently from the Bronze Age, before 1200 BCE) with a Canaanian inscription, which I see as including the words "bronze cup"; it was found in Jamaica, and this would put the Phoenicians (= Canaanites) in America three thousand (yes, 3000) years before Columbus, and long before the Vikings. Their presence would account for the sudden appearance of writing, cylinder seals, and pyramids in central America in the Bronze Age. Two inscriptions from a silver mine at Kongsberg in Norway (Viking country!) are also possibly Canaanite. The Phoenicians certainly circumnavigated Africa around 600 BCE. If anyone tells me that Mediterraneans could not cross the Atlantic Ocean 4000 years ago and meet Mesoamericans, then I simply say that not so long ago two New Zealanders rowed a boat across that stretch of water. And how did the aboriginal people of Australia get to the great south land aeons ago?

But I am supposed to be talking about Philistines, the people who came from the Aegean Sea and settled on the coast of Canaan, and this territory eventually became known as Palestine (named after them by the Romans).

Two inscribed pottery shards from archeological sites in Israel have been published in recent years, and various scholars have been trying to interpret the texts on them. It has occurred to me that both of them might refer to the giant Goliath, and this is not impossible, since one comes from the Philistine town Gath (the hometown of Goliath the Gittite) and the other from Khirbet Qeiyafa (apparently the place called Sha`arayim in the Bible), a fortress overlooking the valley of Elah, where David confronted Goliath.

One day, as I was leaving Steve's bulk foods barn on Albert Street in my little city, I met for the first time a man whose story I have been following for many years, namely Ahmed Zaoui (alias Ahmad Zawi). I gave him a Salaam greeting, and in the course of our friendly conversation I told him I was working on ancient documents mentioning Goliath. He has had a David versus Goliath experience in taking on the New Zealand security and immigration authorities (remember, David always wins); if he had been carrying a million dollars to invest in the country he might have been welcomed (truly), but he was put in prison; eventually he was committed to the care of Catholic Christians (and I remember that the Prophet Muhammad enjoyed the hospitality of monks on his caravan expeditions for his employer, his beloved wife Khadijah). Ahmed reminded me that Goliath, as Jâlût, is known in the Islamic tradition.

Goliath appears in the Qur'an (Surah 2:249-251).  So I opened up my big edition of the Arabic Scripture, with translation and notes by `Abdullah Yusuf `Ali, and here is my abridged rendering of the passage (as I was typing this out, by chance two women were singing in Arabic on the radio, from WOMAD in Taranaki):

"When they (the Israelites) advanced to meet Jâlût and his forces ... they routed them, by the will of God; and Daud (David) slew Jâlût; and God gave him the kingship and wisdom."

My interpretation of the text on the ostracon from Khirbet Qeiyafa shows similarities with this:

(1) The cursing of the `Anak against the servant of God:
(2) The servant of God has judged the warrior; Yah has judged
(3) Goliath; David is the master evermore.
(4) I rise up and  together we raise up the king;
(5) I raise up the people of my servant for his righteousness.

That is my drawing of it; photographs of the original can be viewed here.

Note carefully that there is quite a lot of guesswork in reading the faded ink, and deciding which letters are which; thus there are five examples of 'Aleph (Greek Alpha) with three different shapes or stances. Also, even if my reading of the Hebrew letters is correct, the words are not separated by spaces but run along breathlessly. Various interpretations are  possible: the first word could be 'L "god" or "unto " or "not"; if it is 'LT it could mean "goddess" not "cursing" (my choice).

In December 2011,  after studying this text for  a couple of years, and wondering why the divine name YHWH was missing, I finally realized that the name of God was hiding in the top right corner. My drawing shows a simple cross (+ = T) but it has more strokes to it (it is a reversed E, the sign for the sound /h/, originally representing the head and arms of a person celebrating, and eventually becoming E in the Greek and Roman alphabets). So we have YH, as in Hallelu-Yah, "Celebrate Yah(weh)".

 The Anaks (`Anaqim) were a 'tribe' of giants in ancient  Canaan/Palestine; Joshua had largely exterminated them when the Israelites took over the Promised Land, but some survived in Ashdod, Gaza, and Gath (Joshua 11:21-22), and it has been assumed that Goliath of Gath was one of them.

Here we seem to have (according to my interpretation) a record of a message from God (an oracle) through an unnamed prophet.

The first line could be the title of the piece, referring to the cursing of the `Anaq; Goliath did curse David, when they met (1 Samuel 17:43); and David was known as "my servant" who saved his people from the Philistines and their other enemies (2 Samuel 3:18). Line 2 states that this servant has "judged' someone (meaning that he has caused God's punishment to strike that person), and God himself (YH, in the top right corner) has also judged this Anak. Line 3 shows that this was Goliath (GLYT), and David (DWD) is the servant of God who has defeated him. God speaks in the first person in lines 4 and 5, promising to work together with his servant.

The king who is mentioned but not named would be Saul, who was afraid to go out and face Goliath, but here he is raised up and his morale is restored, together with the army of Israel, who pursued the Philistines back to Gath (1 Samuel 17:50-58). Saul became envious of the popularity that David acquired, and made attempts on his life. Psalm 18 is attributed to David, "the servant of the Lord", and said to have been composed at the time "when the Lord delivered him from all his enemies and from Saul".

THIS IS THE ONLY MENTION OF DAVID FROM HIS OWN TIME, OUTSIDE THE BIBLE, AND SO IT IS AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY, ESTABLISHING HIS EXISTENCE, AND ALSO CONFIRMING THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE STORY ABOUT DAVID AND GOLIATH.

The Gath ostracon  seems to record a lament for the fallen hero of the Philistines (called GLWT in their dialect of Canaanite, apparently):

"Woe, GLWT; and you have perished.
'YGLWT / WSPT

Note this curious detail: the head of Goliath is separated from his body; the G (a boomerang) stands above the L ('supralinear'), not preceding it on the line of script, keeping his head apart from his body, so that they might not be reunited, with the headbone connected to the neckbone, and the giant rearing up on his hindlegs again. Just a thought.

However, the archaeologists who discovered the document reject the W and the Y as not part of the inscription; they are not actually 'inscribed'; they are accidental marks (made by plant roots, or the excavater's tools) not intentional letters; and the proposed SP is more likely to be another L, and not to be broken up into two parts.

The inscription thus seems to give two words or names (reading from right to left): 
'ALWT / WLT
The first of these could be, nevertheless, an original form of the name which came out in Hebrew as Goliath. The second might be the name of his father.

For my fuller account of the scholarship that has been applied to these documents, go to:

http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/ Two Goliath Ostraca, and Qeiyafa Ostracon

And most recently and thoroughly:

https://sites.google.com/site/collesseum/qeiyafa-ostracon-1

See Michelangelo's painting of David beheading Goliath, in the Sistine Chapel.

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) an African American poet (the first to be published) composed a heroic poem entitled Goliath of Gath.

In Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess, the spiv known as Sportin' Life exclaims in a parody of the Afro-American 'spiritual' song:
De t'ings dat yo' li'ble to read in de Bible, it ain't necessarily so. Li'l David was small, but oh my! he fought big Goliath who lay down an' dieth....

Then there was the irreverent NZ camp song of the 1950s:
"Goliath of Gath (gaath) with his helmet of brass (braath)...
and all Israel shouted: Goliath is dead."

OLD WINE

Fossicking about in old abandoned inscriptions (and many of them are located at and in old mines, and one from Sinai actually speaks of using a pickax to inscribe its words) I frequently strike gold. It has suddenly hit me that I seem to have discovered the earliest-known instance of the word "wine"; it occurs in a proto-alphabetic graffito from the Wadi el-Hol in the western desert of Egypt, near ancient Thebes. It is written simply with the letters WN (no vowels are supplied) but it would have been pronounced the same as English wine (wayn). The inscription dates from the 19th century BCE. It is on a rockface, and it indicates where the West Semitic goddess `Anat was worshiped with eating and drinking. The language is Canaanian (Proto-Hebrew) and eventually the W became Y in Hebrew (yayin); an example of it from later times is found in a riddle on an ostracon from Beth-Shemesh (Wine Whine, Carousing in the wine bar with a maid).

DIVINE EARACHE

Lately I have been reading for the second time one of the two books I have on cryptcracking (the other is by Simon Singh, see code cracking): Richard Belfield, Can you crack the Enigma Code? (Orion pb 2007). It describes many unsolved cases of encryption: the Voynich manuscript (possibly a work of Roger Bacon the 13th-century Franciscan scientist and cryptographer?); the 18th-century Shugborough monument (imitating Poussin's shepherds of Arcady, without the motto ET IN ARCADIA EGO, but with the enigmatic inscription
D     O.U.O.S.V.A.V    M); the Beale papers (19th century, there's gold in them thar hills in Virginia) possibly devised by Edgar Allan Poe, whose story The Gold Bug is one that I struggled with when I was very young, but it must have set me on this "cryptcracking" path (though I have never coveted gold).
   The title suggests that Belfield will talk about the World War II German Enigma Machine, but it is only mentioned in a sentence on page 17, depicted on a colour plate between pages 84 and 85, and this would be because the Enigma code was broken by the tireless workers at Bletchley Park (p. 16), and this book is "a celebration of those codes that have defeated human ingenuity" , even though Poe had declared in 1841 that "human ingenuity cannot concoct a cipher which human ingenuity cannot resolve".
   The Enigma that Belfield does examine is Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations (the underlying theme is still a mystery, though my proposed solution is presented here, as The Elgar regal enigma).
Note that as I write this I am listening to Bach's Mass in B Minor, for inspiration, since it is now known that this opus has a numerological and cryptographical system running through it.
   In my capacity as Cryptcracker, I receive mysterious inscriptions from interested readers of my site, and I trust that they have not forged them. But now a brand-new enigma book has been sent to me by its author (not an alleged medieval manuscript, as in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose):
even gods ears ache: poems by john patterson
(steel roberts aotearoa 2011).
 John Patterson (patto@inspire.net.nz)
   This particular John Patterson describes himself as a "retired philosophy lecturer", and he reminds us about his books on Maori/ Chinese/ environmental philosophy (all of which I possess and have studied). We were in the same department at Massey University in Palmerston North; his teaching-subject (in case you skipped over that bit) was philosophy (including logic and critical thinking) and mine was religion (illogical and uncritical). And here he is speaking in the name of god/ God! We shared a lot of laughter, and I remember one of his significant and quite innocent pronouncements intending no offence (made after reading the Qur'an from cover to cover): In the Bible the wages of sin is death, in the Koran the wages of death is sin [so to speak, alcohol is not forbidden in Paradise, and there are other seductive delights].
   When the little volume arrived, I was going to a funeral, so I took it along and recited aloud some choice verses from it, to my driver, my wife Helen.
   Let's start our analysis of the work with the sample on the back cover [51.4]:
take your time jack 
dont read this poem 
till your eyes find   
some hint some clue
   So, no capitals, no punctuation, and at the heart of the text its form is revealed as "this four word four line grid" [29.4]. And we are invited to look for clues to solve the mystery. Is this a cryptic clue: "code name zero zero four" [59.2].
   Incidentally, it is branded as an "anti poem poem book" [31.3]. The last words are: "stay here poet last  time your feet went down that road they came back very sore" [64.4]. Curiouser and curiouser. Well we are curious to know whether "last time" refers to his previous poetry book: cant find rest room (nagare press 1991), since he tells us this new one may be regarded as the second edition of that one (see 15.3 for that rest room).
   Each verse seems unrelated to the others in its set. One wonders whether each stanza was originally on a separate slip, in order, but a rogue wind blew them into an entirely new (and not logical) sequence. Perhaps it is  the reader's task to reconstruct this great edifice as an orderly pack of cards (though not a house of cards). He seems to say so: "card game pick card" [60.2].
   Anyway, the pattern of the poems is outlined thus:
lamp post poem went
down page like that
with each word over
last word then stop [54.4]
   There are 56 poems in the collection, each having four verses comprising four lines with four words.
   Probe deeper and you will find that the 56 x 4 verses (total 224, and 2+2=4) and the 224 x 4 lines (total 896) have 896 x 4 words (total 3584) and all 3584 of them are (by hook or by crook [400m, hada, itll] and forget apostrophes) four-letter words. However, the most notorious word in that category (which begins with the same letter as four) never comes up; sex only rears its head as make love [64.3].
    John was/is a mathematician, but his numerical system is here strictly limited: four and five and nine are the only permitted factors:
"shes bout five foot / four five five slim / deep blue eyes long / dark hair good legs" [12.2]; "nine mile" [14.20]; "back then when four  plus four made nine  folk took life easy  they were only kids" [55.1]. However, nought (0) makes an appearance in a profound problem: "zero over zero does  that make more than  zero dont know less  than zero dont know" [33.1].
   Mystic: from his Taoist practice (txting, txting): "mpty your head mpty  your mind each idea  will seep away sink  down past your toes" [33.2].
   Prophet: Not always with keen clarity: "mine eyes have seen  know that song mine  eyes have seen seen  what what came next" [42.1]. Sometimes lacks certainty: 'will that chap they  call lord come back  will that chap they  call king ever rule" [58.4]. However, there is certainty with regard to ecology: "axes bite thud sink  deep into soft wood  this tree will fall  tiny eggs will drop" [55.4]; "when that acid rain  gets here your skin  will burn away  even your soul will peel" [59.1]
  Theòlogist: deity is mentioned often, in a polytheistic fashion: "they have many gods  demi gods semi gods  hemi semi demi gods  many many many gods" [43.3]. On holy war: "army wins wars with  gods help plus guns" [12.3]; but "gods side lost this time" [25.4].
   John Patterson the practical person shines here: "your left foot goes  into your left sock  your left sock goes  into your left shoe" [61.2]. This great sage taught me how to tie up my shoelaces; my mother had ingrained a slippery granny-knot into my subconscious mind; John made me think what I was doing and I changed to a solid reef-knot (as I had learned in the Balmain Boy Scout brigade), and now I don't need to put another knot on top to keep the main one from untying itself.
   Boating: always one for "messing about in boats": "wide days warm days  sail boat days with sara" [52.1]; "boat plan nine foot  long four foot wide  tiny gaff sail uses  oars when wind dies" [21.1]; "fold that edge back  over this bolt rope  then hold them down  sail will stay flat" [36.2]; "head sail ties onto  fore stay main sail  ties onto boom then  that ties onto mast" [22.3]. You  can put these bits into the correct order yourself.
   Moviegoer: I have met John at the cinema at times, even at an opera movie: "seen that marx bros  film yeah well when  shes hada skin full  pams just like that" [56.4]; an allusion to A Night at the Opera? or the woman in the bath with Harpo in the first one I ever saw (Duck Soup?).
   There is a soap opera running through it all: "some half wits told  anna that kens been  seen with mary reid  poor kens real wild" [33.3]. It is a love story: "love your legs love  your arms love your  ears love your eyes  even love your nose" [17.4]
   Music: the title of the collection is found  in the first poem [9.4]; I sing in a five-part choir, and the extra unwritten part is often unwittingly provided by me: "when they yell that  five part hymn with  loud bass drum beat  even gods ears ache".
   Maaoritanga: as noted already, John ("Hone") has a deep appreciation of Maaori culture. His namesake in history is apostrophized: "chop down that flag pole hone heke" [58.1]. He mentions moko (tatoo) [64.2], and a playful "mock moko mark" [9.1, the first stanza in the book].
   Chinese: I will simply say that his every word is like a Chinese character, square script, and his syntax is simple, as in Chinese.
   Artist: "He also tries to paint". A striking example of his art is a large painting made up of little coloured squares (pixels); being a proper work of art it is meaningless viewed up close; but from the other end of the long corridor of our university department (now called the School of Etc Etc) the philosopher Bernard Russell meets our gaze (he is still there, John, and the colours have not faded). As an art critic, he opines: "paul klee ... cant even draw" [63.2]. The only illustration (a miniature on the back cover) is a cunningly constructed photographic portrait of the artist as a visionary poet (looking sideways into the future) and a pensive philosopher (with his thinking cap on) in an ecological setting (green grow the rushes).
   Let's try this hypothesis: John's poetry is created in the same way as his pictures, from small squares, which taken together give a complete view of life on Earth.
   The author is momentarily despondent: "they wont read this  dont even hope they  will itll fall upon  shut eyes dead eyes" [33.4]. I trust this reader has shown that his eyes have not been closed in the process. But I should have given a health warning at the outset: I could write a book about this book.
 E Hone, kia kaha, kia ora.

ELECTION QUESTIONS

Who put the Epsom Salts in the sugar bowl at the absolutely private but wholly public unholy tea-party, and caused them to get runs rather than win votes? ("It's not cricket!")
    Whose silly idea was it to have a tea-party when the term brings to mind the American extremist Tea Party (who have caused all the problems of the world), and also Wonderland's tea-party, which Alice (representing the populace) attended though uninvited? ("No room, no room!" "It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!")
    The Mad Hatter and the Mad March Hare talked about inconsequential matters, like ravens (portenders of doom) and writing desks (read: computers and blogs), twinkling bats (again, it's not cricket), but did the two Aucks discuss the future of the BANKS (such as the Kiwi Bank) and the KEY to winning power by selling power companies (any advance on 49%? 99%? Going, going, gone!) and dividing the wealth among the deserving poor, such as plutocrats and politicians, but not proletarians and poverty-stricken people (defrauded by finance companies), who would only squander it? ("How I wonder what you're at.")
   Was the subject of exchanging seats (which was basic to this and the Mad Hatter's party) even mentioned at all? (All move up one, but the person at the head of the table always gets the clean cup.)
   Was it necessary to summon the police force to apprehend the eavesdroppers at the open but shut conversation, starting with the sleepy and forgetful dormouse? ( 'I wasn't asleep,' he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: `I heard every word you fellows were saying.' "Off with their heads!")
    What are we to think about the motives and motions of those who would rule over us? ("You're nothing but a pack of cards!")
    Does the "first past the post" election system provide (as in Rob Muldoon's glorious reign, and Roger Douglas's  regime of terror, not to mention Ruth's ruthless period of slashing and burning) strong government or dictatorial tyranny? (`Let the jury consider their verdict,' the King said.`No, no!' said the Queen. `Sentence first--verdict afterwards.' 'How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.)
     Can the Australian system for the lower house (the upper house is chosen proportionally), whereby preferences are counted if the first candidate past the post has not attained at least half of the votes, bring stable government? ('I vote the young lady tells us a story.' ) Well the lady who leads the Labor government in Australia has a coalition government, with the balance of power held by an independent dormouse; and the Liberal Party has usually needed the Country Party (now the National Party) to form an alliance government. And it would be illegal here but every party in every electorate has a member standing outside each polling booth handing out cards giving instructions on which numbers to put in the boxes, because you have to rank the candidates, or your voting paper is invàlid.

    `And they drew all manner of things--everything that begins with an M--' (such as memory and "muchness", including MMP?)
Does the "mixed member proportional" system give everyone a fair go, and make them feel that at least one of their two votes has not only been counted but has actually counted? (`Why not?' said the March Hare. Alice was silent.)
    But MMP has some little anomalies, and the Epsom Salts tea-party has highlighted them.

   Well, now, I trust that has made things clearer. (Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.' )

ELECTION 2011

ELECTION IN NEW WONDERLAND

Before the previous NZ election in 2008 I commented on the promise made by the National Party that they would not sell public assets in the first term (political manifesto). I asked whether this meant the first school term, or university semester, or three-year term of government. Well, it turns out that the pragmatic John Key has kept his word and not interfered with Kiwi Bank (he did not buy it with his own fortune and call it the Key Wee Bank, as I had suggested) or sold the power companies.

However, despite assurances that taxes would not rise, there was an increase to 15% in the only tax that everyone pays (GST, the Goods and Services, the one that is often double taxation, when it is added to local council rates, for example). For some of the wealthy individuals this is the only tax they ever pay (they have diabolically clever accountants who show them how to avoid all the other taxes). Unfortunately it is a heavier burden for those who are not rich than for those who have heaps of money with which to make necessary purchases, particularly food and clothing.

Now, at the 2011 election, the subject of asset sales is on the agenda ("things to be done"), but it will only be "partial"; only a part of each power company will be sold, a mere 49%, and the proceeds will be used to fund the education and health systems, so that we can ease up on borrowing from foreign sources and reduce our deplorable debt. However, the deal is said to be that ordinary New Zealanders (who certainly need to save more) will be the investors who will purchase the shares, and Mâori are already  lining up at the counter (but they would rather see the assets remain in public ownership). It sounds reasonable, but a majority of citizens oppose the idea; it seems like selling half your house to pay off the mortgage, and then having the buyers live in that part of your home without paying rent, or watching them rent it out to others, who would not take proper care of it. We have not forgotten the mess that was made when the railways were sold.

On the other hand, there are some good reasons for selling the power corporations off completely and quickly, and both are related to the sun. First, solar flares are threatening to damage power lines (as they did to telegraph lines and machines in the middle of the 19th century), plunging the world into darkness and frigidity, and general powerlessness. Second, householders should be making their own arrangements and drawing on the solar energy that is poured forth every day from that great nuclear powerhouse in the sky. Smart people in Australia are able to sell their surplus of home-made electricity to the power corporations, feeding it into the national grid.

After the previous election,  I wrote about John Key being another public figure in NZ history who is Jewish, and I wished him well as prime minister. He has impressed us as a leader. I have just seen him being interviewed about the National government's work for Pasifika people. He knew what the facts are and he presented them lucidly and caringly. But the irony is that he was doing it on TVNZ7, which he is going to close down shortly and abruptly. He is the smiling human face for the National Party, but behind him atrocities are being committed.


The Mad Hatter's tea party has not helped the campaign, with the Hatter and the mad March Hare talking nonsense in a public place, and expecting privacy ("No room!" they said to Alice), and an eavesdropping device disguised as a dormouse was shoved into the teapot. Remember, the original hatter's tea party also involved an exchange of seats! Worse, this Alice in Wonderland scenario (Off with their heads, the Queen said to her police force) will associate the National Party in voters' minds with the crazy American extremists of the Tea Party.

We thought we were heading for good strong government under genial John Key, such as we enjoyed in Rob Muldoon's glorious reign. The National Party, like the All Blacks in the Rugby Cup competition, has been ahead on the points table all the way, but the fear is spreading that they will "choke" in the final test.

So then, we might have a coalition government, and the best alliance would surely be the two large parties, National and Labour together. When it came to the point of selling some assets, because food is not involved Labour would allow National to impose 15% G&S Tax (where have we seen that combination G&S before?).  Labour would also insist that a 15% capital gains tax (or similar) should be paid by the buyers. Imagine all those billions of dollars going into consolidated revenue, and all the wonderful services the government could provide with them. The great majority of the people would be pleased with their politicians. It would truly be one of those win-win situations, if both Labour and National win the election together.

DATING

If that headline has led you to think you can find the great love of your life here, I am sorry to say that you are tuned to the wrong channel. I am sure that the photograph beside this essay will convince you that there is nothing for you here, unless you are interested in the way we measure time on calendars; that is what I mean by dating. But reading what follows will be like being on a "date"; you will need to keep your wits about you and concentrate hard on what is being said (though there will be no body language or subliminal signals to distract you).

In November it is customary to observe Armistice Day on the 11th of this month; it now goes by the name Remembrance Day (since 1946); in North America (since 1954) it is a holiday and it is known as Veterans' Day (on 11/11, and as in the USA's 9/11 for the eleventh of September, the month is the first figure, which is quite illogical). All these names indicate that it commemorates war and fallen soldiers; in fact it stems from the signing of the armistice (armistitium, "arms standstill") at the end of World War I, at 11 a.m. (ante meridiem, "before midday") on the 11th day of November 1918. An annual silence of II minutes should occur (that's two in Roman numerals, not eleven, 11 or XI). In 2011, the 11 o'clock national news on Radio New Zealand was preceded by a moment of quietness, but the vehicular traffic roared on out in the streets. By contrast, on the first Tuesday in November, everything stops in Australasia for the running and broadcasting of the Melbourne Cup horse-race; my bike and I then have the road to ourselves, as I do not gamble.

The 11th of November has even more significance for me, as it is the anniversary of the birth of my Kiwi granddaughter Amanda Colless  (her elder brother Adam was born on Waitangi Day, 6th of February, so it is easy for me to remember their birthdays; for the record, Nigel and Dawn are her devoted parents). A machine which thinks it can think (it is in America on the other side of the date line) has put the wrong day and date on this message;  I am actually writing this on the 18th of November in the year 2011 A.D. (that is, "in the year [anno] of the Lord [Domini] two thousand and eleven", or "twenty-eleven", short for twenty hundred and eleven). Amanda has had her 15th birthday celebrations (spread over a dozen days, as with Jesus and the twelve days of Christmas) and right now she is undergoing a surgical operation. Some other person will be having their birthday today, so my best wishes go out to them.

This year, Amanda's birthday could be codified neatly as 11/11/11, to be deciphered as "the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of the twenty-first century, which is the first century of the third millennium of the current era". I refrain from saying "the 21st century A.D.", which makes no sense if anno Domini really means "in the year of the Lord"; but if it could be construed as "from the Lord's year" (from the year in which Jesus of Nazareth was born) it might work. The opposite of A.D. is B.C., which is not Latin but English, an abbreviation of "before Christ". However, there is now an international and inter-religion convention whereby we write CE (not Church of England but "Common Era") instead of A.D., and B.C.E. (before the Common Era") in place of "Before Christ" (which is not acceptable to Jews). Christians could still read it as "Christian Era", if they like. "Common Era" means "according to the dating system held in common". I prefer to say "current era".

Traditionally, on Remembrance Day, the silence descends in the first two minutes of "the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month". That is a logical progression, and that is why I say the American way (which converts 11th of September into 9/11) is perverse and confusing. Nevertheless, one of the three items in that sequence of elevens is incorrect: "the eleventh hour". November is certainly the eleventh month of the year, which has twelve months; the eleventh day is straightforward, but "the 11th hour" is backward, or not forward enough. Can you see what is wrong with it?

A similar confusion hangs around the ominous "11th hour", which is commonly supposed to mean the short time available before high noon arrives or doomsday begins. But stop to think about it: between the start of the 11th hour and 12 o'clock there is a total of 120 minutes, two whole hours. Can you grasp it? The 11th hour begins at 10 o'clock (this is undeniably true); and so at 11 o'clock which hour begins? The 12th hour, of course. The 12th hour, not the 11th hour, is when time is running out. When the clock strikes 11, it is signalling the end of the eleventh hour, not its beginning; 11.01 is the start of the twelfth hour, whether a.m. or p.m. Similarly, "23.00 hours"is the dividing line between the 23rd hour and the 24th hour of the day, which ends at midnight, which is not 24.00 but 00.00. When the big hand of the clock is on 12 and the little hand is on 1, it is showing us that the first hour has ended (all 60 minutes of it), and the second hour is beginning. Got it? (By the way, when I was a wee wee tot, and they would take me from my warm warm cot, to sit me on a cold cold pot, to make me do what I could not, namely weewee, I was in Balmain hospital for a tonsillectomy operation, that is how I relayed the time of day to an older boy in another bed; he could not see the clock, and although I knew my numbers I could not "tell" the time as he could, but that is how I could tell the time to him, by saying "the big hand is on ...".)

Do you remember the fuss about the millennium? I don't mean the vain hoping that this would be a century and even a thousand years of peace and prosperity, or the fear that our computers would not crash heavily on the first day of January 2000. I am thinking about the silly argument over when the 21st century and the 3rd millennium of the current era actually began.

Well, it was not a problem; there was no contest; the people (that is, everybody but me and a few fellow-pedants) who celebrated the arrival of three noughts, when 2000 came up, were toasting nothing, nought in triplicate, in reality. They had been accustomed to watching mile-ometers (and kilometer-ometers) and when 1999 changes to 2000 it's "jackpot!" and 2000 miles have actually been traversed.

However, with years on calendars it is different. The 10 years of a decade have not been fulfilled till year 11 starts, and year ten, the tenth year of the decade, has ended.

It is the same with birthdays. There is no year 0 (zero) in a person's life; the day of birth is 1/1/1, the first year of the first month of the first year. And so (without bringing in the date of birth of Jesus of Nazareth, which is not known, actually, not yet) the 20th century ended when the numbers 1/1/2001 came up, and the 21st Century and the 3rd Millennium began. (Incidentally, "20th Century Fox" then had a big problem with updating their title.)

Here are a few footnotes to the discussion. They could be brain-teazers

1 CE = ‘the first year of the current era’
1 BCE = the first year before the current era
but it is also the last year of the 1st Century BCE and of the 1st Millennium BCE
2 BCE = the second year before the CE
The 2nd century BCE begins in 100 BCE
The first day of 1 BCE is 1 January (1.1.1), not 31 December!
Only the years go backwards, not the dates within the years.

2001 CE is the first year of the 21st Century
and of the 3rd Millennium CE.
2001 BCE is the last year of the 21st Century
and of the 3rd Millennium BCE
2000 BCE is the first year of the 20th Century BCE.
The second year is 1999 BCE.

CE years:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | >>>>>
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 | 21 >>>> 1999 2000 | 2001
BCE years:
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 | 21 <<<< 2000
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | <<<<<<
Count by decades, also, to see the principle; centuries likewise.
BCE: the first year of the decade/century/millennium ends in 0 (zero) 
CE: the last year of the decade/century/millennium ends in 0 (zero)

In 2007 I  wrote another account of ancient dates, which says the same thing only different.

TRUMPETING

 I am speaking as a trumpeter who started as a bugler, but did once have a turn at playing what we called a trumpet-bugle (simply because it did not have valves, and you know that the valves add extra lengths of tubing when you press the pistons down singly or in combinations, turning it into an instrument that can produce all the notes between C G C E G, and above and below those basics).

Peter Daniels has given us succinctly the correct technical distinction:

"A bugle has a conical bore, a trumpet a cylindrical bore."
"There are keyed bugles, and valveless trumpets."

The point is: the bugle belongs to the horn family, not the trumpet family (trumpets and trombones).

I won't say that a person who gives the word "bore" in their definition without defining it (not in the Oxon lexicon, except with reference to guns and engines and calibre) is worthy of another usage of that word (or rather a homophone) which Oxford recognizes; but having had this answer given to me politely for fifty years, with the expectation that I know precisely what the difference is, I suppose it is about time I could distinguish cylindrical and conical bores (and it is not the shape of their hat which does it). (-;

I see the Oxford lexicon gives *bugle-horn as a synonym; and *clarion is another word, but having a narrow tube and a warlike shrill tone it must be that "trumpet-bugle" I mentioned (which is really a valveless trumpet).

What have we got in the Bible?

Daniel 3:5, at the court of King Nabu-kudurrru-us.ur (pronounced Caractacus, or Nebukadnessar),
Aramaic QARN 'horn' or 'cornet' (King James version)

Joshua 6:5-6, at the battle of Jericho, Hebrew QEREN 'horn' or trumpet' (KJV) together with SHOFAR, 'ram's horn)
It seems that here the words refer to the same object, the horn of a ram used like a conch shell or Siegfried's bovine (I presume) horn for getting attention.

H.aS.oS.eRa (passim): reed, tube, trumpet.
This sounds nicely onomatopoeic to me: KH introduces the breath; TS, TS the tonguing behind the teeth and the spittle that accompanies the breath (a good argument for TS as the ancient pronunciation, it occurs to me right now!); and the tongued or trilled R is part of the mix that goes into the mouthpiece and is amplified in the metal tubing.

Now, in brass bands and orchestras two similar instruments are the *cornet and the trumpet.
The cornet is squatter but they both have the same length of metal, wound around so that it is not disturbing the player in front of you (prodding his back or blasting right in his ear). The cornet is sweet-singing the trumpet is brassy brash.

And whether it is a conical horn or a cylindrical/tubular trumpet it has a bell (they all open out like a cornucopia).

So the ancient Israelite metal instruments were 'trumpets', and the others were animal 'horns'. The word 'cornet' does not apply, nor 'bugle', I would think.

Recently, after an early music concert I was allowed to hold a bent wooden (!) 'trumpet' (as used by Monteverdi and Gabrieli).

Still, someone could clarify conical and cylindrical for us. Does it mean that the bugle and the cornet and the French horn are widening their hole all the way to the bell, while the trumpet keeps the same width most of the distance?

Some time ago, Helen and I, and our grand-daughters Olivia and Julia, with their mother Laurel Colless of Virginia Tech, and their father Pekka Lintu the Finnish ambassador to Washington, marched round our house each with a percussion instrument, while I used a trumpet as a valve-trumpet to play the Grand March from Aida, but also playing bugle calls, which did not need any fingerwork, only tongue and lips and spit. Then they went back to D.C. for the Presidential Inauguration, and the Ball. Did you see them there? They have now moved to the Finnish embassy in Athens, to ask the Greeks why they can not live within their means as the Finns do.

fff >ppp

Brian Colless

RUGBY HEAVIN'

In recent weeks, here in Aotearoa alias New Zealand (Mâori name Niu Tireni, as in New Tyranny) we have been invited to believe that we are in RUGBY HEAVEN, as that heading was affixed to a supplement published in the newspapers every day.
    We have always known that we live in Paradise, with the whole country being a scenic garden, though the forces of Hades sometimes cause the earth to HEAVE (a geological term for "a sideways displacement in a fault", but generally meaning "rise and fall rhythmically or spasmodically"). Such ground-shaking has made life Hell for the citizens of Christchurch (incidentally, or digressively, the churches of Christ have not been immune to damage there, and the centres of Catholicism and Protestantism have been equally laid low and waste). Cantabrians (denizens of the province Canterbury) were not able to take part in the Rugby World Cup tournament, because their most sacred edifice of all (their stadium in Christchurch) had been wrecked in the upHEAVals. However, their Rugby football team (the Canterbury Crusaders) had been winners all the way in the competitions.
    While I am in digression mode, but actually in the throes of getting to the point (who scored the most points in the World Cup series?) I will reminisce about my five  years at Fort Street High School (Faber est quisque suae fortunae, Maker is each of his fortune, but since that seemed to refer to making money, it is translated as Everyone is the architect of his or her own destiny).
    My chosen winter sport for Wedensday{spellchecker, I am not going to alter that to your nonsensical orthography}) was softball (rounders), which eventually became the lunchtime game, after diminutive Headmaster Mearns reared up on his hindlegs and roared at the assembly: Every boy will play rugby, and learn to give a a knock and take a knock. This was an open admission that we are dealing with a violent recreation here, involving frequent re-creation of body parts, such as noses and knees. At Balmain primary school I had been coached in Rugby League by a famous player named Duckworth (right?), but this was Rugby Union, which only toffs engaged in. My most vivid memory is being in a match and seeing the ball on the ground, unguarded, and snatching it up and running with it, doing my hundred-yard sprint and scoring a try. (I once did it in 13 seconds at the athletics day, in the novice section, but then it was discovered that the finishing tape was 10 yards short of 100 yards; and some spoilsport is going to tell me now that I was off side when I scored.) The only other time I ran towards the try-line two burly chaps gently directed me over the sideline. (Where are you now Wilson? So many of my friends are not in the list of active alumni.)
    In my first year I scored almost 100% in the final examination in Latin (and I was in the 1B class not 1A). Our teacher required that our workbooks should contribute to our final mark, and I was downgraded for deficiency in neatness. In 1951,  at the end my year in 3B, he said to me in the presence of my peers that he hoped I would not be in his fourth-year class. I turned up there (my home class was 4C), smirking in all humility, and earned Honours 1 for him at the Leaving Certificate (Matriculation).  You may know that my dear friends Taylor and Willis and I kept in contact with him afterwards, and I often think of him, especially with regard to his love of music (Britten's opera Peter Grimes, for example, and Schumann's piano concerto). The Old Boys' Union prize for Latin came my way; I bought Knaurs Lexicon (in German) and it is autographed by Headmaster Shaw (14-12-54); I still keep it handy and use it as my basic encyclopedia.
     The moral ("lesson at the end of a fable") of that ramble is that I had a strong dislike of the year's work counting towards the final mark. The idea made me want to HEAVE (call for Herb or cry Wretch, in Oz-speak).  At Sydney University you were expected to do all the assignments throughout the three trimesters, but they did not contribute to the final grade. By the way in my long vacations, I did a lot of HEAVING, of barrels of beer and bags of oysters, loading and unloading trains for the NSW railways. Though I began as a high-school  teacher of languages, I eventually became a university teacher of Religious Studies (history of and phenomenology of and sociology of religions) at Massey University in Palmerston North in New Zealand. That institution manages to fit three separate semesters into one academic year! The students there had insisted that their labours in each course should be included in the final summation. I tend to agree, because I did much better in degrees where I had to write a thesis, which I could ponder over for a long time, not regurgitate in a three-hour exam. (I failed M.Th because it was solely by examination.)
    The climax is starting to HEAVE in sight (nautically and naughtily speaking). The New Zealand All Blacks (who really know how to HEAVE a haka war-cry) have triumphed. And NZers have LABOUR DAY to celebrate, while I put my thoughts on record.
    If we scrutinize the whole gamut of the games, Aotearoa had beaten Australia even before they met in the semi-final. There was no need for all these quarter- and semi- and grand finals.
   Add up the scores and the points of the three medal-holders.
    NZ: 41 83 37 79 = 240; 20/20
    Oz : 32 6 67 68 = 173; 15/20
    France: 47 46 17 14 = 124; 11/20
If France had managed to score more than 7 against the surprisingly meagre 8 of the NZ All Blacks, they would have been the winners of the World Cup, and that would have been a HEAVING travesty of justice, a HEAVY blow of fate.
   Never mind! Niuzilderz have moved HEAVEN and earth to achieve this goal (a different kind of home goal, including a field goal against the Wallabies by our local boy Aaron Cruden before the Frogs pounced on him and wrecked his kicking leg) and now they can HEAVE to. They have capitalized on this HEAVEN-sent opportunity, and they are in seventh HEAVEN (Saint Paul only attained third heaven, 2 Corinthians 12:2-3).
    We NZ Collesses have the name Australia on our passports, and we still call Australia 'ome, but we know how to pick winners.
    HEAVE-HO!

U3A KANGGA FEST

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Manawatu University of the Third Age

An old Australian member of the University of the Third Age was
lying (through his teeth)
dying (the ground red with blood from his haemorrhaging haemorrhoids; he loved big words and technical terms)
worrying about the future for his pet kangaroo named TED;
he gathered all his fellow-students around him and affirmed:
We all know that the purpose of our venerable institution is learning;
it is about discipline and edification, not pleasure and entertainment;
and so I have an educational task for you all; it will involve allocation of much of your time and energy to studying the habits of an exotic marsupial, a creature ruled by its natural instincts; all animals make messes, so be ready for the clean-up afterwards, and try not to be embarrassed by its crude behaviour, as this is Australia, where crudity and rudity reign. And with regard to the presentation of your results, I  am not offended by paronomasia and rhymistics (punning does not merit punishment, and sublime rhyme, be it simple or complex rhyme, black or white rime, deserves better than a frosty reception).

FREDA LARSEN
You get mentioned first, but only in PASSIN’, Mrs LARSEN,
but you always were a model student and a LEADER, FREDA;
unfortunately Ted is often guilty of LARCENy,
but you can handle him like a stern Anglican PARSON;
put the fear of God into him and make him quake,
you can FREE DA beast of all his hangups and make him a Quaker,
and write a thesis on the phenomenology of kangaroo religion.
And you must have it bound, as in: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

EDNA DOWNEY
Well now, you would not call TED A TOWNY, EDNA DOWNEY,
he wants to be in a natural native bush setting;
so when the sun goes DOWN HE would like to go to your pit park,
if you can get him past the Rottweiler guard HOUND EEEEE;
if you put TED IN A BED IN THE GROUND HE would be glad;
GET DOWN on one KNEE (on two, you might not get up again)
and tuck him in, so he learns respect for the U3A FOUNDER,
because he is all leaps and bounds, a regular BOUNDER;
give him a play-reading: tales of Winnie the Pooh, Kangga, and Roo;
and for a lullaby, some of your Hell’s bells,
to make him keep his HEAD IN A DOWN ON KNEE position all night.
Nevertheless, you might need to:  Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

ROLF PANNY
Ted needs someone to be his NANNY, Herr PANNY,
to empty his bed PAN EEEEE, for good SANItation, Mister PANNY.
No! You are clearly over-qualified for that position.
However, it really is un-CANNY, Monsieur PANNY,
that you can speak three languages at once,
they just roll on your tongue and ROLL OFF, ROLF,
and you philosophize in every one of them;
but philosophy is not for a kangaroo,
though perhaps suitable for a cunning dingo or a wiley WOLF, ROLF;
still, a KANGGA might take to KAFKA,
to help him hop over the Great WALL OF China, ROLF.
So that’s why it would be best to: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

JOHN GARNER
John, you could GARNER in some bonza tucker for Ted,
there’s nothing he likes more than a beaut BANANA, JOHN GARNER;
what will you do when he wants to skip to the loo,
when he gets his mind set on hopping to the JOHN, JOHN?
Turn a blind eye? Being tied up having to mind a roo can be a bind;
I dunno about this book-binding stuff suiting kangaroo paws;
but give him a big book to squat ON, JOHN,
like the dog that sits on the tucker box, five miles fro GANAdagai.
At bedtime you could tell him some of your tall tales,
because you have always been a très BON YARNER, JOHN GARNER.
And for safety’s sake: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

CHRIS PHILLIPS
Still needing someone to help with his toileting, President PHILLIPS,
so perhaps you could give him some FILLIPS, incentives,
to be hygienic, CHRIS, when he wants to ... FILL UP Some holes.
He is itching to get his paws on your computer keyboard,
and show you his pictures on the screen; but be careful,
for a reward he likes to KISS FULL LIPS, CHRIS PHILLIPS.
So if you want to give that a MISS, CHRIS, you had better:
Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

DAPHNE KYNE
You could invite him to HAVE TEA or DINE, DAPHNE KYNE,
(So KIND of you to come)
but not like the statue in Mozart’s Don GioVANNI, DAPHNE,
who wreaked havoc in the power LINE, and raised Hell;
to keep him occupied you could play him an opera, or NINE
(he likes Wagner’s one about the gold of the RHINE)
and revel in ecstasy till the cows, the erstwhile KINE, come home.
But when the time arrives: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

ALEC RAINBOW
I have heard you say you have plenty of empty hours to spare,
in your retirement, so caring for a kangaroo is just the thing for you;
but you need to KNOW, Alec RainBOW,  Ted is a smart ALEC, too;
sometimes I wish I could send him somewhere over the RAINBOW,
though not to the land of Oz, coz he’s there already;
but if you could fly him through time to Dr Who,
you could scare him into submission with a DALEK or two.
By the way, if you are an expert on the RAINBOW,
maybe you know how to make the RAIN GO away.
In any case, be on guard: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

DAPHNE STEELE
Your grandchildren would like him, GRANNY DAPHNE;
actually this job is a bit of a STEAL, though sometimes he gets DAFFY
and it requires nerves of STEEL, to REEL him in;
he has been known to STEAL grub, for his next MEAL,
but he draws the line at witchety grub;
so, keep the walking stick handy, Daphne, and give him a quick flick
to bring him to HEEL, Mrs STEELE.
Sometimes he needs to be restrained: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

DIANNE AND LARRY HAIST
Larry Haist, you gave us our logo of three or more people at a table,
and whatever you are having, Ted will be in a HURRY and in HASTE
to join in and have a TASTE, leaving no WASTE.
You know that good-looking sheila you were glad to MARRY, LARRY,
well Ted is DYIN’ to get his arms round her in a wed-lock, too,
he wants to carry her around his WAIST;
but he’s the kind that MARRY and don’t TARRY;
no problem, though, because he is easily distracted,
with anything you can BUY AN’ CARRY, DI AN’ LARRY,
from a Chinese department store or takeaway food shop.
Pourtant, Cependant, Néanmoins, you might need to take out a restraining order against him and thus: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport

MARGARET CANNON
It’s no SECRET, MARGARET,Ted needs your loving psychiatric care, but not too loving, as he’s likely to get amorous and voluptuous,
like the randy kangaroo in the news, accosting a woman with a view to contracting a temporary marriage; they put a BAN ON him.
Don’t let yourself be Ted’s TARGET, MARGARET,
he’ll be at you like a shot out of a gun, or a CANNON,
hopping into your CAR TA GET a ride, MARGARET;
and AFTER IT, MARGARET, he’ll want to have a CIGARETTE;
phew! it’s getting hot and steamy, you’ll need to turn the FAN ON.
And fasten his seatbelt securely : Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

BRYAN IBELL
Brother Bryan Ibell, you are diVINEly reLIABLE, and you are aware
that the things that you’re LIABLE to read in the BIBLE
are not necessarily so, but open to discussion, everyone having a say;
accordingly, I trust there will be no grounds for a LIBEL suit here;
I have to tell you, without a word of LYIN’, BRIAN,
this lowdown marsupial of mine is LIABLE to follow his base instincts
(E flat bass, like you and me)  and engage in current affairs,
involving seminal issues with infantile outcomes (joeys in the pouch);
don’t think about FRYIN’ his bacon, BRYAN (but it’s cholesterol-free)
just confront him EYEBALL to EYEBALL, and keep on TYIN’ him;
tether him to HIGH HELL, or make him wear a HIGH BELL.
The best way to keep track of him is: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

EUGENIE WALDTEUFEL
You wood-devil (Wald-Teufel), from the wild dark woods,
I’ve seen you lurking around the redwood forest on the hill;
YOU ‘wicked’ GENIE (not one that comes out of a bottle),
in nature’s realm you could teach him to do what comes naturally, waltzing, to the music of WALDTEUFEL, not as in ‘Waltzing Matilda’ (carrying a swag, also  ‘humping Matilda’, and ‘being on the wallaby’); and also, naturally, drawing; he could hold a pencil in his little paw,
but if he starts to paw you with his TEENY WEENY claws, Eugenie,
it will definitely be time for a pause : Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

FRED SYMES
Mate, you have dallied so long in Australian CLIMES,
and been such a good sport  in the land of the mozzie,
that Ted might even accept you as a dinkum Ozzie,
and it will be just like old GLAD TIMES, Fred Symes;
now there’s a philosophcal question: TIME.
with that you could have the TIME of your life, and you did.
Creative writing would not be for Ted, Fred
(after all, how many RHYMES can you find for SYMES?);
Combative fighting is more his style, boxing with the gloves on;
but when into the ring with you he CLIMBS,
he could knock you DEAD, FRED SYMES;
so watch miy wallaby’s feet, as Rolf Harris SAID, FRED,
and for the very last TIME: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....


MARGARET HAZELTON
Ted would not wish to FORGET, MARGARET, to say to you:
This was one of those great DAYS : WELL DONE;
and he wants you to write his biography;
that will be fine, provided you can Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

SPRING BULL FALL

On 2/04/2010, at 5:17 AM (though it was still the 1st day of April in the US of A) James Spinti wrote:

Spring is finally here, and the many avid gardeners among us are turning over a new leaf - quite literally, in the case of our compost piles. With that in mind, we bring you four new products from partner Winged Bull Press on the themes of "green" and "compost." Happy digging!

Find ... all the latest Winged Bull Press titles here:
https://www.eisenbrauns.com/ECOM/_2WR17OVB9.HTM


Regarding the Winged Bull Press, it brought to mind a pseudo-documentary that our celebrated Peter Jackson made, named FORGOTTEN SILVER, about an early film-maker in NZ; a Biblical epic (and moving pictures of the NZ aviator who actually got off the ground before the Wright brothers) was found in a chest with a magnificent bull pictured on its lid; it was a hoax that fooled us all; but in the subsequent public analysis nobody but myself, it seems, picked up his bull-reference. So I was ready for this winged bull of James Spinti.

Movie-critic Leonard Maltin was included as an authenticating witness; and when it was later shown on Australian television, I happened to be there; advertisements for its coming had NZ prime minister David Lange (he was always a good joker) urging people not to watch it! At that time my son Michael and I went to an Australian film commission building (or whatever) in Canberra,  and we discovered that the name of an Australian prominently on show was the same as the name PJ has chosen for his fictional NZ film-maker. Not many people know that. Somebody might like to tell Peter that his secret is out.

The 1st of April was the date on which Helen and I had our first conversation and our first misunderstanding, at a Methodist youth camp, in 1956.

This year, on the 2nd of April, Good Friday, I did a church crawl (analogous to a pub crawl, which I have never done) involving 9 church services (9.30 -5.00); I sang Isaac Wattsisname's "When I survey the wondrous cross" four times, and at the first one (at Wesley Broadway ... that leads to destruction) I declaimed my own translation of The Servant Song (Isaiah/ Yesha`yahu 52-53) in which I boldly changed 'They made his grave with the wicked and a rich man in his death' (which some Xns take as meaning Joseph of Arimathea; but the parallelism seems wrong, unless we allow that the wealthy are villains, and there have been plenty of them robbing me of my savings in recent years) to "He was given a grave with the wicked, a burial place with evil-doers" (turning `$yr into `sy r`).

I gave my black compost  boxes an autumn (or 'fall') shake-up, and scattered the results on the garden, on Saturday 9th of April.

There was a farmer who was showing off his bumper crops to some visitors, and repeatedly attributing his success to 'manure'. One sensitive soul asked his wife if she could persuade him to use the term 'fertilizer' instead. Her retort was: It has taken me 30 years to get him to say 'manure'.

Brian Colless