november 2009 issue 2

02 06

cont
04 08

ents
10 12

16 20

19

22 24

andrew
21

02 stomping through my attic

04 cabernet sayer
12 oriental treasure
06 what lies beneath
storylines
16 cultural creatives
08 why i love john updike
19 accidental art
10 the paralysis of choice
20 know thyself - toddler art
22 interview
24 mid life jam

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Cover Photo by Tanakawho on Flickr
For all its faults – for ALL its faults – I am very
fond of my home town. I would never dream of
returning there to live, not least because most
people go there to die.
Stomping through my
But it is hard not to harbour some affection
for a town which shaped so much of my early
life, a life spent on lush greenswards, pristine
beaches and clean, trouble-free streets, in
quaint churches and old-fashioned sweet
shops where they still weighed winter cough
mix in quarters from a jar. If that sounds a
little too idyllic for the troubled and cynical
80s, it’s because it was – a gloriously innocent
childhood spent in the sheltered English
outpost of Frinton-on-Sea, with a manually-
operated set of railway gates keeping the real
world out. And the wonderful thing was, as
people would always tell you, it was quiet.
So quiet.
02
02
On an overcast afternoon a couple of weeks
ago, I typed ‘Frinton’ into You Tube. It was
more through curiosity than dewy-eyed
nostalgia - I was back there as recently as last
Christmas, visiting all my haunts and friends
and reminiscing on late afternoon walks
along the Walings in the gathering dusk as
the wind whipped in off the North Sea. But
my illusion of a perfect little world had been
punctured long ago by a growing awareness
of the staidness, cynicism, snobbery and
sheer bloody-mindedness of many of the
local people.Years before I fled the nest for
university and eventually settled in Australia, I
had realised that there was a malaise deep at
the heart of Frinton.
A commendable collective desire to preserve
the town’s rich Victorian heritage and resist
the popular trend to modernise was being
tarnished by the rancorous bitterness of a
people who were conservative not only with a
capital ‘C’, but also a very large small ‘c’.
I couldn’t wait to leave. And on my occasional
trips back there it is impossible to shake those
memories.
So it was with some trepidation that I settled
down at my computer to watch Wonderland,
a documentary broadcast in 2008 and
purporting to be about a group of residents
fighting to save ‘The Gates’ from being torn
down and replaced by automatic barriers.
No single gesture could symbolise the death
of old Frinton more than the removal of those
iconic gates, and as Frintonians gathered en
masse to protest this outrage, a BBC crew
arrived in the town to capture the mood.
This wasn’t news to me – I was already aware
of the program, and the furious debate that
followed, via friends who discussed it at
length on Facebook when it first aired. And
it certainly wasn’t news to me that Frinton
residents were opposing something. In 1992,
the unsuccessful protests of a vocal minority
to the opening of the first fish and chip shop
inside ‘the Gates’ – this is a seaside town,
remember – made national and international
headlines. In 1998, shortly before I left the
UK, I was working in a health food shop in
Connaught Avenue at the height of ‘Pubgate’, a
fiercely-fought battle against plans to open the
town’s first pub.

Customer after customer would wail about
the Frinton’s imminent demise at the hands of
the ‘riff-raff’ and ‘scum’ who would be drawn
inexorably to the town by the whiff of Greene
King beer, leaving mayhem and destruction in
their wake. I came to relish the predictability
as my ageing but refreshingly progressive boss
would try to reason with them before giving
up and chasing them out almost Fawlty-esque,
tearing up their petitions and posters
behind them.
Watching your town being ridiculed and
exposed for all the world to see is a
disconcerting experience. Imagine an old friend
who you care about dearly but wish privately
that he would get just a little comeuppance
for some of his wrongdoing and bad behaviour,
only to see him reduced to abject humiliation
before a baying audience. That is what
Wonderland does to Frinton.
A clutch of individuals, some sad and lonely,
some eccentric, some clearly in the grip
of mental illness, are used to illustrate an
obviously pre-conceived idea of a depressing,
narrow-minded little town. The clue is in its
selection as part of a series on the quirkier
side of British life. The film-makers didn’t
come to meet normal, everyday folk, and
given the town’s reputation as being one big
retirement village, they only wanted the elderly.
So totally are the under-60s airbrushed out
of the picture that you could be forgiven for
wondering whether there’s even a school.
It’s, simultaneously, horrific yet compelling
viewing. Watching Margaret, the ‘never been
kissed’, socially awkward owner of the Dickens
Curios giftshop, confess her unrequited
love for her male friend, is heart-wrenching.
The camera stares at her like a child would,
and she in turn stares blankly at the floor,
shuffling nervously. I feel proud of her as
Rail would not take their gates away and they
she maintains a quiet, dignified sadness in
would stop at nothing to prevent it from
the light of the interviewer’s probing, almost
happening.
mocking questions about her friend’s interest
in his dancing partner. Another character, An urban legend, never verified but highly
gay Charles, could be paranoid, lonely, hated, plausible, has it that a woman was once
or a combination of all three. It’s hard to tell, stopped by a policeman while driving inside
yet is not hard to imagine a homosexual man the gates, and was asked to produce her
in his senior years getting the cold shoulder licence. “But officer, I don’t need a licence,”
in Frinton. As he eats alone, swims alone, she says. “I live inside The Gates.” Growing
and mutters about his neighbours alone, you up in Frinton, it was common to hear these
wonder whether his oft-referred to deep kinds of stories and jokes and to laugh. The
secret is really something perfectly innocent, laughter was always laced with a little vitriol at
yet it could just as easily be something the knowledge that, although maybe not quite
very sinister. to that extent, such pompous and deluded
attitudes really did prevail among so many of
And then there’s the sweet old Irish lady
the local geriatric population.Yet they were
who stands on the corner outside the bakery,
our jokes, our stories, and it was our right
looking out towards the gates, waiting for her
to deprecate our town. Then someone came
sister. Her sister never arrives, yet still she
along with a camera and a prejudice, and
waits. She worries that she might be in the
all of Britain (and anyone in the world who
cameraman’s way, blissfully unaware that she
might stumble upon it online) saw Frinton,
is his subject. Still she waits. We are meant
laughed, maybe cried, and thought ‘thank God
to laugh at her because she is an eccentric
I don’t live there.’ Just like they might if he had
Frintonian. But she has dementia, it is clear.
turned up in any other town, found four or
This, more than any other aspect of the film,
five oddballs, mocked their idiosyncrasies and
feels like intrusion and exploitation of the
afflictions and then plastered it all over their
most appalling kind.
television screens. It made me want to throw
The main business – the battle to save The my arms around the whole of Frinton because
Gates – is little more than a distraction from it’s mine and for ALL its faults, it didn’t
the stories of these characters, yet this is the deserve that.
one part of the film where the camera lens
And did they win, those brave, vocal
exposes the genuine madness of many elderly
protectors of the Frinton Gates, who risked -
Frintonians. I’m torn, watching it, between
and received – ridicule in front of the nation?
wanting to preserve the iconic structures and
A few weeks ago The Gates slipped silently
the fact that I can’t bear to see these people
into history, replaced in the small, dark hours
win. The woman who, down her nose, implores
as they slept. Probably by someone who only
the camera to “go away, go away” once argued
ever wanted a quiet life.
with me over our failure to stock enough
pitted prunes. Another man decides that he
can’t bear to have the new automatic gates
David Mitchell
operated by “some lunatic from Colchester.”
The main campaign chant – “What do we
want? Safety! Where do we want it?
The Gates” is not likely to have Barack
Obama’s campaign team beating a path to
Frinton for inspiration when the next election
comes around.Yet they were adamant that the
bastards at Network
 04

sayer It was an epiphany. One of those

moments when you stop, leave
So there I was, in the tasting room, or cellar
door as it’s known, alongside a runway
your body for a moment and length counter, with a wine waiter laying
look down thinking “What on on an array of reds for the room’s intense
earth are we doing? How did this scrutiny. I had just begun to swap those
happen?” I had been persuaded by ridiculous commentary phrases to my
friends to meet up at a winery, in a partner when I had my moment of clarity.
famous Aussie wine region, to do Suddenly feeling like the only one in the
what you do when you go to a room who knew we were in a game, I began
winery ACT. surveying the scene.
Yes, convincingly play your part in the whole
performance. I was actually sucked in for
a while, genuinely enjoying the manicured
gardens and admiring the barrels and
machinery. Because of course, “You’ve got
to go to Hunter Valley”. “You’ve got to.” It’s
not important that I was in NSW, the same
pantomime is going on in Barossa,Yarra and
our own esteemed Margaret River.
 Photo by TheBusyBrain on Flickr
I saw a sea of couples, city day trippers
playing their part in the bizarre ritual of
instant expertise. Husbands were uttering
things like ‘subtle oaky aftertaste’ ‘vibrant
acidity’ and ‘surprising citrusy hues’ while
I looked around and saw people holding
wives played along solidly, revealing the full
glasses up to the light with an expression
depths of their overnight, supersensitive
of a lab scientist looking for signs of the
palate. One that can spot a 1997 Riesling
Ebola virus on a microscope slide. I heard
at 20 paces and distinguish the clear gulf
people give themselves away by talking
between a smoky clearskin and a tannin
about ‘Merr-lotts’ and ‘semmallon’. People
heavy Chambertin Les Echezeaux. It
were attempting to do the wine swirl,
was all of a sudden, totally hilarious. The
rolling their wrists like a Russian gymnast
room echoed to the comparative notes
warming up, topped off with a ‘threading
of spicy palates, full bodies, zesty lifts and
a very fine needle’ face. People were
floral finishes. All cajoled and encouraged
inhaling the vapours off the liquid with the
by the wine waiter, smiling away, secretly
concentration of a safe cracker. They held
conducting the whole show. Supportingly
the liquid in their mouths to determine the
pouring and nodding at all the metropolitan
precise viscosity, pulling the look of a 7 year
blow-ins, the weekend connoisseurs
old, full of a dentist’s mouthwash. Other
whose wallets get leakier with every nip of
couples were looking slightly anxious, with
burgundy.
pensive looks that said “If I spit this out will
it really look like I know what I’m doing?
or perhaps, “If I don’t spit it out, will he think
I’m an alcoholic or at least a closet beer
drinker?”
Everyone was so earnestly following the
script, even though after 5 glugs of anything
they could be convinced red wine vinegar
was Penfolds Grange. I reckon the wineries
Slowly emerging from my eureka moment,
are having utter hysterics with us. They
I drove away in hysterics at the bizarre
probably fill up some of the ‘exclusive family
play in which traditionally normal people
Shiraz’ samples with Mongolian cask wine
enter a winery, leave their senses in the
just to see if anyone notices. At the end of
car, spend $300 in an hour and then head
the dance of course it would seem absurd
home buoyant, discussing how perhaps they
and churlish to not then make a purchase.
“should have gone for the blackcurranty
“Hell let’s get 6, its better value isn’t it
one.” Despite the literal and emotional
darling?” “Oh why not 12 or even 24, let’s
intoxication, none of us usually return for
start a bit of a cellar shall we? We’ve got that
a while, at least until the winery owners,
space under the stairs, next to the ironing
chuckling in our wake, persuade us to pay
board and disused ab-roller.”
the price of a small car to hear Michael
Then of course, suitably disarmed, the staff Crawford or Elton John whisper ballads
somehow manage to convince everyone through the vines.
that it would be insane to come to their
winery without doing a spot of follow-on
cheese tasting, before heading home with
some of their $86 a kilo, smoked cheese.
Of course! How silly of us to almost forget!

What lies beneath
Everyone has a story to tell. Some
of the stories that make up your
existence are empowering and very
uplifting, some create shackles
that keep you stuck where you are.
Woven within your stories are your
beliefs, which create your reality.
06
Your internal bio-computer is programmed
from your stories and beliefs, and this is what
you become. It’s not a matter of waiting for
the wind to change direction or for the pot
of gold at the end of the rainbow: everyone
knows you never get there. It’s about telling
a new story, choosing a new design, so that
you create what you want. When you build
a house, you do it in stages. The first thing
A popular pastime is to carry stories around that happens is that either you or an architect
like a badge of honour, bringing them out in a design it, then draws up the plans and from
show-and-tell fashion as a means of defining there the building takes place.
our reality. Expressing past experiences is
The average person spends a great deal of
a good start to the process of clearing pain
time consulting their ‘mental guru’ in an
from past traumatic events. However, when
attempt to figure out their problems, hoping
this story is told over and over again it only
to make improvements in their life. This in
reinforces your belief system and creates your
itself becomes a story that gets in the way
reality, by digging a deeper grove into your
of really knowing what’s going on, or more
neuro-pathways. Most do this unconsciously,
importantly understanding it. The only reason
without realising that they are just keeping
you will want to figure out your old issues
stuck in the groove they desire to be free
again is because you are planning to hang onto
from. They can change their stories, create
them. Nothing remotely positive can come
new stories and unplug from the matrix, the
from rehashing old ground.
treadmill of life that keeps going around and
around.
You get attached to your stories without being
aware that they keep you from changing your
life. They will hold you in a comfort zone, the
grey zone, where you are never too happy
or too sad, giving you a ‘Groundhog Day’
experience, day after day.
06
One of the most powerful ways to dissolve the
issues you struggle with is to let go of wanting
to figure them out. Morbid analysis only
serves to hold onto that which you desire to
be rid of. You have this problem and you will
start to wonder why you do, what it means
about you and why it is there. You will often
create all sorts of explanations about why, and
yet you still have the same problem. When
you have had a true insight about any problem,
and taken steps to transmute the underlying
feelings, it simply disappears.
So all the reasons why you have the
problem are simply excuses to hold onto it.
They become your life stories. This act of
justification only strengthens the stories and
embeds them deeper. The more you tell the
story to yourself and others, the bigger the
stronghold it will have in your system, the
more you will become it and the harder it is
to let it go.
On the other hand there is nothing wrong
with understanding your patterns. I’m not
suggesting that you don’t have insights. I am
just advising that you stop chasing them.
When you are willing to let go of wanting
to figure out the problem with your mind,
the answers come. But when you are trying
to figure it out, it acts as a barrier to that
knowing. The answers come from your heart,
not your head. There is a big difference.
Energy is always moving and changing. It takes
one form, then another, but it never stands still.
Everything we see, hear, taste, touch, or smell
is in a constant state of change. In fact change
is all there is.
Jenny Parker has studied the healing process and accelerated
human change for over 25 years.This knowing and wisdom is
put to good use with people worldwide in her work as a coach
For more info go to www.heartforce.com.au or email jenny@
For anyone who
feels that they can’t
change, it’s well worth
remembering that you
stopped using nappies
because you became
People sometimes say, “Let’s wait until the
dust settles after all this change before we do
toilet trained. Nature
anything” or “I just want this change to hurry hates a void so when
up and be over so I can get back to normal”.
They don’t understand that change itself is you focus on what you
what’s normal.
Every cell in your body is replaced in less
want, allowing yourself
than a year. You aren’t even the same physical
person you were a year ago. You can go back
to let go of the old and
to your old house or your old town, but it
won’t be the same, you won’t be the same, and
step into the void, you
your relationship with it won’t be the same as
it was. In fact, the whole world as we know it
will create a better
is gone the moment we know it! future for yourself.
To embrace and leverage change, ask yourself:
what stories am I hanging on to in my life that
no longer serve me? `
Letting go of your stories will mean creating
a space within you for the new to come in.
It may mean you going into the void, a space
of nothingness and infinite potential, for a
period of time in preparation for the new.
You can’t just layer the new over the old. You
need to clear a space for the new to come
into being. You may have to go through some
discomfort, and this is the step that most fear.
Let go of the fear of the unknown. When
you understand the process it becomes much
easier and you can move through it without
taking the phenomena that may arise for you
personally. Courage often comes before joy,
so the discomfort is well worth it. Just apply
effort, perseverance and courage.
Bio
and mentor, teacher, writer and inspirational speaker.
heartforce.com.au
I don’t like short sentences. Plain
and informative. Ones that have
to be straightforward, less any
reader get lost. The nature of
my professional life means I am
constantly directed to use simple
English in easily digestible chunks.
Apparently in writing, plain is
beautiful. Long sentences and
paragraphs don’t hold people’s
interest. Well not always. Good
writing can be complex, beautiful,
long winded, fluctuating,
metaphor drenched, meandering
journeys of impressions.
At home I crave good writing. I want
beautifully crafted sentences that shine. I
don’t care if they are more than six words
long. Not everything can be reduced to six
words. Not everything needs to be. I think
good writing is text that you can’t even
conceive of putting to paper yourself. It is new
territory. Unchartered landscape. It is startling,
shimmering combinations of sound, image and
meaning that create indelible impressions. At
its best, it is completely removed from the
abundant received thought and phrasing we
recycle in our daily discourse. It is perhaps
this personal prejudice that inevitably led
me to discovering the prolific works of
Mr John Updike.
Updike died in January this year and his
passing brought me a far higher bout of
melancholy and introspection than the much
lauded passings of Diana, Steve Irwin or the
Moonwalker. He was 78 and with no
warning, his prolific pen was suddenly put
down for good.
08
John Updike
I first heard the name back in my college My favourite bit was when Baker recalls seeing
days in the late 80’s. A period where I was Updike on TV at his mother’s house fixing
preciously obsessing over the brief catalogue storm windows. “He tossed down to us some
of JD Salinger and in particular, his Franny and startlingly lucid felicity,” said Baker, “something
Zooey masterpiece. The only book in my life about ‘these small yearly duties which blah
that made me stay in bed all day until it blah blah,’ and I was stunned to recognise
was finished. that in Updike we were dealing with a man so
naturally verbal that he could write his fucking
In this period, whichever room a particular
memoirs on a ladder.”4
housemate landed in, (we were rotating
each term for equality) one of his anchors Before I completed Baker’s oblique homage
was 3 dog eared novels, forever precariously entitled ‘U & I’, I thought I best check his
balanced on his mantelpiece. I forget subject out.
everything about the first two and the name of
Thus I came to my opening literary meal from
the third, but distinctly remember its spine and
the Pennsylvanian master. And what a start.
thinking that John Updike was a curious name,
Couples. The 1968 novel that detailed the
especially for an American writer. It was not
suburban lives of an educated American clique
for another twenty years that I would learn
in a New England town. Characters that could
how the Dutch family ancestry intertwined to
have strolled into the movie ‘The Ice Storm’
create his idiosyncratic title.
without any jolt in the plot.
It wasn’t until I was in my early thirties until
Updike came into my sphere again. I was
devouring the quirky novels of Nicholson
Baker and found out that he had written a
book about his obsession with Updike. Baker
delved deeply into prose that left him in awe.
He highlighted Updike’s metaphors such as
“the cool margins of the bed”1 and “flowers…
the first advertisements”2. He was particular
enamoured with a sentence Updike crafts on
a sleeping character named Peggy, “Her shoes,
lying beside her feet as if dislodged by a shift of
momentum” 3.

There were so many partnerships introduced
in the first few chapters that I paused and
drew up a ‘couples character map’. Without it,
I would have soon lost my way among the bed
hopping antics of the hard-drinking hedonists.
This addition was ridiculed years later by a
friend who borrowed the now-collapsing
book, before a quick grasp of its necessity
transformed her scorn to gratitude. When it
returned, I noticed her Librarian mother had
kindly extended its life through a great repair
job on the cover.
Within 50 pages of Couples, I knew I had made
a great discovery. One of the moments when
you know you have unearthed one of your
personal diamonds from the world of the arts.
It was one that would nourish my obsession
for stories that were plausible and dealt with
nothing more than lifting the lid on human
behaviour. Crime, sci fi and fantasy leave me
Updike locks a comprehensive focus on all
our acting, role playing, chest beating, pining,
tenderness, spite, guilt and passion. I am sure
his arena is too confronting and too stark
for some, especially those who don’t want
the romantic veil lifted too high and those
who would rather look anywhere than at
themselves. Anyone seeking pure escapism
in literature would probably jump ship very
rapidly on reading the unflinching way he
describes us all, mind, body and action.
I still have so much of his work to get through.
I’ve barely scratched the surface with his short
stories – the medium for which he is most
praised. He is most well known for his ‘Rabbit’
collection of books, charting the life of a Harry
‘Rabbit’ Angstrom, from school basketball star
to the grave. A gloriously ordinary character
full of nobility and flaws, strong opinion and
confusion, like we all are. Harry can be an oaf
and yet touchingly tender. He gives into his
impulses and sleeps with people he shouldn’t.
He has fitness campaigns that fade and always
ploughs into a second slice.
You cannot help but love Rabbit, for he is
the everyman and the language and phrasing
Updike uses to weave the fabric of his life
linger long in the memory.You never tire of
following his story.
For me, it’s not so much the images Updike’s
use of words creates in your mind, but more
the sheer accuracy of his observations. In
a YouTube interview I saw, he responds to
criticism that he is overly stylistic by stating
that he aims to “write with precision about
what his mind’s eye conjures up”. A job he
nails. Though the results can sometimes be
searing (“Her thighs fill the front of her dress
so that even standing up she has a lap”5) their
essential frankness and truth are often uplifting.
Almost an exoneration of Homo sapiens.
In ‘U & I’, Nicholson Baker’s wife dares label
It’s just that I don’t think I have ever read
better writing than the closing few pages of
his memoir ‘Self-Consciousness’, a window
in which he attempts to review his life and
advancing years. One in which his elegance
and eloquence are free to soar…
“Also like my late Unitarian father in law am I
now in my amazed, insistent appreciation of the
physical world, of this planet with its scenery and
weather – that pathetic discovery which the old
make that every day and season has its beauty
and its uses, that even a walk to the mailbox is
a precious experience, that all species of tree and
weed have their signature and style and the sky is
a pageant of clouds.
Aging calls us outdoors, after the adult indoors
of work and love-life and keeping stylish, into the
lowly simplicities that we thought we had outgrown
as children. We come again to love the plain
world, its stone and wood, its air and water. “What
a glorious view!” my father-in-law would announce
as we smirked in the back seat of the car he was
inattentively driving. But in truth all views have
something glorious about them. The act of seeing
is itself glorious, and of hearing, and feeling, and
tasting. One of my dead golf partners,Ted Lucas,
said once within my hearing to another dear
departed fellow golfer, John Conley, “Life is bliss.”7
References
1- 4 & 6
N
 icholson Baker, 1991, U&I, Granta
Publications
5
John Updike, 1960, Rabbit Run, Penguin
Books
7
John Updike 1989, Self-Consciousness,
Random House
Pho

him as being obsessed with Updike, though he

cold and despite the odd detour, the Updike
to b

deftly deflects with “For though I think about

catalogue has been a gloriously comprehensive
y Sa

Updike a lot I seldom read him: surely a true

essay on the fundamental things that we do.
pph

obsessive would read all the available works”6.

ireb

He is the master of putting suburbia under the

If this holds up as a defence you must forgive
lue

microscope. All our joys and losses, fumblings

this long gush, for evidently I am as innocent as
on

and aspirations, quirks and weaknesses and it’s

the man who penned the 179 page dedication
Flic

all done with a painters touch.

kr

that dwarfs this one.

John Updike writes magnificently. Even the
most mundane of activity gets expressed with
dense, lyrical, poetic brilliance. Style triumphs,
but the content does not lag behind. His
sentences are a treat. I’ve not come across
anyone who better maps out our stumbling,
hazardous journey to maturity and our
desperate attempts to foster happiness and
bring meaning and significance to our lives.
He scrutinises the zone where we are all
hopeless addicts – relationships.

the
Of Choice
In a classic Fry and Laurie sketch
from the early 1990s, Hugh Laurie
plays a Government minister eating
alone at a restaurant table.
10
A waiter, played by Stephen Fry, recognises
him and greets him warmly. He then recites,
like a devoted fan, the words of a recent
speech made by the Minister in the House of
Commons to push through a new broadcasting
bill which would pave the way for multi-
channel television. Upon finishing, he is
horrified to notice that the minister is eating
with silver cutlery. “Oh but I’m terribly sorry,”
the waiter says, wrenching the knife and fork
from his grasp. He returns with a bag of plastic
coffee stirrers and pours the entire contents
onto the table. “Well at least you’ve got the
choice now, haven’t you?” he cries, angrily. “I
mean they may be complete crap but THINK
OF THE CHOICE!”
Photo by zaphodsotherhead on Flickr
We are surrounded by choice. Nearly 20 years
on from that prophetic piece of satire, choice
is still regarded widely as a virtue, almost
without question. The more things we have to
choose from, the richer and more varied our
options, the better the life - surely? But look
behind the veneer and there is much evidence
to show that the abundance of choice in
modern society poses as many problems,
perhaps more, than it solves.Yes, choice can
excite and invigorate. The concept of limitless
possibilities can’t fail to be attractive.Yet the
world of smorgasbord buffets, information
overload, satellite television and cheap travel
may, ultimately, bring us less satisfaction than
the eat-what-you’re given, believe-what-you’re-
told, Hancock’s-Half-Hour and a-fortnight-in-
Skegness world of previous generations.
I’m going to use food and television because,
while they might be trivial matters in the grand
scheme of life, they illustrate the dilemma of
choice perfectly. Most of us make decisions
about one or both of them daily. Think of the
last time you ate a meal from a buffet, perhaps
in a hotel or at a wedding. The array of diverse
temptations can be so overwhelming it messes
with the taste sensors in your head. If you
thought you fancied a piece of fish tonight,
think again because there’s duck curry, roast
pork and vegetable frittata on offer as well.
Can’t decide what to have? Then have them all!
This sort of thing happens to me regularly, to
the extent that I have a little of everything but
enjoy the value of nothing. I feel dissatisfied,
yet how could I have felt otherwise? Had I
plumped for just one dish, would I have been
wondering what the others tasted like? Would
I have felt that nagging sense of unfulfillment
at failing to make the most of all the choices
available?
 O
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Some of the dissatisfaction also lies in the

reality that more choice does not necessarily
mean more quality – in fact, it almost invariably
means the opposite. Channel-hopping has
become an international pastime. Whether or
not we have access to satellite television and
its myriad channels, most of us have known
evenings where we’ve watched a fraction of
eight shows, yet all of none of them. On one
hand I am thrilled that I can choose to watch
my favourite sports, 24 hour news from the
UK, Australia and the US, multiple movies, light
entertainment, documentaries and more, any
time of day or night. But once again, scratch
beneath the surface and you’ll find that amid
all that choice (plus the many shopping,
quiz and ‘lifestyle’ channels I have absolutely
no difficulty in switching off) the quality is
diluted. How could it not be? Twenty-four
hour news is really about 20 minutes of news
repackaged and recycled over and over until
something new happens, entertainment and
comedy channels consist of a few select shows
repeated to death. As Jeremy Paxman wrote in
an insightful article for the Guardian in 2007,
“the more television there is, the less any of it
matters.” Having more choice not only means
that we are statistically less likely to stumble So why, given the complexities involved in
upon that gem of a television program that making these multiple daily decisions, do we
enriches our lives and makes us rejoice in the not make it easier on ourselves? Do away with
medium; it also means that gem is less likely to the things that make us choose? The truth
be made in the first place, anymore. is that I am, like many people, addicted to
choice, and like any addiction one can become
paralysed by it. Despite its pitfalls we still see Some people leave all their important life
it as a virtue because theoretically it gives us decisions, and even the trivial ones, to the
control, even if in reality it doesn’t. Imagine arbitrary toss of a coin. I think a little more
myself, a single man living alone, coming home backbone is needed than that – the ability to
to a meal made for me and one channel on make at least some decisions is a fundamental
television. My control is gone, I’m at the mercy aspect of being a functioning human being.
of some other force. I’d be yearning to have my But it can be refreshing to introduce a certain
choices back. randomness to your life. Recently I began
Photo by The Consumerist on Flickr
eliminating choice by writing down the first
Of course there are more important choices
thing that came into my head whenever I had
in our lives than the relatively trivial ones
to make one. The liberation is extraordinary.
I’ve listed. What course to study, what career
You have to follow it through by sticking with
to pursue, whether to buy that house near
your ‘choice’ when all the other possibilities
the coast, or that duplex in the city, or that
are entering your head. And the best thing?
ramshackle cottage in the country. Whether
The satisfaction levels are so, so much greater
to propose marriage, leave things as they are,
when you convince yourself that you never
or leave her. At some point in the fairly near
really had the choice at all.
future, I’m going to have to make a decision
about where I live next. I could easily restrict And if I didn’t know that some smart-arse
myself to two choices – stay where am in would say ‘Baghdad’ or ‘Scunthorpe’ I might
Australia or move back to my homeland. even let readers make my next important life
Yet what does a man do when he is single, decision. I do know when to draw the line.
relatively affluent and has literally a whole
world of possibilities to choose from?
David Mitchell

treasure
I could never see myself owning a
resin boomerang with ‘Australia’
in gold type surrounded by fake
wattle flowers with a ‘Made in
China’ sticker on the back that
sits in a plastic stand above the TV,
BUT a ‘Hello Kitty’ holding a half
eaten black egg with a smiling face
decorative thing from Japan that
you can clip to the cover of your
Nintendo DS is a totally different
story - so much more useful, so
much more intriguing!
The interesting thing about Japanese souvenirs
is that they are predominantly made for the
Japanese and are predominantly made in the
country that they are souvenirs of - now
there’s a concept.
One of the great things about travelling for
me is finding interesting crazy stuff that I don’t
need, but must have. Trips to tourist sites are
always sweetened by a long slow browse of
the shop afterwards.
14
I would be lying if I said I didn’t spend as much
time, or more, in the shop as I did touring the
site, whatever it may be. Not always to buy,
mind you, but to peruse the array of souvenirs
that are always so much more fascinating than
the debris I could buy at home.
On previous trips overseas I’ve bought extra
suitcases - a necessity not a souvenir - to put
all the goodies in. In my defense, being part of
a big family does not help.
So in Japan in 2008 I was determined to go
for the items that would pack relatively flat
and were lightweight. Despite the restrictions,
I acquired a great many things for myself and
I even managed to complete my Christmas
shopping – make the overseas gifts count I say!
As previously mentioned, I bought the Hello
Kitty decorative thing and the shoes but also
yukatas (dressing gowns) and Japanese pyjamas;
a crazy sweater featuring Uittg, the world
famous monkey, which surprisingly enough I
have never heard of; a key ring featuring a small
clock with Japanese numerals; fans; chopsticks;
table cloths; combs; face washers; mad, mad
boxer shorts for brothers-in-laws; a Pokémon
t-shirt for my nephew (I should mention
that there is a store in Tokyo that just sells
Pokémon and nothing else); fridge magnets – a
must; earphones and a wet suit cover for my
mp3 player; a bag; two traditional Japanese
lunch boxes; puzzles; Tokyo Bananas; and more
I’m sure.

Three souvenirs that stand out for me though
are a Japanese puzzle box, the toothpick
holders and a print featuring the Roppongi
Hills towers.
I bought the Japanese puzzle box during a
one day tour that included a bus ride up Mt
Fuji; a pirate ship cruise on Lake Ashi, Hakone
- which was a whole story in itself; a ride
home on the Shinkansen; and a ropeway trip
to visit some hot springs where you can buy
boiled eggs. Boiled eggs do not sound that
extraordinary except for the fact that the hot
springs turn the shells black. Surprisingly, most
of the travellers on the tour bought a bag of
the eggs and ate them. Odd when you could
also pick up a ‘Hello Kitty holding a half eaten
black egg with a smiling face decorative thing’ I
rest my case.
I love the puzzle box because I love a good
puzzle and the work that has gone into
creating it is astounding. It is intricately hand-
crafted and it takes 21 moves to remove the
lid. I had never seen one of these before or
since and I got very excited when one featured
ever so briefly on an American sitcom. The
only down side could be that there is only a
very small space for treasures inside but really,
that detail seems so insignificant.
The toothpick holders I bought in beautiful
Kyoto. I bought lots of them for all the
wonderful females I know. I have often been
out with them when someone has asked “Have
I got something between my teeth?” which is
quite often followed by a trip to the toilet to
dislodge the offending piece of food. (Except of
course for when we are being ridiculous and
have smeared our teeth deliberately with food
stuff – chocolate cake is great for this!) The
question and the trips are no longer necessary
for my female friends for in their bags they
have a very pretty, discrete, toothpick holder
complete with a mirror.
A very practical gift and so quintessentially
Japanese, from the size and the fabric to the
quirkiness. Disappointingly, I miscalculated
and did not get one for myself - I should
have perhaps kept the one I bought for my
mother-in-law and given her something else as
she seemed to not really appreciate its true
value…
Lastly, I picked up a print of an artwork by
Takashi Murakami in the Mori Art Museum
shop in the Roppongi Hills Complex. Some
time before travelling to Japan I watched a
documentary on Takashi Murakami. I had
never seen his artwork before and was
fascinated. What fun and imagination! And the
marketability of it all - reminiscent of pop art
and a blur between high and low art.
The show on at the Mori Art Museum
that night was a modern confronting thing
involving dead animals, stuffed toys and strange
installations. So imagine my joy when I found
the print in the shop afterwards. It wasn’t until
I opened it at home that I realised it was more
of a souvenir than I first thought. The tall shiny
building featured in the lower right hand side
is the Roppongi Hills tower. I can look fondly
on the print when framed and hung knowing
that I saw Tokyo at night from this building,
was confronted by some interesting modern
art and my husband and I had our first heated
discussion as a married couple (a big night out!).
Looking for interesting souvenirs will always be
high on my traveling agenda – for the wonder
and strangeness of them and for the stories
that get attached to them. I get to re-live parts
of my trips when someone asks “Hey where
did you get that?”
Grace Lovejoy
“Roppongi Hills”
Copyright 2003 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki. All Rights Reserved.
Cultural Creatives:
the Sleeping Beauty
“If enough people realise that
they need to start looking for
new ways to live together on
this small planet, this can topple
the prevailing systems. We need
to mobilise creativity. Creativity
that refuses to accept the existing
order and that wants to discover
that there are other ways to live.”
- Kamp & Laszlo 2004
16
We’ve often heard it said, if enough conscious
individuals come together to form a critical
They are the ‘Lifestyles of Health and
Sustainability’ (LOHAS)2 market, representing
mass, they can create a tipping point that one in four adults or $209 US billion, in a
potentially could shift the planet away from growing marketplace for goods and services
pointless ruin and towards an optimistic, focused on health, the environment, social
sustainable future. justice, personal development and sustainable
living. There is evidence to show that as
Currently we may well be standing at that
consumers they are the future of business
edge of a precipice, where we have the
and of progressive social, environmental
choice to either breakdown or breakthrough
and economic change.Yet, their power as a
and experience a rare shift in evolutionary
consumer market remains virtually untapped. 3
consciousness - something that may only
happen once or twice a millennium. As the vanguard of today’s cultural
transformation, the ‘Cultural Creatives’ share
This tipping point may be closer than we think,
a concern for social, ecological, spiritual,
with the wave of the newly emerging ‘Cultural
and personal development. Courageously
Creatives’ (a term first coined in 2000 by
questioning the status quo and daring to
sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry
arouse social creativity in mainstream culture.
Ruth Anderson in their book ‘The Cultural
Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing t
he World’).
Who are the ‘Cultural
Creatives’?
You may recognise them, perhaps even know
them personally. The ‘Cultural Creatives’
are ordinary everyday people, like you
and me, they are teachers, artists, parents,
spiritual guides, scientists, business people,
activists, feminists, environmentalists, social
entrepreneurs etc.
In 2000 the ‘Cultural Creatives’ made up
nearly 25% of the population. This translates
to over 50 million adults in the United States
and more than 80-90 million in Europe, a
subculture that share ‘Cultural Creative’
worldviews, values and lifestyle. 1
They are the ones we see when we shop
at natural food stores; they use alternative
medicine and/or have solar panels on their
roofs. What’s important to the ‘Cultural
Creatives’ is a more authentic way of living,
that is healthier, sustainable and more
compassionate.

‘Cultural Creatives’ Values
The values of ‘Cultural Creatives’ are at the
core of everything they do and how they
chose to live their lives as they embrace
diversity, ecological sustainability and a specific
quality of life. By their very ‘being-ness’,
their love for humanity and the planet, they
are bringing about a cultural shift of newly
emerging (integral) values, such as:
• Personal Authenticity
• Engaged Action and Whole-Process Learning
• Globalism and Ecology
• Idealism and activism
• The Importance of Women
• Green living
• Rejection of old paradigms and outdated
systems
• Altruism, Self-Actualization and Spirituality
With these unique values and lifestyle choices,
the ‘Cultural Creatives’ are weaving a new
cultural tapestry of how we see ourselves
within the world today.
What’s interesting is 60% of the Cultural
Creatives are women, whose collective
presence, may perhaps initiate (as some
have suggested) the potential re-awakening
of the global feminine energies, the goddess
archetype. They seek to create more conscious
communities; providing people with a sense
of place and belonging; to come together and
share authentic dialogue. Thus creating an
opportunity to heal the planet by inspiring it
to evolve and transform.
In their daily lives they embrace the practice of
spiritual values that are outside of conventional
everyday religiosity, seeking a more personal
experience in relationship with ‘God, Allah,
Buddha,Yahweh, Source, etc. The ‘Cultural
Creatives’ want more universal, practical,
spiritual principles with intrinsic values, rather
than depend on the authority of any specific
dogma or ordained individual.4
What is most amazing about this subculture
is that the Cultural Creatives lack one critical
element: they have no awareness that they
are an emerging and already strong force
within their society and more importantly
within the world. The immense potential
power lying dormant within such a movement
certainly shouldn’t be underestimated, as
they themselves, the business community and
political world underestimate.5 When this
group becomes fully conscious and aware of
its size and potentiality and starts to form
a conscious web of connectivity, it’ll be like
a butterfly effect of bright lights turning on
across the planet, which could change the
world in a very short span of time.
Enlightenment 700 – 1000’
Peace 600;
Joy 540;
Love 500;
Fear 200;
In ‘Power vs Force’, David Hawkins6 states
that if 1/10th of one percent (.1%) of the
world’s population, were to unify around a
single cause, they could change the planetary
consciousness. According to David Hawkins,
ONE person vibrating at level 500 (Love)7
can counter-balance 750,000 people of a
lower vibration! And one person vibrating
at level 700 (Enlightenment) can raise the
consciousness of 70 million people! Therefore,
each time one person shifts into a higher state
of awareness it causes a tidal wave effect on
the mass population.6
The Cultural Creatives are post-modernist and
post-industrialist. If mobilized, they could wield
enormous moral, social and political influence,
and shape elections. This is probably what we
witnessed during the US election campaign,
for President Barack Obama. The very people
who elected him were the ‘new progressives’,
a population that’s more interested in idealism
than practical realism. The key for the Cultural
Creatives is to bring a much needed solution-
oriented mindset to assist them in translating
that idealism into reality.8
In March 2008, after further study and
research, Ray found that politically, 36% or
more of the population no longer identify
with either the political left or right. Instead
they are forging a new ideological dimension,
the new ‘Political North’, the basis of a new
political compass; a synthesis of melding the
best of the Modernists (47% of the population)
versus Traditionalists (29% of the population)
or Conservatists.9
continued

Cultural Creatives:
the Sleeping Beauty

The election of President Barack Obama

could symbolise this synthesis, the merging
of opposing views to form a new (political)
quality within our society. Eight years ago when
George W Bush became president, Obama’s
election was unimaginable. Even when Al Gore
went for the presidency, there wasn’t enough
of a critical mass of the new progressives,
the new ‘Political North’ to forge a path big
enough to make it happen. However, just a If you identify yourself in any way with the
few years later, the political landscape became values, lifestyle choices and world views of
very different. A significant number of socially the ‘Cultural Creatives’ and feel you have
conscious ‘Cultural Creative’ Americans came the desire to make a difference in this world
together to elect the first African-American and be a catalyst for positive social change,
president. This act alone has made a mark then please contact the newly formed Faculty
in history’s pages, whilst also leaving a note within the Insight Foundation, the Institute
that the efforts of the ‘Cultural Creatives’ are of Sustainability and Social Innovation (ISSI).
already changing the very fabric of our society Ask us about our new unique program
in many, as yet unknown ways. the Advanced Diploma of Management
(BSB60407) in (Social) Entrepreneurial
This growing subculture within our society
Leadership, a new (Australian) nationally
understands the interconnectedness of
recognised qualification.
everything, they take a different view, they
see society as an organism, a living breathing As a cultural creative and social innovator,
creature that we are all a part of. They with a desire and passion to make a difference
understand that whatever is happening in the world, let’s ‘transform the planet, one
anywhere else in the world affects us creative impulse at a time’.
individually and collectively; knowing if we do
To find out what ISSI is about, go to our
harm to others, we do harm to ourselves. A
website at www.issionline.com.au. If you have
single organism, an organism that causes harm
questions then you can contact Vesna Sampson
to itself, is unsustainable.
via e-mail: hellothereissi@gmail.com or mobile:
Increasing numbers of us are choosing to live +61 409- 445- 631.
more authentic lives. We are slowly discarding
old paradigms and old ways of struggling for
survival, wealth and power. We are abandoning
centuries old rules, systems and behaviours
that have completely failed to take life on References:
earth in the right direction. As we go forward
this Cultural Creative group know things
1&4
Paul H. Ray & Sherry Ruth
‘The Culture Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World’
Anderson, 2000
can be different and continue to choose LIFE
LOHAS Background: A history of a Sustainable Marketplace www.lohas.
transforming it whenever possible into LOVE 2  & 3
LOHAS online 2009 com/about.html  
and thus transforming the planet one creative
impulse at a time.
7
Kamp, J., & Laszlo, E 2004 ‘Any day without a new idea is a day lost’ Ode Magazine

Vesna Sampson co-founder of the Institute of Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human
8
Dr. Hawkins, D., 2005
Sustainability & Social Innovation (ISSI) Behaviour Veritas Publishing
The New Political Compass: The New Progressives are I
9
Paul H. Ray, Ph.D. 2002 n-Front, Deep Green, Against Big Business & Globalization, &
Beyond Left vs. Right
Cultural Creatives: Cultural Creatives Making a Difference for
10
Middendorf, 1999
the Future in Global Oneness
The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads, Hampton
11
Laszlo, E 2006
Roads Publishing Company
 accidental
It was time to send my grandmother
her 89th birthday card. I wanted to
include a recent snap of my three
year old daughter taken in the
front garden.
Alas I seem to perpetually forget which way
up the blank photo paper is supposed to go.
I got it wrong again, but with error came an
impressionist pastiche and the latest fresh slice
of accidental art.

19
 20

art
know thyself

It’s amazing how powerful the
simplest painting by a child
can be. Just a few lines of a
drawing, or a few splashes of
colour, can bring the toughest
of souls to tears. Recall the
final scene in ‘About Schmidt’
when Jack Nicholson receives
a drawing from his sponsored
child in Tanzania. He is
disarmed by two simple stick
figures holding hands, a splash
of coloured sky and a heart
searing representation of
unconditional love.
Children’s art is powerful in many ways.
Granted it hits home immediately through the
lack of pretension or any notion of trying to
impress. The artists have yet to develop the
hindrance of self consciousness. They paint
what they see. They draw what is important
to them. So often this cuts straight through
to us because we lead meandering lives that
take us far away from what’s important. If
we are not careful, we live drone existences
of house cleaning, supermarket lists, the gas
bill, insurance, internet trance, getting the car
serviced and soul-less television.
 Artwork by Poppy, aged 6

If unchecked, the endless maintenance and The kids are not trapped into getting it right,
repetitive drudgery of urban life can seem or paralysed by what others think. They are
a relentless conveyor belt. Hence why a 5 not concerned as to whether they are good
minute rough drawing of mum and dad, with at it, whether it’s the right colour, to scale or
big grins, a dog, a red house and a mammoth in perspective. They are not afraid to fail and
yellow sky can bring us straight back to don’t give a critic much to pontificate over
ourselves and unveil stifled emotions. other other than “This is my world” and “All
you need is love.”
You don’t have to have had children to be hit
in the heart with these drawings and paintings, Now that’s art.
though genetic links will amplify the power and
probably bring about new gallery space on a
fridge door. Most of the power is through the
simple fact that the figures are always smiling.
The two dimensional figures are traditionally
bright, shining and loving life, a path adults have
been known to stray from!
 22
andrew
37
interview
How old are you?
37, although I was recently accused of looking
38 – oh the nonsense that spews from the
mouths of children.
What’s the best thing about being
the age that you are now?
I could rabbit on about how much more
mature I am now and how I can more readily
find fair perspective in the tribulations of
my day. But that would only serve to raise a
furrowed brow of condescension from readers
who are 38 or older and cause those younger
than me to think I was a self righteous twat.
Honestly, as I get older I am becoming more
cynical, more brazen and far less tolerant of
ditherers. I love it.
I use the word “fuck” a lot more (often when
I talk to ditherers) and I am comfortable
walking away from people if they have not
captured my attention in the first 30 seconds.
I am at ease with culling those stragglers that
I have somehow accrued over the years that
have miraculously made it onto my ‘friends’ list
but who contribute nothing to my happiness.
As I skip through my 30’s, I am becoming
increasingly comfortable as an atheist and an
anti-theist. I see no reason to politely respect
the delusions of a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim.
As I age, I feel more and more comfortable
shedding the dutiful tolerance that I was raised
with as a child. If it looks, feels and tastes like
horse shit, chances are there is a religious
person in the room.
Do you think men are cut off from
What’s the most useful thing you
have ever been told?
I recall being told not to sneeze whilst
urinating. I can appreciate that this is not the
sort of wise Buddhist proverb that will span
the generations, but nonetheless I urge every
man who takes pride in their aim to try it at
least once. It’s an achievement worth taking
the world of emotion? the time to stage. Picking your nose whilst
jogging is another skill worth acquiring.
Perhaps not ‘cut-off’ but they are certainly
blunted to the experience – homosexuals What’s the hardest thing you have
and Hyundai drivers excluded. Whereas ever had to do?
women will readily express and imbibe
I had a kidney stone once. That was a rough
emotional experiences (their own as well
day. I also recall having a crush on my dentist in
as the emotions of others) men tend to be
the mid 1980’s – she looked like Linda Carter
more reactionary. This is not to say that we
minus the golden lasso and the invisible jet. She
(men) are driven purely by limbic urges, or
was giving me a filling – one of those lead and
that we have the emotional depth of a cowpat.
krypton alloys which are now outlawed except
I cried like a baby at the end of James Bond
in death-row inmates. She had the freshest
Casino Royale – she was a very attractive
Listerine breath and told me what a brave boy
woman and they’d only had sex once or
I was. That was a rough day too. More recently,
twice. But I think men tend to treat emotions
I gave a eulogy at my grandmother’s funeral.
rather pragmatically – the very way emotions
Kidney stones and fillings aren’t so bad really.
should not be treated. On one hand, men
have successfully evolved to realise what a Would you like a partner who is
hindrance emotions can be to making rational, wiser than you are?
informed and critically valued decisions. On
My partner is far wiser than I will ever be.
the other, they are often oblivious to the
She is wonderfully intellectual, spectacularly
drawbacks of not expressing emotion. All too
altruistic, humblingly empathetic and
often men express pent up emotion in very
embarrassingly beautiful – embarrassing to
unhealthy ways – they beat their wives or
stand beside. Above all else, she has managed
name their sons “Jayson” or “Sasha”.
to clothe such qualities in a stunningly feminine
Occasionally (very occasionally) I even feel package. I embrace the many ways in which
that men miss out on some of life’s little joys she unintentionally outshines me and everyone
because of their inability to acknowledge and she meets. I consider such huge inequalities in
act upon more subtle emotional events. I, for our relationship to be empowering,
one, get no joy out of painting my toenails not belittling.
with a gal-pal or watching Gilmore Girls.
For the most part I am content to not fully
understand the delight that such activities can
bring. But then there are times, (usually when
I have one foot hoisted up onto the bathroom
sink, toe nail cutters at the ready and my
scrotum dangling aimlessly in the breeze like a
pensioners grin) when I think “This might be
more enjoyable with a girlfriend by my side”.
What do you generally do when
you are feeling blue?
One 30mL serve of scotch with 2 ice cubes
and a good dash of vanilla (Don’t use vanilla
essence. You’ll lose the effect). Let it stand for
a good 3 to 5 minutes until some of the ice
has melted and give it a reasonable stir before
you sip.
Failing that I try to share the misery. I am lucky.
I am yet to encounter a problem that cannot
be resolved (or at least dramatically lessened)
by communicating – discussing your thoughts
and concerns with someone else. But I have a
very nice life. I have nothing to really complain
about. I love my work and I love the people
around me. I have seen how truly crippling
depression can be and I have worked alongside
people with far less to be thankful for – people
that have every right to feel blue, or downright
miserable. If they can put on a brave face and
brighten the day of others around them then
so can I. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of
those happy, clapping Christian types. I find the
permanently cheerful in desperate need of a
slap. But I do think that the claims of so many
people to be stressed, depressed or anxious,
belittle the genuine sufferers who need all the
help and respect that we can offer.
When did you last give your
absolute all on something?
Bloody hell. I’m not sure it’s ever happened.
You know I don’t think I can honestly say (with
the benefit of hindsight) that there has ever
been a situation in my life where I couldn’t
have done better, where I couldn’t have
prepared more thoroughly or where I simply
had nothing more to give. I’ve certainly tried
very hard at a lot of things and in many of
those I have failed dismally. But I can’t honestly
say I have ever found a time when I truly had
exhausted all of my options. How pathetic
is that?
How would you describe a fully
rounded adult male? (What
attributes do they have?)
A fully rounded adult male is called a female.
We know that the female brain functions
better at most tasks than a male brain. Females
acquire language earlier and with greater depth
than males. Women multi-task and make
decisions based on numerous and complex
interactions better than most males could ever
hope to. They make better doctors, lawyers
and politicians. They are better listeners and
communicators than men. They have nearly
two-thirds more nerve cells connecting their
cerebral hemispheres and when their brains
are viewed by functional MR imaging, they light
up like a Christmas tree to the same stimulus
that barely evokes a solitary blip in a male
brain.
So when I am asked what constitutes a well if the news is depressing and we consume
rounded male, I feel like you’re asking me to diet cola and organic food because we think
sculpt fine bone china out of a dog turd. it will make us look good, or live longer. We
A well rounded male knows when he has had invent Gods and religion. We create a reality
too much to drink. A well rounded male takes to make life interesting, to settle our fears and
time out from talking to listen for a change. to shelter ourselves from the harshness of a
A well rounded male continues to learn world that doesn’t come with a filtered lens.
throughout their life from any source possible.
Describe the best holiday you have
A well rounded male asks for directions and
ever had?
can apologise without losing his dignity. But
perhaps above all, a well rounded male accepts In 1989 I spent a year in the United States.
that they are not the superior gender and Great people, great food and for a 17/18 year
nor have they ever been. They acknowledge old it was an intense, life-changing experience.
that being physically stronger, or able to Money spent travelling is money well spent.
yell louder, does not make them right and But being someone that appreciates this
they are content to be as good as they can but hates hearing the travel stories of other
(given the lacklustre brain they’ve been dealt) people, I’ll spare you the details.
without putting down others in order to make
If you could, what would you tell
themselves look better.
your 18 year old self?
What is your internal dialogue
1. Women are not scary to talk to. They are
generally like?
far easier to interact with than men, they
Continuous and unrelenting. I relive make far better conversationalists … and
conversations I have had, or conversations they listen. You don’t have to look like Brad
I would like to have. I debate people I have Pitt or smother them with witty banter, just
never met and I make acceptance speeches at talk and listen and learn from every woman
The Oscars. I am always being caught speaking you meet.
to myself and I have stopped trying to hide it.
2. Follow every project through to its
Who has been the best teacher in completion and ask for help any stage along
your life so far and what have you the way.
learnt?
3. Get directions. All the time you spend
My 4th grade teacher. She drilled home the stressing and faffing around when you’re lost
basics – reading, writing and math. ‘Failure’ can be alleviated by asking the nearest non-
has also been a remarkably thorough teacher, bikie looking stranger.
although I have not always learnt well from just
4. Unattractive checkout chicks are usually the
one lesson.
fastest. This rule only applies to late-night
What are you good at? shopping and Saturday mornings.
Knowing when I am wrong and acknowledging 5. Learn to dance and don’t be shy to be the
it. I wasn’t always good at it mind you. Such first on the dance-floor. It will always serve
an attribute goes hand-in-hand with being you well.
good at apologising.
6. Always buy the best wine you can afford.
What’s the most recent thing you
What do you want for Christmas?
have learnt about people?
Lasik eye surgery. Seriously.
Education is not the sole antidote to religion.
It is a big part of the solution, but sadly not the
entirety. It has taken me a while to appreciate
this fact and I am saddened by it. Because
there are so very few ‘intelligent’ happy-
clapping Christians or multiple-virgin seeking
Muslims, one is seldom challenged in the belief
that intelligence and the psychotic delusion of
a deity can be anything other than mutually
exclusive.
Do you think we create our own
reality?
Of course we do. We wake every morning and
dress in clothes that we think makes us look
good. We present ourselves to the world each
day in a manner that we think may appeal to
people (or at least minimise the offence we
cause). We laugh at other people’s jokes when
they are not funny and we choose to believe
that people are good at heart and will usually
do the right thing. We turn off the television
 24
jam
Mission, Calmyrna, Adriatic, Kadota,
Aboukounis, Barese, Chios, Kalamata,
Pasquale…. black, white, red, tawny,
dark red, crimson and glorious…
figs.
My DNA strands must contain dominant fig
genes. I am attracted to figs and they to me.
This is no figment of my imagination. One
of my earliest childhood memories is the
red path leading from the back door to the
laundry shed and to the left of that grandpa’s
tool shed and next to that a square, smelly,
dirty incinerator. Near the incinerator was a
sugar fig tree. I don’t remember eating figs
as a young child, but I can still remember the
smell of the tree. My mother was my fig-eating
etiquette role model: by her side I watched as
she plucked a fig, broke it in two, rubbed the
halves together and then pulled the flesh off
with her teeth leaving the skin stripped bare.
mid life
As a teenager, I cycled through back lanes of
Cottesloe and Peppermint Grove foraging figs
from trees overhanging back fences—or even
sneaking inside fences—then packing them in
the little esky which was ockie-strapped to
the back of my bike. Off season I would go to
Kakulas’ Brothers continental shop in North
Perth and buy a string of dried figs and have
them and the farts before I arrived home. On
Saturday mornings I would pick up a package
of dessert figs in juice from the dried fruit
section for mum’s shopping basket. Christmas
holidays meant see-through plastic glace fruit
packs containing figs along with the rest:
pineapple, apricots, pears, peaches and red
maraschino cherry. Using the tiny plastic fork
I’d always lift out a sticky, glistening fig.
By the age of 17, my modus operandi was in
place. I had a mental map, a kind of Fodors for
figs, of fig trees in and around Perth. Thirty
years later this knowledge has expanded
to Beverley, Busselton, Margaret River and
Flinders in WA and to Warrandyte, Kew,
Blackburn, and Churchill Island in Victoria. I’ve
procured fresh figs from Fairfield and Floreat
to Fremantle and Florence. I’ve enjoyed fig
jam, fig and ginger jam, fig relish, fig chutney,
fig newtons, stuffed figs, dried figs, glace figs,
poached figs, fig kebabs and my friend Diana’s
famous cream, yoghurt, brown sugar and fig
dessert. My husband-to-be once sent me a
rapturous letter from Delhi describing the
fig and honey ice cream he was served at the
Dasaprakash Hotel. I must admit that I have
yet to throw one on the barbie.
Several years ago in Perth I placed an
advertisement in our local paper: “Figs wanted.
Will pick and make jam in return.” I had five
responses. Three or four yielded a good supply
but one was supreme. ‘Figaro’ left a message
on my answering machine inviting me to
share his daily harvest. His days as a Victorian
orchardist have borne fruit in the west, thanks
to cuttings smuggled into WA from Victoria
years ago. The two trees behind his house are
well and truly mature, near perfect specimens,
and the fruit are large, luscious and abundant: a
genuine mother lode. The main tree has been
pruned low and wide for easy access, although
a ladder is required for the upper limbs. Figs
out of ladder reach are for the birds.
I was entrusted to fig-sit while he and his
wife went on holiday. I would clock in about
9am, slip on the fig picking shirt, collect the
plastic buckets and start. Picking requires fine
discrimination. Some figs are at the perfectly
ripe pinnacle and call out to be popped
directly in the mouth. Others are better left
for a day or two. Some are very soft and good
for jam. The few destined for the reject bucket
go sloppy in your hand and dribble down your
arm and deep into the weft of your clothes.
In an hour the buckets had filled a box and
any figs with fly were left to cook in Figaro’s
specially designed solar oven (a metal tin with
a piece of glass covering.) For weeks the tacky
car steering wheel reminded me of the white
sap of a fig.
More remarkable fig trees are near Northcliffe,
on the way to Albany. Friends invited us to stay
with them in their holiday house and while
enjoying one of the obligatory tractor rides we
discovered a huge tree laden with fruit near
the stock yards. This is fig radar in action. At
moments like this, I go into a kind of fig trance,
not exactly fig channelling, but definitely single-
minded. After half an hour, I reluctantly left
with hat, shirt and cheeks full.
In February, when the season is peaking,
I would cruise by a nondescript office block
in Mosman Park on Saturday or Sunday
afternoons. If the parking lot was empty, I
would pick the large purple skinned figs up to
the fence, climbing up the rocky landscaping
to reach the top ones. One weekend I was
horrified to discover that there were still
some workaholics at the office when I arrived.
I went in to ask permission and was given a
look of “you weirdo”, and a shrug of “all right.”
The limbs hanging over the fence are just a
fraction of the tree. The remainder lies on the
other side in someone’s back garden. Several
times I have breathed deep and attempted to
approach the door of the house on the other
side, but the whole place is a bit too creepy—
overgrown, falling down, broken windows, the
lot—and it seems a long way to the front door
and back.
There are a few memorable trees along the
Swan River. My favourites are near a sports
clubroom in Bicton. One tree is outside
the fence and gets picked by locals on their
walks. Another tree is within the fence and,
incredible as it seems, appears to be ignored
by the club members. I have worked out a
scheme for this particular tree. I quickly pick
any remaining ripe fruit from the outside tree.
Then, with empty plastic bags rustling in my
pockets, I nonchalantly but confidently march
into the sports grounds and without looking
left or right I pass in full view of the windows
of the conference rooms (wondering if bored
participants are staring out the window as I
move by.) I put the figs into the plastic bags
and then pass the bags through a small gap
in the locked gates next to the tree and into
a box that I have strategically placed there.
When I am finished, I march back empty
handed past the windows and collect my full
box of figs outside the gate.
Over the years many friends and family have
been startled, surprised and embarrassed by
my obsession: the sudden turning off of the
car and knocking at some stranger’s front door
or “yoohooing” over the fence of unsuspecting
fig tree owners. Never have my friends or
family openly suggested professional help as
I spend my fifteenth consecutive day in forty
degree heat fig picking and then standing over
the stove making jam.
My godson was just five months old when
I took him and his mother for his first hunt
in his pusher through Claremont’s streets
and reserves calling in wherever we saw fig
trees. We met a wonderful elderly woman in
a very gracious home, whose son was quite
suspicious when he came home and found us
there on such a flimsy-sounding pretence.
Walking along a trail in Kew while staying with
a friend’s daughter, I spotted a fig tree through
the trees and knocked on the door of an
Italian family gathered for lunch. After some
charade-like explanation, papa smilingly went
to get his son and some English translation.
Soon papa and mama and the last of the
year’s crop were offered to me along with
an invitation to come earlier next year. Last
summer I bought figs from an elderly Italian
lady at the monthly Warrandyte market. About
two hours and quite a few figs later, I realised
it would be a month before I could buy some
more. After a few phone calls to the market
organisers I located Mrs Mazzone. I have no
Italian, but we share a universal language. I
usually drive over after I make out “want
you figs”, “3:30”, and “I’m a home”. She is an
experienced grower and a shrewd seller and I
always leave with at least five kilos.
Photo by lepiaf.geo on Flickr
Last summer while walking near our state park
I spotted figs in the back garden of a nearby
house. I cast my line across the fence: “Hello,
do you like figs? [some people do have the
recessive fig gene, Could I buy some? pick
some? or make you jam?” I would be welcome
to a few, and to check back in a few weeks, she
replied. When I dropped in after what I felt
was a decent interval, I was pulled in through
the gate with exasperated noises and shown
a hand-lettered sign that had been posted
outside: “would the lady enquiring about figs
please call in.” I was told how the park ranger
and her daughter had been notified to alert
me if I was seen on the trail. Waiting in the
fridge were two full grocery bags. That load
gave my triceps a workout as I headed for
home. At my age such load bearing activities
are highly recommended for building
strong bones.
Mid life is no crisis. My appetite for figs is
hearty. My fig radar is undiminished. My
physical stamina on a fig hunt is robust. My
fig jam reputation has not been formally
challenged. Whatever the season, my cupboard
contains jam and bold friends even ask for
refills when their allotted birthday jar is empty.
I am considering giving myself an honorary
degree and putting PhD (Fig) after my name.
Although a republican by nature, I am born to
rule as a fig queen and wear eau de toilette de
figuier.
(Note: Some of the names and places have
been altered or omitted to protect the trees.)
Patti Roberts
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