They weren't biting...

The fish, I mean - the damned cat fleas still are, even though I don't enter their realm but stay on the deck. Tallow-wood decking with the wide spacing would surely mean the bloodsuckers fall through, mostly, on their perambulations, I thought - well, I s'pose it wasn't real thinking...

Cyberbrat's offspring was grouchy, siesta interruptus, I s'pose, so was bundled away out of sight for a supplementary taste of tit - good thing, really, considering how the miserable little bastard resembles his father... (I put in this gratuitous insult so the mean bastard [sr.] may get stung into contributing something more than legal tactics - or for the odd PC reader of CB's stream-of-conscience blogging to up the ante with cash contribs...).

They’re all nuts…

Another thing that left a bad taste in my mouth is the pecan pie, with nuts from our own tree! First rule of thumb for the beginning homesteader shelling last year's crop in anticipation of the new harvest: don't let your woman near your nuts!

Handicapped in sight as mine is, she left heaps of the bitter stuff that's between the lobes on the fragments she produced (while I concentrated on the almost too perfect halves that were needed for decoration). The nuts were mouldy, natch', she pronounced after she'd pounded them to a pulp in the mincer and baked them into this Sunday afternoon cake with chocolate to take 'round to CB.

Admittedly, the taste was hideous, but I chewed my way through it all out of respect for my beautiful carya illinoiensis! The pecan halves on top were worth it, though...

Next in line are the macadamias - last year's are getting just barely stale, this year's crop is coming down so massively you need a hard hat in Bianca's garden!

Talking of shelling: I must have been the only person aware of the difference between qalb and kelb (this Wordpad doesn't do Arabic, I believe) to applaud the recent 'martyrdom' of Sheik Yassin - shame about the wheelchair... (Come to think of it, we have an Imam or two that could be 'taken out of context'...)

At this point I'd like to make a sibyllinic pronouncement: "The war on terror is our last crusade"... (Strange how the ellipses are scattered about like big hailstones...)

Enough to make the chooks run…

Had a woman compatriot (how I used to 'ave fun in France when asked if so-and-so was a con patriote and I could let loose with a double-barrelled insult to all Germanics by replying 'non, c'est un Autre chien!") over for coffee this arvo after her stint at the local market, where she sells the dark decorated bis/cakes called Lebkuchen. She somewhat restored my faith in the mother culture, as far as decent, thoughtful, modest and self-deprecatingly humorous emigres are concerned... Even Bianca, who had feared Petra might live up too closely to her name, found her very likeable. And that's not just on account of the two black hens she has promised to sell us, to restore the racial mix in our little flock...

The chooks are Bianca's native tribe, she loves them to bits - so much so that I haven't been able to slaughter even the latest of the little roosters the folk at the markets manage to slip into her clutch of 'hens'.

She pays dearly for her indulgence, too: two roosters had their spurs surgically removed by a vet at $A75 each, one cost her $A100 in a lost bet so much was she in denial about its true colours. And only yesterday the sweet little white Leghorn she calls Lola looked at me with such a cocksure macho eye that I pronounced "Lola" another rooster - upon which Bianca promptly wagered another $A100 against the odds.

Today, on closer inspection of the small sickle-shaped feathers developing in "Lola's" tail, Bianca asked for easy terms, once her pension comes in...


Thanks, Speccie, but no thanks…

The subscription department at Hollinger International’s The Spectator is certainly very efficient – certainly more so than say the subs’ desk. These good folks have sent me two subscription renewal offers in as many weeks.

Now, I haven’t had the heart yet to tell the Speccie that I won’t be renewing my sub, but I have a suggestion to Hollingers, in case someone is listening.

If those guys were to produce an international edition of the weekly, they’d do a roaring trade in subs, including mine. I love the quality writing, the stubborn independent-minded approach to news and current affairs, the fantastic book reviews and art and media commentary. I even enjoy most of the stuff emanating from that perennially imbibing, ogling contemporary of mine, Taki. I enjoy Dot Wordsworth sem-antics, and I am fatally enamoured with the cartoons…

But looking in on what is essentially an English scene from the Antipodes – except perhaps via the Web site, assuming you’d still get access as a lapsed subscriber – is not worth $A265/year to this ne’er-do-well pensioner.

On the other hand, I’d gladly pay say a dollar a day for a Spectator International edition, bulk-airmailed to me every fortnight…

Talking of the view…

The other day, the Speccie gave me this brilliant new word sword to fend off feminists with, cliterati. I s’ppose this applies to bloggers, in particular. For some reason, our leftwingers labor under the delusion that bloggers are ‘public intellectuals’ or even ‘monitorial citizens’. They are ascribing political weight to what is in large amounts ill-informed fluff and emotional navel-gazing…

I could give you examples, but in this jurisdiction I can ill afford libel suits; chain mail would suit me where truth is no defence… I just hope that policy is never based on such chaff and chatter.