Far From the Maddening Crowd

Tags

Airey's Inlet, Bass strait, Bunurong, Creed mcTaggart, Cuillins, David Rastovich, eudyptula minor, fairy penguin, fulmar, grippin' the lip, Howard Hughes surfboard, Koolin, Lew Brown, Loyd Grosman, mutton-bird, Namibia, one piece leash, painting zebras, passeggiata, Phillip Island, Port Phillip Winery, rip curl, Rip Van Winkle, Roll out the Barrel, shearwater, Sojourn, St Kilda, stabmag.com, Sumatra, Surf Beach, Teahupo'o pizza, The Nobbies, Tracks-the Surfers' bible, ultimate gypsy, wallaby

You would think that The Nobbies would be an excellent place to get

away from Joe Public, but even with a howling gale blasting in from

The Bass Strait, there is the eternal shrill whine of children whose decibel

level outperforms the crashing waves and predatory shearwaters. Once

placated by a cuddly toy penguin, however, the juveniles are generally

benign, unlike their adult counterparts who simply will not obey rangers’

instructions and whose attention span seems limited to one advance

by a single cohort of fairy bands of brothers before they have to stand up,

blocking others’ views and flashing away at the shy bird-life which is

trying to avoid the unwanted attention of a sea eagle, or a fox, but which

ends up mating under spotlights, beneath the boardwalks, to a perpetual

infantile commentary:

What are they doing?  Oh, look!  A threesome!

Eudyptula minor is a cutie and its nightly parade reminded me of a

Mediterranean passeggiata, except that those on the fringes do not

usually get picked off – or do they?

The whole ambience recalls accounts of the fulmar-dependent,

indigeneous people of St Kilda.  No doubt the mutton-bird eating

Bunurong would have had heaps in common with the original

inhabitants of the Scottish archipelago, although the Bunurong

had not been planted on their terrain, but were the supplanted.

Mind you, the Koolin people sounds rather like the Cuillins, don’t

you think?

I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t savour a short-arsed shearwater,

or whatever the mutton-bird is.  I preferred the duck confit at Port

Phillip Winery, the previous day.

Those of you who have been questioning whether I have morphed

into a fully-formed Sheila yet, might be better employed rating my

surf babe status.  Forget The Husband.  The only thing he surfs is

the internet.  As for Rip Curl experiences, he is more into those of the

Rip van Winkle variety.  Or Lip Curl, when he comes across snippets of

his fame being promoted over this site.  (He can be as desultory as

that lone wallaby that hopped across the dusky beach last night,

silhouetted against a giant red full moon.)  Just trying to divert

attention, I’d say.

We stayed over at Surf Beach in a house on stilts, all weather

boarding and corrugation.  The walls were decorated with a Howard

Hughes, Airey’s Inlet finned surfboard, bearing the endorsement:

Awesome.

I felt like Loyd Grosman- remember the guy who used to traipse

through people’s houses trying to guess what kind of a person lived

therein?  He actually only got the job because someone mistakenly

thought he was a journalist.  I felt a bit of a fraud myself.  But now

that I’ve heard of stabmag.com, I feel that I have some beach cred.

I might even get The Husband some Board Shorts.  Apparently, Life

is better in them.  The guys in the adverts seem to prove the point.

Maybe I could tether one of these Adonises to my side with the

World’s Strongest Leash, a one piece leash technology.  Might just

keep The Husband from wandering off towards the wine aisle in

any supermarket.

Even the reading matter was connected to the ocean and Night

Surfing was the only novel on view.  The blurb confided that it was

about a wave that arcs so high it drops down the sun, stars and

moon from the sky and turns day to pitch.  Hannah is a drop-out

who wants to learn to walk on water and Jake has been a dustman,

or re-cycling engineer, from Liverpool, but he dreams of surfing the

night.  Presumably he has had a shower first.  He has demons of his

own.  Let’s hope that Hannah exorcises them.

Right, enough of those barbed comments, as prickly as the fins on the

surfboards.

I did enjoy leafing through Tracks: the Surfers’ Bible– the next best

thing to a Teahupo’o pizza delivery, apparently.

You see, I had never heard of grippin’ the lip; surfing in Namibia- I

thought it was all desert dunes.  I thought Roll out the Barrel was a

1940s song by Lew Brown and nothing to do with tides and waves.

Painting zebras on a wall sounded artistic to me, something like

decorative murals on a kindergarten reception hall.

Hoovering through the slob sounded like clearing up after the

kindergarten kids had gone home.  And I had never heard of

films such as Sojourn, a surf film about Sumatra, with David

Rastovich.  I really must have been up a gum tree!

Oh, wait a minute!  It’s hovering through the slob.  It’s all this

being on the road.  I’m turning into an ultimate gypsy like Creed

McTaggart.  That’s a different creed from the one I know back

home and which I can recite by heart on Sunday mornings.

Okay, so he’s known for his sunglasses and criticised for faux

surf celebrity; I’m known for my hats and…

I’m morphing into something.  It’s Travel.  It broadens the mind,

as well as the behind.

Jaw, Jaw-better than War, War

Tags

Browning, Churchill, Gotterdammerung, Guermantes, Hague, jaw, jaw better than war, Kaiser, Levite, madeleine, Malvolio, Nobel Prize Psychology, passeggiata, poker, Proust, Putin, retro sunspecs, Russian Roulette, St Loup, Victoria Coren-Mitchell, Wagner

The sun had brought out all the Suttonfordians, and Brassie and I

were included in that grouping.  We were sitting outside

Costamuchamoulah must-seen cafe, watching le monde entier, or,

at least, what could be termed its microcosm.  It was interesting to

lay bets on who would acknowledge us in the course of the

passeggiata, and who would walk on by like a selfish Levite,

avoiding a mugging victim.

Isn’t it amazing..? I commented, sipping my lime tea, but eschewing

an accompanying Madeleine, as sugar is the new fat.

What? enquired Brassie.

Amazing that people can be read so.. well, readily.  Psyches haven’t

developed significantly since Proust exposed them in all their

ambivalence of motivation.

How so? Brassie was looking around brightly and frankly.  In other

words, she was simply asking to be snubbed.

Well, I am reading Chapter Two of The Guermantes way at present..

Is that by Proust?

Yes, I sighed.  Proust masterfully expands on how some people look at

you in a certain way which is intended to let you know that they have

seen you, but that they have also not seen you.

He would have had a whale of a time sitting here, Brassie laughed.

No, seriously, he said that they pretend to be embroiled in a deeply

important conversation with a companion so that they do not have

to acknowledge you.

You don’t have to have a Nobel Prize for Psychology to work that

out, Brassie remarked.

No, but the thing about Proust is that he always presents the

converse too.  He says some of those types actually go over the top

and greet you with excessive fervour when you hardly recognise them,

but, the instant they see someone they know observing their

behaviour, they ‘cut’ you.

I can’t stand artifice, Brassie agreed.

Proust announced that he eventually grew beyond the desire for a

relationship with Mme Guermantes, as she had been repelling him.

Perversely, when he no longer cared for her recognition, she started to

gush all over him at some party.

Watch out! Brassie signalled, not too subtly.  She immediately donned her

over-sized retro sunspecs.  She’s coming!  That awful woman..

I rummaged in my bag, as if looking for my keys. ( I wouldn’t look for a

mobile, for I never carry one.  Hate them.)

Once La Bete Noire had passed, all was right with the world.  Now I am

channelling Browning!  But to return to good old Marcel..

What I found highly significant, I continued, was that Proust reports a

conversation with St Loup, where the Kaiser is discussed.  He says that the

latter only wants peace but tries to convince the French that he wants war,

in order to make them comply with his wishes over Morocco.

Do you think that sounds like a parallel with Putin?  Brassie latched on.

Hmm, St Loup says that if they were not to give in, there wouldn’t be a

war, in any shape or form.

I don’t know if I would have agreed, Brassie frowned.

Quite, but the chilling thing was that St Loup added that one has only to

think what a cosmic thing a war would be -and this was more than a century

ago-I stressed.  He said it would be a bigger catastrophe than the Flood and

Gotterdammerung rolled into one.  Only it wouldn’t last so long.

Oh, that’s just Proust taking the proverbial out of Wagner, Brassie smiled.

Some of his operas are interminable!

But you take the more sinister point, surely?  St Loup likened these games of

brinkmanship to bluffing as in a game of poker.

In that case, politicians could hire someone like Victoria Coren-Mitchell as a

diplomat. She plays poker in her spare time, doesn’t she?  I can’t imagine she

would stand any nonsense.  She could stand up to a game of Russian

Roulette.  Whereas, ‘Don’t be vague, ask for Hague’, doesn’t really cut the

mustard any more. does it?  Victoria is way more scary.

But, the current situation’s not funny, is it?  I persisted.

No, Brassie agreed.  Maybe it all comes down to Putin feeling snubbed.

Feeling rejected is a powerful emotion.

So maybe we should say ‘hello’ to You Know Who next time, I suggested.

Internecine warfare is mutually destructive.

I suppose so.  So let’s practise smiling at everyone who walks past, Brassie

nodded.  Even though we will probably look like a couple of Malvolios.

So, maybe Churchill was right, I commented after quarter of an hour.

Jaw, jaw is better than war.

It’s a pretty good insurance, Brassie nodded, just like that annoying

dog in the advert.