St Kilda Sheep

Tags

Kelvingrove Museum, prehistoric, St Kilda, St Kilda sheep, taxidermy

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart of taxidermy example in Kelvingrove Museum

ST KILDA

Tags

fulmar, guano, prehensile toe, puffin, St Kilda, Ultima Thule

A re-blog as a friend of mine has just returned from

St Kilda. I have always wanted to go there, but, so far I

have only managed to travel there in my imagination.  I

have been to the Melbourne alternative!

ST KILDA

Beyond the map, for months inaccessible,

except to nesting puffins on sheer stacks.

Once fearless, prehensile-toed men, able

to grasp guano-stained granite; to steal chicks,

abseiled, avoiding foul seagull spittle,

with straw ropes, to find food.  They fixed strong cleats

into bare rock, until the press prattle

brought voyeuristic tourist hordes in boats,

who wondered how men lived by sun and tide;

how those who’d never seen a rabbit, bee,

snake, apple, hard cash, earned their daily bread,

herding Stone Age sheep around the bleak bays,

anointing newborns’ umbilical cords

with vile, regurgitated fulmar oil,

which lit their candles.  They looked backwards

to William IV, before they set sail

for forest work (who’d never seen a tree).

Disease-rid, the surviving thirty-six

were taken from their archipelago

of Ultima Thule, to be shown like freaks

in geographical publications.

Now they wore tweed and lay in feather beds,

conformed to the Victorian fashion,

dictated by a different choice of needs.

But, in their souls they heard the clash of waves,

knowing they’d built their houses on the sand.

Whenever they were told that Jesus Saves,

their thoughts wandered to their Promised Land.

 

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.

Generation Wuss

Tags

American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis, comfort eating, Fatted Calf, fulmar oil, gannets, Gap year, Generation Wuss, Golden Calf, gugas, i-pads, manger, minas pims bekahs, overdraft, party animal, Prodigal Son, puffin, separation anxiety, silk purse, sow's ear, St Kilda, swineherd, The Bank Of Dad, trust fund kid, Vanity Fair, workers in the vineyard

‘Generation Wuss?  What’s all that about? Brassie asked me as she tried

to decipher what I was studying in a newspaper borrowed from the rack

in Costamuchamoulah cafe’s complimentary reading material.

Oh, it’s just that American Psycho guy- you know, the writer Bret Easton

Ellis, sounding off in ‘Vanity Fair’ about those born post-1989.  He calls them

self-obsessed, narcissistic, over-sensitive…

That’s a bit harsh, surely?

Well, he does admit that he has expressed ‘huge generalities’ but he

thinks many are unable to accept constructive criticism and buy into a

currency of popularity, dealing mainly in brands, profiles and merely

rating social media presence.

Kids have always been slammed by previous generations, Brassie

remarked.  There has always been a divide between shiftless

layabouts and those with a developed work ethic.

Like the Prodigal Son, I declared.  But The Elder Brother wasn’t

congratulated on his mean attitude.  The workers in the vineyard

who turned up late, but did some work, were given the same

wages.  And the people of St Kilda received the same ration of gugas

and gannets, whatever they did.

However, I expect that if they had overslept on their straw mattresses

and plugged themselves into their i-pads, or whatever, when there was

a gannet gathering expedition taking place, their mums would soon have

emptied a cruse of fulmar oil over their heads, or slapped them with a

wind-dried puffin..

I have been known to precipitate action myself, but I only use water,

Brassie admitted.

If the Prodigal Son’s father hadn’t agreed to giving him his inheritance

so soon, perhaps his wastrel son wouldn’t have expended it all on

riotous living.  Maybe his father wanted him to make his own choices.

Yes, said Brassie, it’s always dangerous to let people make their own

mistakes and it does impinge on other people.  It’s hard to strike the

balance.

A typical dilemma of Biblical proportions, I agreed.  What do you think

of this topical poem I scribbled at five thirty this morning?

Let’s have a look, she sighed.

KILLED BY KINDNESS

The Fatted Calf speaks:

 

No, the Golden Calf was a relation,

but nobody bows down, or worships me.

I’ve been a long time in the fattening,

unlike those who claim, I don’t eat that much,

but who keep piling on pound after pound-

or should I say minas, pims and bekahs?

I’ve been stuffed to the gunnels and force-fed

over a fairly lengthy period:

I’d say since about the time the boy left.

Every day his father filled my manger;

he’d talk to me while tears streamed down his cheeks.

The elder son, the one who was jealous,

thought he’d sink his teeth into me one day-

maybe as the main course at his wedding,

but none of the girls like his attitude.

He still has a mother to care for him,

though she keeps comfort eating all day long.

But my mater was sold off long ago

and my younger brother was sacrificed.

I’ve felt separation anxiety!

 

Apparently, he was living it up

on some all-expenses paid gap year.

Now his mamma regrets ever nagging:

Tidy your room. It looks like a pig sty!

The gossip is he’s had to take a job:

Trust Fund Kid is working as a swineherd.

The Bank of Dad is into overdraft.

He’s discovered he can’t make a silk purse

out of a sow’s ear. Enough is a trough.

He’s never going to bring home the bacon.

But at least his porcine companions

don’t wallow like humans in self-pity.

 

In our own ways, we’re confined to our stalls-

unless he swallows his pride and comes home.

Meanwhile I’m feeling about to explode.

The elder son is imprisoned too.

His father confines himself to the farm,

not going out in case his son should call.

 

You could say I’m being killed by kindness

and maybe the boy feels that he was too.

Lord knows, he was a party animal,

but we could all do with cheering up now.

 

 

St Kilda

Tags

fulmar, prehensile toe, St Kilda, Stone Age sheep, Ultima Thule

Beyond the map, for months inaccessible,

except to nesting puffins on sheer stacks.

Once fearless, prehensile-toed men, able

to grasp guano-stained granite; to steal chicks,

abseiled, avoiding foul seagull spittle,

with straw ropes, to find food.  They fixed strong cleats

into bare rock, until the press prattle

brought voyeuristic tourist hordes in boats.

They wondered how men lived by sun and tide;

how those who’d never seen a rabbit, bee,

snake, apple, hard cash, earned their daily bread,

herding Stone Age sheep around the bleak bays,

anointing newborns’ umbilical cords

with vile, regurgitated fulmar oil,

which lit their candles.  They looked backwards

to William IV, before they set sail

for forest work (who’d never seen a tree).

Disease-rid, the surviving thirty-six

were taken from their archipelago

of Ultima Thule, to be shown like freaks

in geographical publications.

Now they wore tweed and lay in feather beds,

conformed to the Victorian fashion,

dictated by a different choice of needs.

But, in their souls they heard the clash of waves,

knowing they’d built their houses on the sand.

Whenever they were told that Jesus Saves,

their thoughts wandered to their Promised Land.

Strictly Come Prancing

Tags

Ann Widdecombe, Brassica, Dan Snow, dressage, DVT, hanging baskets, husband, Kirstie Allsopp, Madonna, Moscow, NHS, OAP, Olympics, pelargonia, riot, St Kilda, teaching, Tiger Feet

Thursday

I went out with Brassica to buy some reduced pelargonia for my rotting hanging baskets. A crowd of orange lycra clad OAPs were showing off in the local garden centre café.  They should have been extras in the Opening Ceremony Tiger Feet number. They’d probably arrived by car and parked their bikes at the entrance for pure effect.  Nothing worse than the elderly behaving badly, I said to myself. They just propel themselves to the nearest sylvan cheapeatery to save on winter fuel in the coming seasons, which saves their annual allowance for luxuries such as ostentatious cycling equipment.  Mind you, they probably prevent DVT by squeezing themselves into such tight gear, so may be saving the taxpayer on NHS expenses.

I enjoyed the elegance of the Strictly Come Prancing dressage.  The winning horse, whose name was a bit like Viagra, could have shown Widdi a thing or two about dancing.  And she couldn’t have complained about the decency of what both horse and rider were wearing.

Madonna isn’t being very restrained in Moscow. Supposedly she had been asked there to sing.  A deputy minister told her to remove her cross and to put on some knickers, which wasn’t a bad idea.   She seemed to have inspired some girls in Leeds to lipstick the strapline: Moralising Slut over their boobs. It all seems rather adolescent and, as a teacher, I could have told them that the best thing to do with juvenile protest was to ignore it.

A poor athlete heard his leg snap during a race but carried on out of a misplaced sense of duty. I have always believed that one’s joints have a finite amount of wear or tread on them and so long ago I decided never to overstretch them.  My husband is a chief exponent of the theory too.

It is almost a year to the day since the London riots and several youths have been sent down for their part in the destruction. Dan Snow had been passing when some looters had run out of a shop, bearing trove.  Big Dan had tackled one and made a citizen’s arrest.  If it had been a female, I can guarantee that she wouldn’t have struggled too much. Dan could have taken wrongdoers to St Kilda for re-hab and could have introduced them to a fitness programme that included running up that chimney gully, or he could have made them harvest gannets, enduring fulmar spittle, as they abseiled down vertical cliffs.  Even worse, Kirstie Allsopp could have redesigned their psyches by forcing them to crotchet drag nets. Or Putin could have offered them judo training in Siberia.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Skincare

Tags

Amy Winehouse, Andrew Motion, Bradley Wiggins, Carol Ann Duffy, Champs Elysees, Cheryl Cole, Dan Snow, Johnny Depp, Kirstie Allsopp, L'Oreal, Mahalia Jackson, Mother Teresa, Olympics, Phil Spencer, Radio 4, Rango, Samuel Beckett, Sarah Vaughan, Shar Pei, Sophie Raworth, St Kilda, Tour de France, W H Auden

Monday, 23^rd July.

In the north rain; in the south: sunny.

Everyone is being urged to cease whining and to look forward to enjoying the great spectacle of the Olympics.  But the goodwill lasts for about two seconds and then someone phones in to Radio 4 to detract from Team Sky’s victory.  The Language Police can’t refrain from pointing out that the “p” in Champs Elysees is silent.  A better suggestion was that it should be re-named The Road to Wiggins’ Peerage!

Meanwhile the backlog of people requiring investigation for being illegally resident in the U.K. – criminals included- is equivalent in number to the population of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  It may well be more efficient to round up all Geordies, starting with that annoyingly accented Ruth in The Archers. Cheryl Cole would be next.  Another on the list who never would be missed. She thinks she is worth it, but is she?

Maybe the super-rich who have thirteen trillion hidden offshore could be persuaded to put their bodies where their money is, leaving space for those who have lost their pension funds.

I was watching Sophie Raworth, the newsreader, popping up in a fetching red dress and ballet pumps, all over Stratford – or virtually and graphically so.  We were being advised who to look out for in the coming weeks, but all that I could think of was how the Aquatic Centre looked like an architectural panty pad.

Impatiently, I flicked the remote.  There appeared Dan Snow, with his rower’s chest, stripping off his outdoor gear and racing up some chimney gully on St Kilda.  That was riveting eye-candy.

It was unfortunate that Phil Spencer came on next.  I immediately thought that you could call that a paradox.  I wouldn’t go as far as an oxymoron.   It was certainly unfortunate.  I couldn’t imagine him shinning up a literal chimney- not even if Kirstie had left her designer handbag on top of its cowl.  Anyway, what knight would want to risk derring-do for someone who appeared in a purple tie-dye marquee with a turquoise belt and puce espadrilles?

Normally I would have approved of Kirstie’s comfort in her own skin, but I did think that she must have scoffed rather too many cupcakes recently.

That left an Arena programme on BBC4 about the time that Amy Winehouse went to sing in a church in Dingle, some remote coastal dot in Ireland.  I expected Neil Oliver to pop up since it was his territory, as it were, and thought that he and Amy might have got on well. They could have stayed in and had a girlie night, backcombing each other’s hair.

Amy interviewed well, but I had difficulty with her diction when she was singing.  When clips of Mahalia Jackson or Sarah Vaughan were played, I understood every word they uttered.  It was sad when Amy sang about not wanting to go-o-o to rehab.

Also sad was the news report with the tragic weirdo in a ginger wig who had massacred all those innocent people in the cinema in Colorado.  I didn’t want to think about that too much before bedtime, so opted for Horizon and its exploration of sun damage on skin.  A glamorous female surgeon simply had to visit Sharm el-Sheikh, Berlin and Paris, to promote current research on care for our body’s biggest organ and to pick up a few L’Oreal free samples on the way.

I considered rushing out a.s.a.p. to the chemist and stocking up on their entire stock of anti-UVA creams, not to mention the Unilever pill which might just be available.  I didn’t want to develop the W.H.Auden look, which someone had described as being like a Xmas pudding left out in the rain.   He should have used moisturiser and have spent as much time on his skincare regime than on poetry.  He had been worth it, even if he did look more like Rango than Johnny Depp.  I hoped that Carol Ann Duffy was taking note.  She needs to look good in her lofty bardic position.  Andrew Motion did.  He was probably no stranger to E45.

W. H.  What did the initials stand for? – I seemed to remember that it was Wystan, not Winston.  Always good to file away for the General Knowledge round of Mastermind.  Also the name of that wrinkly canine breed- Shar Pei: commit to memory.  If I don’t pass the audition to fill the black chair, I will just have to apply to Alexander Armstrong, to see if he will have me on Pointless.

Winston had had a face like a baby’s bottom, everyone used to say.  He used to smoke cigars, so it was maybe just ciggies that contributed to Auden’s complexion, or perhaps it was his personal involvement with the Age of Anxiety.

Of course, Mother Teresa and Samuel Beckett were both wrinklies. They probably wouldn’t have had the time to spend on a cleanse/ tone/ moisturise regime.  Their value was not dependent on their dermis. They were truly worth it.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012