ART SUNDAY - ST CATHERINE'S DAY 3

The rest of the story has Maxentius calling in a squad of philosophers to dispute with St. Catherine and lead her to apostasy, but the saint instead converts them. Maxentius orders her to be starved in prison for 12 days, but a dove brings her food from Heaven. Then the emperor's wife and 200 knights visit her, and she converts them too. In a fury, Maxentius orders that she be tortured on a device featuring four spiked wheels, but angels are sent to destroy it. At last, he has her beheaded.

The Golden Legend has a rather confused account of how the wheeled device operated, and this confusion carries into the images of St. Catherine's passion. Portraits of the saint usually show her with the ruined wheel, the sword used to behead her, and the palm branch of martyrdom, as in the painting by Caravaggio (ca. 1598. Oil on canvas, 173 x 133 cm, Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid).

Because the Legend says St. Catherine was a queen, she also usually wears a crown. Indeed, because she was the only queen among the martyrs of Roman times many images rely on just the crown and the palm branch, sometimes with a book. The book presumably refers to St. Catherine's erudition "in the arts liberal, wherein she drank plenteously of the well of wisdom, for she was chosen to be a teacher and informer of everlasting wisdom" (Caxton's translation of the Legend).

ART SUNDAY - ST CATHERINE'S DAY 2

St. Catherine was widely popular from the middle ages through the 17th century, and her images are among the most common in the art of those years. In Voragine's Golden Legend St. Catherine tells the Emperor Maxentius, "I have given myself as his bride to Christ." This suggestion was elaborated both in the art and in later versions of the Legend, which offer a tale of her miraculous visit to Heaven and marriage to Jesus, who gives her a ring, as in this painting by Correggio: 
”The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine” (ca. 1520, Wood, 105 x 102 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris).

ART SUNDAY - ST CATHERINE'S DAY

"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it." - Margaret Fuller

It is St Catherine’s Day today and for reasons that shall become obvious, it is also the International Day to object to Violence Against Women. St Catherine was an Alexandrian princess who was baptised a Christian secretly. When her father arranged for her to marry a pagan prince, she refused. She was condemned to be broken on a spiked wheel (the “Catherine Wheel”) in approximately 310 AD.

She is the patron saint of carters, spinners and spinsters. These workers celebrated her day by drinking hot ale and eating pies:
Rise, maidens, rise Bake your Cattern pies Bake enough and bake no waste And let the Bellman have a taste.

Also lacemakers claim her for her own as she was confused with Queen Catherine of Aragon who burned all her lace and ordered new when times were hard, thus supporting the lacemakers. Lacemakers jumped for luck over a lit candle on this day:
Kit be nimble, Kit be quick Kit jump o’er the candlestick.

The flower associated with St Catherine is love-in-a-mist, Nigella damascena. However, An Early Calendar of English Flowers, associates the laurel with this Saint.
Soon the laurel alone is greene When Catherine crownes all learned menne.

Incidentally, a “poet laureate” indicates the old custom of crowning great poets and winners of poetical competitions in ancient times with laurel. A Bachelors degree is derived from this crowning with laurel, also. Bachelor is derived from baccalaureatus i.e. “berry laurelled”, hence “Catherine, crowning all learned men”. Here is a painting by Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni: “Saint Catherine Disputing” ca. 1380 Tempera on wood, gold ground , Metropolitan Museum of Art)

ELECTION DAY WATER

“What luck for rulers, that men do not think.” - Adolf Hitler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler

This morning, bright and early we walked to our local polling station a couple of kilometres from our house and we voted. It is Election Day today and it is predicted that we have a cliffhanger of a poll on our hands. The reigning conservative government is up for election for its fifth term in office and the arrogance of its leaders is overwhelming. I am surprised that the Australian people are mistaking this condescending self-importance for confidence and ebullience. There has been the usual mud-slinging and scare campaigns and our prime minister is hoping to be re-elected, counting on the grey vote.

Some polls are predicting a Labor party victory and most people I have talked to are wanting a change. Steve Rudd who leads the Labor Party is younger, has fresh ideas and some more moderate, progressive policies. His plan to ratify the Kyoto protocol was good news for me, as our present PM has mulishly resisted to ratify it. In any case, I am not holding my breath and I am avoiding watching the reportage from the National Tally Room in Canberra. I’d rather read about it in tomorrow’s paper.

Now, for Music Saturday, I am much in need of something relaxing, classic and soothing. One can’t go past some Water Music by George Friedrich Handel.



Enjoy your weekend!

Well, I did get to watch a bit of the election coverage after a friend rang us to tell us how quickly the electorate’s swing against the government started to manifest itself. It is now official, we have a new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd and the country is now in the Labor Party’s hands. The Senate votes are still being counted of course, and even in the House of Representatives some seats are still being contested. However, the Liberal Party has been defeated, and to add insult to injury, John Howard has lost his own seat of Bennelong…

Let us hope that all the pretty flowery speeches of the new Prime Minister elect will be converted into meaningful action. It was about time we had change and the new leader brings fresh ideas for the future…

ACCIDENT

“The Orientals have another word for accident; it is ‘kismet’ - fate.” – Thomas Babington Macaulay

I had a car accident today as I was leaving work to go home. Another car went against a red light and hit me. Fortunately neither of us was hurt and as for the rest, it can all be repaired it’s just metal and plastic. However, as the other car was speeding it was quite fortuitous that neither one of us was even injured. Now, a few hours later, sitting here at home and thinking about it, I have quite a lot to be thankful for. I am well and so is the other driver. I can look at the situation and be able to shrug it off. Looking at my mangled car, I can still smile as there was no injury, no fatality, no serious damage.

How ridiculous we humans are, at times thinking of ourselves as immortal, invulnerable, invincible… In the blink of an eye, in a split second our whole world could collapse, we could be injured, become maimed, our life could end. We think that a multitude of silly inconsequential things are vitally significant and the only important thing is our well-being, our health, our physical (and mental!) integrity…

I felt very sorry for the other driver. She was a young probationary driver, 19-years-old or so and she was terrified. She kept apologising to me, as she was shaking and crying. I had quite a job of calming her down. The police arrived shortly after the accident and I must confess that they were quite good and took control of the situation straight away. Fortunately both of us were insured (as it turns out with the same insurance company) and now it is only the inconvenience of having to go through the process of car repairs and the trouble of making arrangements for alternative transportation.



Still, my mind goes back to the other scenario… How many people today must have been in car accidents and they never made it home? How many ended up in intensive care in hospital, how many lost life and limb? A car is indispensable nowadays, especially in large sprawling cities like Melbourne where distances are enormous and to get anywhere by public transport takes hours. However, the roads with their ever-increasing traffic and congestion, the drivers who seem to be inexperienced and/or reckless, the frustrations of our modern society, all make driving more dangerous.

In Australia, we’ve had 1,184 road deaths in 2007 to the end of September. Many thousands of car accidents with serious injuries, many more thousands with minor injuries. I am thankful that I was in this last group. Enjoy your weekend, be careful not only for yourself, but for others too. Living in a society entails responsibility not only for our own safety and welfare but also for the welfare of others.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you’, that would suffice.” - Meister Eckhart

Thanksgiving as celebrated in the USA is one of my favourite Public Holidays. It is a pity that we do not have such an equivalent day in Australia, or for that matter a worldwide Thanksgiving Day. People nowadays, especially in the developed nations of the world I believe, do not take enough time to reflect and contemplate all the wonderful things in their lives that they should be thankful for. To formally put aside a day and devote it to catching up with family and friends, to share a meal and join hands together in common gratitude for all the good things in our lives is a good honest tradition. It gives a positive message to young people and there are lessons there to be learnt about ingratitude and greed. Here is a nice short video on the history of Thanksgiving on the History Channel site.

The really important things in our lives are few and are universally held to be fundamental to our living a full and contented existence: Health, some food and shelter, loving and being loved. Not much, you may think but that is so much! How many people around the world will go hungry today? There 850 million chronically hungry people worldwide and 2.2 billion undernourished ones. How many people will not have a safe place to sleep in tonight? An estimated 100 million people worldwide are homeless. As for the chronically sick, dying and people with inadequate or no medical care, their numbers run in the many billions worldwide.

Loving and being loved, having family and friends around us that we can turn to for support, for appreciation, for company, for sharing of good and bad times? How many people around the world live alone, loveless, friendless, without a person next to them that they can turn to? Alarming numbers of men (as many as 20% between the ages of 20-65), especially, in Western countries are now finding that they are living alone and hating it.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that wealth and its attendant popularity will bring you lasting happiness. Their effect is most likely small and fleeting. It is important to have a reasonable standard of living, but in my travels I have seen some genuinely happy people who possess next to nothing and who live a deeply fulfilling and contented life. The secret is to be happy with what you have.

It is important to develop good relationships with a circle of friends. To invest in and maintain a loving marriage or equivalent long-term relationship. To have work, yes, enjoy your paid employment, but keep in mind also that people who have some voluntary work have been shown to be more happy. Break away from the monster of selfishness. If you look outside yourself you’ll see that there are wonderful people to share your life with as friends, acquaintances and neighbours.

Contemplate the world around you and think deeply about what you believe. Spiritual beliefs and ethical values, hope and purpose are very important for well-being. To live our life in a broader framework than the “me and now”, to extend our activities beyond a cause greater than ourselves is one of the biggest keys to satisfaction in life. To be happy is to be able to go easy on others, to forgive, to offer support, to show gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are, be thankful for what you have and celebrate the contribution others make to your well-being!

BLED

“It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.” Albert Einstein

I am in a very strange mood today – to say that I feel flat is an understatement. My indecision is prolonged and my choices are hanging in abeyance – there is still time. I do not wish to hurry and yet I must decide soon. In the meantime, I turn towards people that I believed to be close to me and they listen silently and fail to give me even the slightest of what I ask, which is a trifle. If one gives all the time, people who take from one find it odd that sometimes you ask for something in return too.

Bled

My heart last night was bled
The drops of blood, gout by gout extracted,
Falling like pomegranate grains
On barren soil.

Seeds of precious ruby
On rocky, drought-stricken land were thrown –
Pearls cast before the swine,
Such wasted toil.

My curious exsanguination
Casually observed by silent spectators,
Puzzled by my libations, mindless of the labours of
My midnight oil.

And yet the heart will fill again,
The pallid body will with rose blooms be coloured,
Ready for yet another sacrifice –
Again and yet again,
Until my final breath expires,
Until I shuffle off
This mortal coil

Sans Souci hosts Poetry Wednesday.

DILEMMA...

I am in quite a quandary. The road ahead of me has split in two and I must choose one or the other way. The path I have travelled until now has been well-defined, though rocky in parts, sometimes precipitous, often winding – however, it follows a well defined course and the goal is somewhere up ahead, discernible and eventually attainable. The new path that has presented itself looks well paved, and straight, but mist hides its end. What lies at the end of this new path is anyone’s guess. It could be a paradise or a precipice.

One road is known, safe, albeit arduous but promising a goal that is adequate and well-thought of. The other, newer road mystifying, new, uncertain, fascinating…

Being on the horns of a dilemma is not a comfortable position to be on, and either choice at this stage looks equally attractive and unattractive. The new path has the mystique of novelty and the mystery of an obscured goal that could well be the best thing that could eventuate. The old path is dependable, maybe boring, often difficult, but with the end clearly in sight. Either choice may make the one not taken infinitely more attractive. Have you ever been in this situation?

Sleep brings good counsel, they say, and I don’t have to decide until next week. I shall have to ruminate upon the matter and analyse it all fully. Then the best decision will be made according to the facts that I have at hand. Being no gambler, methinks I can see where my choice lies…

MOVIE MONDAY - DA VINCI CODE

When Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” was first published it created an enormous controversy. Personally, I could not understand why, as the book is a novel, a fictional work. The author may have presented his characters so, and used factual references in such a convincing way to highlight the intricacies of his plot, such that many people viewed the novel as the gospel truth. When I read the book, I enjoyed it and then after a discussion with family and friends, I put it away. While he is no Tolstoy or Mann, Dan Brown is a consummate storyteller and he can weave a plot as the best of them.

When “The Da Vinci Code” film first came out (2006) it created a fresh wave of controversy. People loved it, people hated it with a passion, fundamentalists condemned it and burned copies of the book anew, protesting it was blasphemous. Some people had not read the book and saw the movie, others read the book and would not see the movie. As for me, having read the book and being aware of all the heated debate and the hullabaloo I finally decided to watch it as my local video shop had the DVD on sale for a paltry sum!

I was disappointed. If you think that Ron Howard had at his disposal a fascinating story with some fantastic locations to take advantage of, and his pick of lead actors, the resulting film is pedestrian and tiresome. The first 65 minutes of the film is dismally dark and annoyingly brown and black. You’d think if you have had a murder in one of the world’s biggest museums, the first thing you’d do is turn the lights on. No, it’s all meant to be “atmospheric”. Fair enough, but what about even the rooms that are lit? No, they have to be lit with a 25 watt globe, it all contributes to the atmosphere. I kept catching myself saying, “When is the bloody sun going to rise?” As a result, some of the wonderful shots inside the Louvre were completely wasted. Yes, the sun does rise, eventually, but we are soon cast into the gloom once again – more atmosphere…

Tom Hanks cast as Dr. Robert Langdon and Audrey Tautou as French Agent Sophie Neveu display as much chemistry as does a celery stick and a bat would if locked together in a room. They are so serious it’s funny. In fact, the whole movie is remarkable for its sparse humour and it’s almost “religious” intensity. Ian McKellen, playing the role of Sir Leigh Teabing, is the only enjoyable bit of casting and he has some of the best lines, too. Paul Bettany cast as Silas is also rather good and plays the masochistic monk with much gusto. Which brings me to the rather bad screenplay. Hanks and Tatou have some really dull lines to deliver and they deliver them with as much enthusiasm as a thirsty drover in a pub with no beer.

Much of the finer historical points of the book are lost in the film, the vignettes of historical flashback inserted rather gratuitously here and there. Direction is rather lame and unexciting, with some aerial shots trying to capture an “epic” feel, but looking more like something one may have seen out of a traffic reporter’s helicopter. The film is long (and tedious) at 149 minutes (theatre) and 179 minutes (DVD version). It was endless and the climax was very underwhelming. Ron Howard may have been the wrong choice for director. I think Steven Spielberg may have made a better, more exciting, more involving and engaging film.

I think you get my drift - I did not particularly like this film. I would be very interested to hear what other people who have seen it, thought of it…

ART SUNDAY - ZURBARÁN

For Art Sunday today, Francisco Zurbarán, a Spanish artist. He was born in the suburb of Fuente de Cantos in Estramadura, on the boundaries of Andalusia, Nov., 1598; died probably at Madrid about 1662. From his early years he showed great aptitude for drawing. His parents, honest peasants, placed no obstacle to his artistic tastes. While a young boy he frequented the studio of Juan de las Roclas, of whom he became a favourite pupil. Zurbarán's apprenticeship was undertaken in Seville, where he met Velazquez and became one of the city's official painters. His commission to decorate the king's palace in Madrid was most probably the result of his continuing friendship with the older, and more successful, Spanish artist.

Zurbarán was chiefly a portrait painter and his religious subjects, depicting meditating saints, found favour with southern Spain's clergy. From 1628, he worked on a number of paintings to be sent to monasteries in the Spanish colony of Guadalupe. After 1640 his austere, harsh, hard-edged style was unfavourably compared to the sentimental religiosity of Murillo and Zurbarán's reputation declined. In 1658, he moved to Madrid in search of work and renewed his contact with Velazquez. Zurbarán died in poverty and obscurity.

Rather than look at his religious paintings and portraits, I’m showing a single painting of Zurbarán, a still life. This is formal treatment of citrus fruit and blossoms with a solitary cup and saucer on the right. There is a symmetry and harmony of colours in this still life, with a quiet introspective air, perhaps sobered by the very dark background. Nevertheless the citrus fruits shine forth in glorious yellows and oranges and the delicate blooms that crown the basket of fruit seem to be dancing a merry jig on top of them. The wistful little rose next to the cup has a story to tell and one can imagine a scene full of drama in the same room where this tableau was standing.

Lemons
Basket of lemons
Smell of spring, summer blossom.
Bitter peel, sour flesh.

ANTI-WAR SONG SATURDAY

A news item about sky-rocketing desertions from the US army in Iraq caught my eye today. “According to the Army, about nine in every 1,000 soldiers deserted in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, compared to nearly seven per 1,000 a year earlier. Overall, 4,698 soldiers deserted this year, compared to 3,301 last year.”

Is it any wonder? Think about it! Quite apt for Song Saturday is Suzanne Vega’s “The Queen and the Soldier”. This fantastic singer-songwriter from New York is making a comeback after quite a few years absence. I have always enjoyed her songs and this song is one of my favourites.
Enjoy!

AT THE WATERFRONT

It is very good now and then to go out and have a lovely meal with compatible company in a restaurant where the food and service are good and the milieu is agreeable. Such was the case tonight when we went and dined in Melbourne’s “Waterfront on Station” Restaurant. The restaurant is just outside Station Pier (Melbourne’s passenger ship harbour) and the picture windows face out over the port, where one can watch the ships sailing in and out and the seabirds scrambling for tasty seafood morsels. Meanwhile, the lapping of the waves outside and the companionable hubbub of fellow diners inside make of the experience an extremely pleasant one.

It is no surprise that the restaurant specialises in seafood, given its prime location on the waterfront. If you are a seafood aficionado, the luxury seafood platter is for you: It is crammed full of king prawns, black-lip mussels, pipis, king scallops, oysters, Moreton Bay bugs, blue swimmer crabs, baby octopus and smoked salmon. A feast fit for Neptune and at a price of over $200, it can quite comfortably feed four people. But if you don wish to share, you ne may order for yourself the sealed Atlantic salmon, served with saffron, mussels, leeks and potato broth with basil essence, which is very good. Our tastes were simpler still and we ordered for entrées, beetroot and goat’s cheese salad with spinach leaf garnish and the salt and pepper calamari with harissa mayonnaise. For the main course, the excellent whole grilled flounder with caper butter sauce and fresh lemon, rocket salad and French fries on the side, as well as the char-grilled salmon cutlet.

Japanese inspired dishes can also be had, including sushi. If seafood is not quite your thing, steaks may also be enjoyed at this restaurant while your fish-loving friends gourmandise on the fruits of the sea.

The restaurant seats over 300 people and there is a downstairs brasserie and an upstairs dining room, as well as bar facilities. The long waiting list for bookings on popular days of the week (especially the closer it gets to Christmas) are enough credentials for the quality of the food and the service. The restaurant has a good website, which you can view here. So happy virtual eating! By the way, I do not have shares in this restaurant, nor do I own it in part or wholly. I just enjoy the ambience and the food there…
Enjoy your weekend!

BEDLAM

It’s Word Thursday today and my word is “bedlam”, as sometimes at work it really is! This is a word with an interesting, albeit unsavoury past. It is derived from the name of a priory in London’s Bishopsgate, called St Mary of Bethlehem, built in 1247. Next to the religious establishment, there was founded by 1377 a hospital that looked after the poor and destitute. The mentally ill were also admitted there and in the 16th century the priory was dissolved, but the hospital persisted exclusively as an asylum for the insane.

It was known as the Bethlehem Royal Hospital and in 1675 moved to a new site in Moorgate. The “lunatics” in this hospital were not looked after well, the cruel and primitive “treatments” often supplemented by brutal mistreatment by sadistic staff. The public’s fascination with the insane and the insatiable morbid curiosity of “sane” people led to the Hospital charging two pence for admission of visitors, so that they could come and stare (or jeer) at the unfortunate inmates. This terrible practice continued well into the 19th century.

The visitors and the disturbance they caused, more often than not made the already troubled patients to become noisy and disruptive. This atmosphere of chaos, disorder and raucous cacophony became associated with the Bethlehem Hospital, and soon the shortened word Bethlehem - “Bedlam”, was used to denote “madness”. Bedlam was also a place for assignations and secret rendezvous. In 1698, “The London Spy” had this to say of the place: “All I can say for Bedlam is thus: It is an almshouse for madmen, a showing room for harlots, a sure market for lechers, a dry walk for loiterers.”

The hospital was moved yet again in 1815 to a new building constructed especially for it near Lambeth Rd, the same building that is housing the War Museum today. In this new home, two centuries after the vile practice first began, spectators were finally banned from observing the inmates and more humane treatments began to be used. The word “bedlam”, however, has persisted…

bedlam |ˈbedləm| noun
1 a scene of uproar and confusion: There was bedlam in the courtroom.
2 historical ( Bedlam) a former insane asylum in London.
• archaic used allusively to refer to any insane asylum.
ORIGIN late Middle English: Early form of Bethlehem , referring to the hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London, used as an asylum for the insane.

The illustration is Hogarth's “A Rake's Progress - Bedlam” The original painting is housed in Sir John Soane's Museum, London. Hogarth’s images and Bedlam;s notorious history inspired Mark Robson’s 1946 film “Bedlam” starring Boris Karloff . Worthwhile having a look at it if you come across it.

DRINKING COFFEE...

Context is all-important in how we experience our lives. Nothing is absolute, we can only exist in a state of temporary constancy while floating on a sea of ever-changing relativity. Situation and circumstance are coloured by the environment of each unique experience while the people who are around us, beside us, with us and against us, will make of the place a paradise or a hell. Time changes our contextual framework and the relativity of our increasing years dilates or contracts our memories making of the past, as viewed from the present, a distorting mirror. I mentioned yesterday how I visited Brisbane and how it brought to my mind a previous existence, so distant in the past and yet quite familiar. I viewed the familiar places as though for the first time. As I looked through the lens of times past my present reality and the new context had changed them all…

Drinking Bitter Coffee at the Café of Broken Promises

Quite by chance, I went by the Café
Where once, a lifetime ago, we had sought
Shelter from Autumn rain.
I wandered in – half expecting to see you smiling,
Beckoning me from that same booth
That we had shared, while grey afternoon wore on,
And rain, thankfully, kept falling...

We shook the rain off our hair – I remember –
And how we laughed, as the tabletop was spread
With hundreds of diamonds; raindrops that caught
The pale yellow light of the bare bulb above,
Shattering its puny glow into a million sunrays
That illumined richly for that moment
The deepest cellars of our souls.

We sipped the steaming coffee and it was sweet nectar,
Although we clean forgot to sugar it.
Our legs brushed under the table
And your eyes promised me a hundred happinesses;
“Tomorrow...” you had whispered and I only smiled,
My silence more eloquent than a thousand pictures...

I order coffee yet again this Spring morning
And though the sun shines brightly outside,
I am sure I can hear the drumming of rain on the tin roof.
I lose count of the lumps of sugar
I am drowning in my cup, but each sip of coffee
More bitter than the one before it.

I stretch my legs beneath the table
Encountering a bottomless abyss,
While from the neighbouring booth, someone laughs,
And says quite loudly: “It was yesterday!”

By chance, I find myself once again
Drinking bitter coffee in some city Café;
A tawdry, cheap, noisy, smoky place,
Where one would never go to more than once...

***********************************************************

 See Kerry's Imaginary Garden with Real Toads blog for more poetical offerings!

BRISBANE - LIGHTNING TRIP

I am in Brisbane today for work. It’s a two-hour flight up and I came up this morning and going home this evening. I like Brisbane as it is a beautiful city on the river and has lovely subtropical gardens and a bustling, cosmopolitan lifestyle. We used to live here when I was growing up and whenever I go back I remember with fondness those times.

Brisbane is a port and the capital of the state of Queensland, Australia. It the nation's third largest city. It lies astride the Brisbane River on the southern slopes of the Taylor Range, 19 km above the river's mouth at Moreton Bay. The site of the city was first explored in 1823 by John Oxley and was occupied in 1824 by a penal colony, which had moved from Redcliffe, 35 km northeast. The early name, Edenglassie, was changed to honour Sir Thomas Brisbane, former governor of New South Wales, when the convict settlement was declared a town in 1834. Officially, freemen could not settle within 80 km of the colony until its penal function was abandoned in 1839, but this ban proved ineffective.

There was a short-lived rivalry for eminence with the town of Cleveland, which was ended when Cleveland's wharves burned in 1854, allowing Brisbane to become the leading port. Brisbane was proclaimed a municipality in 1859 and it became the capital of newly independent Queensland that same year. Gazetted a city in 1902, it was joined during the 1920s with South Brisbane to form the City of Greater Brisbane. Its municipal government, headed by a lord mayor, holds very broad powers. The Brisbane statistical division, including the cities of Ipswich and Redcliffe, has close economic and social ties to the city.

Brisbane is the hub of many rail lines and highways, which bring produce from a vast agricultural hinterland, stretching west to the Eastern Highlands, the Darling Downs, and beyond. The city's port, which can accommodate ships of 34,000 tons, exports wool, grains, dairy products, meat, sugar, preserved foods, and mineral sands. The metropolitan area, also industrialised with more than half of the state's manufacturing capacity, has heavy and light engineering works, food-processing plants, shipyards, oil refineries, sawmills, and factories.

The halves of the city on either side of the river are connected by several bridges and ferries. Various sites of interest are the University of Queensland at St. Lucia (established in 1909), Griffith University (1971), Parliament House (1869), the state museum (1855) and art gallery (1895), Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals, and many parks and gardens. The Southbank precinct along the riverside is a complex of exhibition halls, galleries, cafés, restaurants, shops, parks and conference centres, always worth a visit. Population of the city is about 1.2 million people.

The weather today was gorgeous and it was exactly the wrong sort of day to be confined in a windowless conference room going through interviewing processes. Nevertheless, all went well and I was pleased with the day’s work. I was quite surprised how green everything was in the city and around it. The last few rains have certainly made a difference. The jacarandas were in riotous bloom and their mauve flowers graced many a street of the city. They were counterpointed by the creamy fragrant blooms of the frangipanis and the exuberant red plumes of blooms of the flame-coloured Poinciana trees. The city seemed rather less congested than Melbourne and the people were more laid-back. No doubt a more relaxed lifestyle as befits the subtropical climate. I always enjoy visiting Brisbane and it is a wonderful holiday destination as it is the gateway for the beauties and excitement of Queensland. For my readers in the USA, this is as close to Florida as you get, Australian-style!

Here are some sites that give you further information:

http://www.experiencequeensland.com/

http://www.queenslandholidays.com.au/destinations/brisbane/

http://www.ourbrisbane.com/visitors/

Don’t you just love travelling, even if it is armchair travel?

MOVIE MONDAY - THE WAGES OF FEAR

For Movie Monday today, a classic film from France. It is Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 film, “Wages of Fear” (“Le Salaire de la Peur” ). In the Central American jungle supplies of nitroglycerine are needed at a remote oil field in order to put out an oil well fire. The oil company offers big money to drivers who will take the dangerous cargo of high explosive in two trucks. Nitroglycerine is susceptible to self-detonation from jolts, so potentially, the drivers could blow themselves up to smithereens if they drive recklessly over the 300 miles of bad, winding, mountain roads. Nevertheless, four men take up the offer to deliver the supplies of explosive in two trucks. A tense rivalry develops between the two sets of drivers and on the rough remote roads the slightest jolt can result in death.

The characters are less than admirable, more anti-heroes than protagonists, but one cannot help but sympathise with them as they begin their terror-filled journey. It is one of the most renowned of suspense thriller movies, the suspense not one of mystery but rather one of impending doom. A Damoclean sword hanging by a thread over the head of the drivers. It is a fascinating film and Clouzot proves his talent as he craftily manages one suspenseful scene after another.

Yves Montand and Charles Vanel are excellent in their roles and the whole movie must have pleased Georges Arnaud (the author of the novel the screenplay is based on) greatly. If you haven’t seen this film, it’s well worth your while to ferret it out and have a look at it. It’s tense, dark, thrilling, well-made and has an important message about freedom and the lengths to which people will go to attain it. Just be careful, though that you do not by mistake watch the lamentable 1977 remake also called “Wages of Fear” (or “Sorcerer”). This latter one is an abominable film not worth the celluloid it’s made on.

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REMEMBRANCE DAY - ART SUNDAY 4

Remembrance Day on 11 November is a special day for everyone around the world who believes that war is an inexcusable barbarity in our days. It is set aside to remember all those men and women who were killed during the two World Wars and other conflicts, but it is also a day that we should devote to the pursuit of worldwide peace.

At one time the day was known as Armistice Day and was renamed Remembrance Day after the Second World War. It is also known as “Poppy Day”, because it is traditional to wear an artificial poppy. These are sold by charities dedicated to helping war veterans and their families

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
(Fourth stanza of 'For the Fallen' by Laurence Binyon - 1869 - 1943)

The drawing above by Käthe Kollwitz is named “Unemployed” and it highlights the sensitivities of this artist in themes connected with social problems that revolve around war and its aftermath.

REMEMBRANCE DAY - ART SUNDAY 3

DULCE ET DECORUM EST
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod.

All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! –
An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. –
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

REMEMBRANCE DAY - ART SUNDAY 2

The following poem is very evocative and really makes you feel what it would be like to be there. It's by Wilfred Owen, a WWI poet who wrote about the horrors of war, of which he experienced a great deal, suffering shell shock at one stage. He was killed in action in 1918, just before the war ended, and was posthumously awarded the Military Cross for his courage as a second lieutenant.

THE SHOW
by Wilfred Owen

My soul looked down from a vague height with Death,
As unremembering how I rose or why,
And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth,
Gray, cratered like the moon with hollow woe,
And fitted with great pocks and scabs of plaques.

Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire,
There moved thin caterpillars, slowly uncoiled.
It seemed they pushed themselves to be as plugs
Of ditches, where they writhed and shrivelled, killed.

By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped
Round myriad warts that might be little hills.

From gloom's last dregs these long-strung creatures crept,
And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes.

(And smell came up from those foul openings
As out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.)

On dithering feet upgathered, more and more,
Brown strings towards strings of gray, with bristling spines,
All migrants from green fields, intent on mire.

Those that were gray, of more abundant spawns,
Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten.

I saw their bitten backs curve, loop, and straighten,
I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten.

Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean,
I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather.

And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.
And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid
Its bruises in the earth, but crawled no further,
Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,
And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.

REMEMBRANCE DAY - ART SUNDAY 1

Today is Remembrance Day. This is the day Australians remember those who have died in war. At 11am on 11 November we pause to remember the sacrifice of those men and women who have died or suffered in wars and conflicts and all those who have served during the past 100 years. In 1918 the armistice that ended World War I came into force, bringing to an end four years of hostilities that saw 61,919 Australians die at sea, in the air, and on foreign soil. Few Australian families were left untouched by the events of World War I – “the war to end all wars” most had lost a father, son, daughter, brother, sister or friend.

Fittingly, Art Sunday today is dedicated to this day and I feature the work of German artist Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), who lost her only son in action. Peter Kollwitz, 18 years old, died in October 1914 near Diksmuide in Belgium. The pain never left her. All her life she used her extraordinary ability to express human suffering to champion the rights of underprivileged people. She produced hundreds of dramatic, emotion-filled etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs, generally in black and white.

The Nazis silenced Käthe Kollwitz when they came to power. In 1933 she was forced to resign her place on the faculty of the Prussian Academy of Arts (she was its first female member). Soon thereafter she was forbidden to exhibit her art. Many of her works were destroyed in a Berlin air raid in 1943. Later that year, Kollwitz was evacuated to Dresden, where she died at age 78. Today she is regarded as one of the most influential German expressionists of the twentieth century.