A Bluffer's Guide to Ancient Rome Part II - The Republic

The remains of the Temple of Saturn - below which dwelt the Roman Treasury.

So, the Republic. The period covers 500 years or more, so this will be a bit of a highlights package for the most part.

Important stuff to know.

1. At the founding of the Republic, Rome was no more important than any number of other Italian cities.

2. We're talking 509BC for the expelling of the Kings, until - well you pick a year but many go with 27BC - lifelong supreme power vests in one man again. The concept of an 'Emperor' really doesn't take off until a while after that, but as the single defining principle of the Roman Republic was that no one man could have supreme power - other than in times of crisis and then appointed by the Senate as 'dictator' for a limited period - then you can certainly say 27BC is when any vague notion of semi-democracy ceased to exist. As a functioning concept it had disappeared years before that, but I am jumping ahead there.

3. From its inception, the Republic split Roman society between the Patricians - members of ancient families whose forebears had been the king's counsellors, an aristocracy really, and the Plebeians - every other free citizen.

4. The Roman political and social systems are way too complex to cover in detail in a bluffer's guide. In any event, there were changes through the centuries here and there - although not too much of substance until near the end. The Romans were absolute sticklers for what they called the 'mos maiorum' which sort of translates as 'the ancient ways'.

Having said all that, here's the Republican Bluffer's Guide. Even a highlights package of 500 years takes a while, so grab a glass of wine and sit back. I hope you enjoy the ride.

I. Expansion
The entire Republican period from go to woah saw non stop expansionism of a kind not seen again until the British Empire. A city-state in the middle of Italy expanded within a comparatively short space of time to rule the entire peninsula. Before too long it was running the Mediterranean, with provinces from France to Syria, via Greece, Spain, modern Turkey, Macedonia, and North Africa. The political system, designed to run a city, was creaking at the joins many years before it fell.

The Romans went north, south and east with equal intensity, offering alliance - on terms of submission - or destruction. They lost battles, they even lost the city at one point,but they never stopped expanding. Once the peninsula was under control - more or less, as several uprisings and outright wars proved - they started out abroad. Believe it or not though, they justified each and every expansion, incursion and invasion as necessary to ensure national security. Remind you of anyone recently?

II. Carthage
Remember Queen Dido? Well she was about as likely to have existed as Aeneas was, take that how you will. But Carthage was no myth. It represented the strongest competition in and around the Mediterranean, and ended up giving Rome its all-time biggest battlefield defeat. Once again the Romans did not give in. After the slaughter of the battle of Cannae, where the Romans lost an estimated 80,000 men, they just lowered their recruitment standards and raised more troops.

The Romans fought three wars with Carthage, over the third and second centuries BC. All were bloodbaths in which both sides and their allies suffered horrendously. The third Punic War saw Carthage itself utterly destroyed, the city being razed and its fields despoiled. Rome - a nation which had not even possessed a navy prior to its Carthaginian entanglements - was the unquestioned mistress of the Mediterranean by the end of the second century.

The Romans picked up their first overseas provinces in this series of wars - Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, North Africa and parts of Spain. At the same time their wars in the east against the Greeks and their neighbours turned them into the global superpower of the day.

III. Domestic Politics

(the Forum, where it all happened)
Having disposed of their monarchy, the Romans adopted a Republican system of annually elected officials, combined with the Senate, which in theory was an advisory body. The twists and turns that sentence encompasses are outside the scope of our bluffers' guide to the Republic, so in true modern style we'll summarise it in bullet points with sweeping generalisations.
*The highest ranking officials were the consuls. Two were elected every year and they held equal power. Under them were the praetors, quaestors, aediles, and tribunii aerarii. Seperate but supremely powerful in some instances were the tribunes, about whom you will hear more later.
*At first the plebs had no political power, but, after literally going on strike and withdrawing from the city - they moved en masse to the Aventine Hill - they were granted various rights including the creation of the tribunate to protect them.
*The Senate - made up of the heads of the patrician families plus elected magistrates (who remained after their year of office ended) - was supposed to advise the Magistrates, but ended up largely running them, at least until the final century of the Republic. The Senate itself was run by the oldest and richest families and very few outsiders ever entered it.
*The "Famous Families" allied through marriage and ensured their cosy nest on the peak of Rome's summit remained undisturbed for centuries. As Rome expanded and became richer, so did they.
*When a 'new man' was elected to the consulate (and later, to any office) he became a member of the Senate thereafter and qualified his family for admission, provided they met the financial criteria (which changed over time but was always high). Not surprisingly, those famlies already in the Senate did not favour broadening its base, until the last years of the Republic when it could lead to political advantage.
*These aren't very good short bullet points, are they? Time for a new topic.

IV. Social classes
Basically they had the patricians and the plebeians, however over time there ended up being some poor patricians and rich plebeians (see below re: Sulla and Marius for examples of each). On a financial, property, and political level, there were senators, the knights (or 'equites'), and the rest - who ranged from not quite rich enough for the top two but still comfortably well off, all the way down to the 'capite censi' or Head Count. The latter were plebs in such throes of poverty that they owned no property whatsoever - not even a slave. They made up a substantial percentage of the city's population. The categories supposedly derived from pre Republican times and related in a way to military service - those who could afford horse and armour and weapons, those who could afford some of the above, and those who were ineligible for service as they could afford nothing - the urban and landless poor. As we shall see, their eventual entry into the military, in controversial circumstances, led directly to the fall of the Republic and the institution of what would become the Empire.

V. Slaves
Well there is no avoiding the fact that despite all the things the Romans did for us, their entire social structure rested on slavery. Without it they would never have risen to the degree they did. Of course they were hardly the only nation - then or since - to adopt slavery as an economic masterstroke, but they probably did it bigger and better than anyone else.

Slaves came directly from conquests and battlefield victories, as tribute from defeated enemies, or were bought from markets. The largest was on the Greek island of Delos, where hundreds of thousands of slaves were bought and sold.

They could be freed, meaning they became the clients of their former master (now their patron). They could in some cases make and save money and even buy their freedom.

They could also be exploited and barbarically treated with virtually no protection. If, say, you killed someone else's slave, you were up for damages (i.e. market value of the slave, much as if you had a car accident today). Slaves had no rights.

VI. Spartacus
While we're on slaves, the most famous of them all. Spartacus was a gladiator who in around 73BC led a violent escape from a gladiatorial school. He and a small band of followers camped on Mount Vesuvius and cleverly defeated the increasingly larger Roman forces sent against them. Escaped slaves and others flocked to join Spartacus who ended up with an army of some 70,000 plus women, children and the old and infirm. After many epic struggles, betrayals, victories and despair, Spartacus and most of his army perished in a series of battles, while 6000 survivors were crucified alongside the main roads to Rome as a warning to all slaves.

VII. Political struggles
The Romans did not have political parties. There were groups and factions, but Roman politics was about individuals striving for personal success. The two most well known groupings, which many people including myself have equated with modern right/left political parties were the Optimates (the "Best Men" or "Good Men") and the Populares (what you'd expect).

The Populares were frequently accused of being demagogues - inflammatory speakers who sought to mobilise the masses in order to gain personal power - and some of them met that definition. However the Optimates would stop at nothing - murder, lynching, political trickery, armed warfare and, believe it or not, mobilising the masses in order to gain personal power - to keep their place at the heart of power and influence.

I started this months ago and it's still nowhere near finished. Let's call it Episode II and publish it now.

The Republic continues in Episode III.



****perhaps a lesson for modern superpowers is that almost without exception, the biggest threat to the regime came from within***

A Bluffer's Guide To Ancient Rome

From the many, many photos I have taken in Rome on 2 holidays, I thought this one best summarised the entire Ancient Roman experience. A constant fight for survival, a tangled mess, conflict and confusion everywhere.


One day, my wife and I were walking a few laps of the Circus Maximus - as you do - and she made the mistake of asking me what she probably thought was the fairly innocent question "Why did Octavian change his name to Augustus?"

Oh don't worry, I answered her. It took us all the way from the Circus to the Baths of Diocletian, from memory. I got a little carried away with the surroundings.

Anyway that gave me the idea for this topic. Namely my self-proclaimed ability to crap on quite knowledgeably about Rome. What I have to try and do is edit myself. To date in this blog, I have used 4MB of my 1024's worth - I think I could give the other 1020 a shake if I really lost the plot. So here goes with my brief history of Rome. There will be a test at the end, so pay attention and no passing notes.


1. Where and when?
Well you probably know where Rome is. But for those who don't know exactly where in Italy it is, it's to the left, about half way up the boot. A short sail up the Tiber from the coast.

753BC is the traditional Roman date for the founding of the city. Excavations on the Palatine Hill have revealed traces of a community living there around that time, so even if it is not quite spot on, it is in the ballpark. Bear in mind that any surviving accounts written in Roman times date from quite a few centuries after that, which would be like us writing about people and events in Elizabethan England. So that's the starting point, and we'll take it through to around 470AD - over 11 centuries. But I promise to skimp on the boring bits.

2. Wolves or Trojans?
There are two more-or-less mythological accounts of the founding of Rome, although only one is really well known these days. The other was probably an essential part of every Western education until they started letting the poor folk in and Latin started to fade from the curriculums.

Most people who have read anything about Rome will have heard of Romulus and Remus, twin boys fathered by a God upon a Vestal Virgin. They were abandoned, perhaps to die from exposure, as the Romans continued to do with unwanted babies for many centuries. However they were suckled by a she-wolf and fed by a woodpecker, until a shepherd and his family took them in. Cut to the chase, they grew up big and strong. There are a few versions of what happened.

They decided to found a city but couldn't agree where to put it. Romulus wanted the Palatine Hill, Remus the Aventine - about half a kilometre away across the swamp that would eventually become the Forum. So, in true brotherly fashion they took one hill each and set out to prove themselves right.

In similarly brotherly fashion, Remus wandered over to sledge his brother. He laughed at the tiny earth wall Romulus had put up to mark his boundaries, then hopped over it. I should point out that in an augury competition prior to the city founding contest, Remus had claimed to see six vultures flying above his hill, a most favourable omen. Romulus thought "thanks mate" and promptly saw twelve above his. Ka-ching.

Remus had hardly hit the ground when Romulus promptly killed him, mid-laugh perhaps. Murdering one's own brother is not how most statesmen start their careers these days, but Romulus promptly opened his 'city' to all comers, no questions asked. Not surprisingly he ended up with a bunch of bandits, thieves, exiles, and outcasts plus the occasional solid farmer. Miraculously this bunch of misfits not only survived but thrived. And the wolf (sometimes depicted with twins) became the symbol of Rome ever after. Just think, it could have been Reme.

That's the well known myth.


The less well known one now is that of Aeneas. According to Virgil in The Aeneid, he sailed across the Mediterranean from the sack of Troy with a few survivors, stopping off in Carthage to romance and ultimately dump Queen Dido, breaking her heart and sowing the seed for centuries of rivalry and ultimately savage war, before landing on the Italian coast. After various adventures, including a trip to the Underworld to look at the glories and disasters that were to come - giving Virgil a great opportunity to give his patron Augustus's image a polish - he wins a battle and a girl and founds Rome.

Somehow Romans balanced both of these contradictory mythologies, and of course historians and archaeologists have proven and disproven either or both.


3. A few quick bits of trivia

The Rape of the Sabine Women.
Depicted by countless Renaissance and Romantic artists as a bunch of plump young naked girls being heaved over the muscular shoulders of Roman he-men, with nary a protest and many a faked look of 'oh no' among them. The word 'rape' had a somewhat different connotation in days of yore and included sacking or pillaging a town, taking their nicest things and generally doing as you pleased. The Romans didn't have enough women to breed their next generation - and the Sabines were nearby, respected rivals - so they killed two birds with one stone. The two peoples ultimately united as Rome expanded.

What happened to Romulus?
Allegedly he disappeared one day on the Campus Martius - the Fields of Mars - an area outside the original city walls which remained open fields for about seven centuries afterwards, and became the home of military camps and the location for training and exercise for soldiers and civilians alike. He vanished into the mist. "Taken by the Gods" said his supporters. "Bumped off by his rivals", wonder some historians. Who knows.

Kings.
They had seven kings who did various things - hey that's quite poetic - building and lawmaking and leading them into mostly successful battles and generally improving the place. At the expense of the poor folk, as usual. The Kings were Etruscan in the end - a neighbouring but older and richer civilisation who moved in on Rome once it was worth moving in on. The last one, Tarquinius Superbus or Tarquin the Proud to you and I, was an all round despot and after raping a young maiden in every sense of the word, causing the virtuous lass to commit suicide in front of her brother after confessing the story, he was deposed and then killed in battle trying to regain the throne. One of the aristocrats who moved against him was a chap called Brutus. Many centuries later a descendant by the same name did something along the same lines.

This is supposed to be the first Brutus. He now lives in the Capitoline Museum.


Think I might post this now, it is getting late, and do the Republic next. Yes, then I can do the Empire as a third and that makes them all not too long.

Ave.

Rome, Sweet Rome

In Australia, we have cheese flavoured Twisties in identical packaging. In Italy, they have Fonzies. I think we bought this packet - one of a few - from a vending machine on the platform at Termini, waiting at some ungodly hour for the train to Florence. Mrs Chairman Stormy and I both thought they were parmesan flavoured but the packaging did not give up its secrets.

They were tasty nonetheless.

Italy was a very, very cool place to visit. We've had two trips there - about three weeks for the first one, six for the second. Mostly in Rome with one trip to Naples and two to Florence, plus a few day trips here and there. Still didn't see everything we wanted to see, but I suspect you could spend a lot longer in Rome and still be left wanting.

Anyway in the end it wasn't just the amazing history, art, architecture or even the food. Although they didn't exactly hurt ! It was also the little things like having our breakfast at the same cafe - due cappucini e cornetti per favore, grazie signora. Yes, call me Mr Bilingual. Well I got us around Rome alright, from food to tables in restaurants to drinks, supermarkets, shoe shopping, the chemist - did alright actually. A trip to a camera shop in Naples to get a replacement memory card was fun, they weren't so common back then, but the highlight was buying lingerie for my wife - this was our slightly delayed honeymoon - as a surprise.

I had to pretend to be going to some museum she was really not interested in, while she popped off to volunteer at the Cat Sanctuary - where we both spent a bit of time and money looking after some poor old moggies - I then snuck off to the lingerie shop beneath Termini. The very friendly and not at all unappealing salesgirl spoke hardly any English but she and her colleagues loved the fact that I tried to do it all in Italian.

Long story cut short, we had seen ads for Intimissimi - not entirely sure if it's just a brand name or a chain of stores - all over the place. A lot of them - on billboards, it was fantastic - showed this unbelievable woman in some very tasty lingerie, which Mrs Chairman Stormy was just as impressed with as I was.

So that was what I was after, and I knew there was an Intimissimi store in the underground shopping arcade at Termini - which, can I tell you, makes Central at Sydney look like a rubbish tip - so off I went. Curses, foiled. They didn't have it in her size. I had gone to the trouble of sussing out the size differences between Europe and Australia so I moved on to similar outfits - black lace two piece camisole top and knickers - and found what I was after, while having a very stilted conversation with the gorgeous young salesgirl, with lots of laughter and shrugging going on.

One thing I had not realised was different though was breast size, when I said 12C they all looked at me like I was married to Booberella - the girl I'd been dealing with, who had a nice probably B cup pair of breasts put her cupped hands out in front of her as far as her arms would reach, to show me what I was telling them. I cracked up and said no no much smaller than that.

The girl looked at me and looked down at her chest and said "well are they as big as mine?"

Now what do you do there?

You look, of course, and you say "just a little bit bigger".

i still got the top size wrong - one too small, as it turned out - but when you buy your wife lingerie in Rome as a surprise present it doesn't matter !

Next morning we went back to exchange the top. The same girls were working there and Mrs Chairman Stormy may have formed the opinion that I had obviously enjoyed my shopping expedition, judging by the way we all greeted each other as old friends.

Now let me see if I can remember this.

"buon giorno signorina, per mia moglie, un sorpresa, luna di miele in Roma"
"Hello miss, for my wife, a surprise, we're on our honeymoon in Rome" or something like that.

Ten Reasons To Dig Black Sabbath

Xmas 2007. As you can see, party streamers and Sabbath t-shirts were all the rage back then. Barack Obama was that dude running against Hilary Clinton, Kevin was 07, actually it was a pretty good year.

Anyway, on to a blog with a topic, a rare diversion indeed.

Ten Reasons To Dig Black Sabbath

Now I have to confess I am just making this up as I go along. But while a few songs will get a mention as reasons, too many would be cheating. And this blog would be called "At least fifty reasons to dig Black Sabbath". Some are personal, some are not. But they're my ten reasons, in no order whatsoever except as I think of them.

1. Tony Iommi's Moustache.
The second-longest serving band member, just behind "The Rest Of Tony Iommi". You see, there was a period there around 1974 when the moustache disappeared. Thankfully sanity prevailed and it never missed the album cover pix. While some might argue that the moustache has presided over some of Sabbath's lesser moments, the fact remains that it is there for everything that counts. What other conclusion can be drawn, but that T.I.M., as the cognoscenti call him, is as integral to Sabbath's unique sound as a Gibson SG or a nostril full of cocaine.

2. Dirty Big Fat Gibson SG.
If you think that I think that a Mr T. Iommi, or "Frank" as the early sheet music credits him, is primarily responsible for the Sabbath sound, then you'd be as right as a 90 degree angle. But even a man and a moustache can't do it alone. Strangely enough, as a guitarist I think we need to consider his weapon of choice. I love the pic from the inside of Volume 4 where he is cranking it out on a cherry red SG. It's also my favourite Sabbath album (see below) and look, really, is there a more Iommi-ish looking guitar than the SG? Without his sound modern music would be completely different, and there's not many you can say that about.

3. Geezer Butler.
What a fantastic bass player. He is one of the best. I love watching him play, unlike most rock and metal bassplayers he is all over the neck and often fingerpicking at a million miles an hour. Melodic, dark, heavy, holding it down or driving it up, you name it and Geezer, or Terry to his mother, does it. N.I.B. is his signature tune, with the "Bassically" intro (as described on the American release of the "Black Sabbath" album) being a rare example of a recorded - as opposed to live - bass solo. Aside from that he wrote most of the early lyrics and his moustache has remained a constant. He has worn some of the worst pants in rock history. We don't care.

4. Symptom Of The Universe.
Greatest opening riff ever? Well it's this, Riff Raff and Brown Sugar for mine - and yeah then about 400 others but anyway. The entire future of metal in one mid-70s song. I can well do without the acoustic outro - yes guys try something different if you're bored but not in THIS song - but who cares. Seriously one of the greatest songs ever. I first heard this song in my best mate Lee's bedroom, someone had given him a second hand copy of Sabotage and I sat there with my jaw on the ground. When I saw the live 1978 video with this as the first track, I thought it was the best thing in the history of the universe. It's still up there.

5. Neon Knights.
Talk about a reborn band coming out of the traps and kicking critics' arses with stack heeled boots. "Heaven and Hell" was a monster album in 1980, especially after the last few lightweight efforts with Ozzy. Oh when I was fifteen and taped the clip off the TV one afternoon. I watched it every day. Every day. I just thought it was the coolest thing in the world to actually have a Black Sabbath video that I could watch whenever I wanted. Countdown and other music shows did not feature metal except on the rarest of occasions (Iron Maiden, Krokus) when a band did well in the local charts. "Oh, no, here it comes again". Tony goes off. Ronnie goes off. Guess what Geezer and Bill do?

6. Volume 4 (album)
My favourite, over the first one, Sabotage, and Heaven and Hell. Full of utterly awesome, uniquely brilliant songs. Yes, each side has a "why?" track, but if you can't dig Wheels of Confusion, Tomorrow's Dream, Supernaut, Snowblind, Cornucopia, St Vitus Dance, and the mighty Under The Sun, then you seriously need medical help, because your ears have fallen off of your head. I bought it second hand when I was 14 and I still have the original vinyl, in its super fold out gatefold bonus photo inner sleeve sleeve, complete with a very pinkish-purple looking Ozzy Osbourne.. Great guitars, great songs, awesome performances from everyone, apparently recorded amongst a blizzard of cocaine and groupies, well more fucking power to them, they were about 24 years old and a huge rock band with all the trappings in the early 70s.

7. Writing their name in a crucifix shape

as in

S
BLACK
B
B
A
T
H

which I did on many a surface, legally or otherwise, in my teens. How cool can it get when you discover you can write your favourite 'evil' band's name in a crucifix shape? However I can't work out how to bloody do it properly on this page !

8. Inventing (or Inspiring) Heavy Metal.
Black Sabbath invented heavy metal, even if they deny involvement...'we're a bloody rock band' etc etc...there would be no Judas Priest, no Iron Maiden, no Venom, no Celtic Frost, no Slayer, let alone non-metal bands like Queens of the Stone Age, soundgarden and Nirvana who owe them plenty. I love Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, but you can stick them up your arse when it comes to being metal bands, as many writers used to claim. Tony Iommi's guitar sound, Sabbath's dark power, Ozzy's vocals and charisma, the power chords, detuning, bleak lyrical themes...maybe "invented" could be disputed but certainly not "inspired". Today's metal sound, and that of decades past, can't be imagined without the primary existence of Black Sabbath.

9. Have I Mentioned The Drummer?
Bill Ward is one of the most tedious interview subjects ever to exorcise his personal demons to a long suffering music writer. For a man who played some of the most inventive drums of the 70s - and that is a big call - he can really drone on about alcohol, drugs, abstinence, suicidal thoughts, and anything else you're not that interested in after the first three times. Thankfully when you listen to his work as opposed to his guilt complex, you realise, well, how fucking good he was. Sabbath would not be Sabbath without him behind the kit. His replacement Vinnie Appice is a talented drummer who has nothing to prove, but I just love Bill Ward's individual approach to the kit, often changing tempos, styles and beats several times within a song. Sorry I can't do technical drum comments, he's just really inventive and does interesting stuff all over the place while thundering this mighty band along. And his pants on the Sabotage album cover are a high point in 70s rock fashion.

10. Ozzy and Ronnie.
Ronnie James Dio has a truly amazing voice. His performing, songwriting, and general all round awesomely huge sleeves have enthralled hard rock and metal fans since the 70s. Ozzy Osbourne can say exactly the same things. When it comes to actual vocal ability, you'd have to say Ronnie is the winner. I have heard some appalling Ozzy live stuff - a couple of songs mind you among dozens of great ones - but Ozzy makes up for it with personality and really the two of them are very different but equally matched in many ways. Without Ozzy there would have been no Sabbath, Ronnie took them in another direction very skilfully but not for very long. I love them both.

Better update this thing, dude

There's me and Chairman Stormy Jr last weekend.

I think we're looking rather good.

I've just been reading about Australian soldiers who, after WWI was over, volunteered for the British Army to fight in the Russian Civil War in 1919. There weren't that many - 150 in two platoons, and a few more here and there as advisers - a bit like Vietnam to start with and for just the same reason - fighting those nasty Commies in their own country, nowhere near ours. Hard to get much further from Launceston than Murmansk.

Two Australians won VCs, the only Allied winners in a four year campaign. One lived, one died. Even the one who lived died before his time, falling over on a footpath and hitting his head on the curb in London in 1934.

It can't have been much fun, most of them were based in the far North, above the Arctic Circle. For a bunch of mostly young blokes from Australia, that must have come as a rude shock. Not much frostbite in Kalgoorlie.

Seeing as how it is Australia Day coming up soon, that was kind of well timed really.

Thought I might try this one sober...ish.

Me in Rome in 2005.

The last three were surprisingly coherent, if not 100%, considering the time of night, well morning technically, but this one will be different. It will be focussed. It will have meaning. It will burn you with the intellectual fire, pierce you with the rapier wit, and tap you on the knee with the humour mallet.

The only thing is...I have nothing to say !

Well I did get offered a new job today. Same department, different area, more money, more responsibility. Well I am guessing about the latter one as I don't start for two weeks, but with more money always comes more responsibility.

At least in my public service neck of the woods.

My wife just reminded me that on Saturday, after spending the afternoon with some old friends at a pub in the beer garden on a sunny day, I was very amusing. Perhaps not deliberately. Aside from telling her the same stories three or four times, then watching the end of a show we recorded and telling her to delete it - only to not recall it the next day - when we went to bed I - in one of my sexy new shirts - decided to do some kind of posing mixed with stripping which, so I am told, was funny but dangerous as I was teetering at one point, while removing my shirt and standing with one foot up on something or other.

That was a long sentence, probably unfeasibly long.

Perhaps surprisingly I was not in too bad shape the next day - going to bed at 9.30 and having a decent night's sleep does help - and off we went to a christening in a Catholic church made from a concrete block lined with a wood panelled interior. Truly an architectural miracle. I know Catholics are pretty big on the Immaculate Conception but this was more like the Unimaginable Conception. Seriously, I've seen more aesthetically pleasing shithouses.

The priest was a good speaker but longwinded. We did not need the religious lecture ad nauseam and his reference to medieval nonsense...during a ceremony which involved oiling children...was a bit much. Still the ceremony went well for the various parents involved and none of their kids arced up too much. Mine just used the pews and kneeler as a gymnasium, there was a lot of running and climbing and jumping, all accompanied by him not-very-sotto-voce going "Quiet, very quiet, whisper".

Thankfully a BBQ followed with most of our best friends there and lots of kids who had a ball in the inflatable pool. It was only slightly stinking hot. Lots of shade and cold drinks though...but yours truly was the designated driver at my own call. I figured I'd had enough beers the day before to not need any more, and Tanya ought to get the chance to let her hair down, and have two or three. That's about her limit if looking after the child is on the agenda.

Next day (Monday) we had off, and after doing heaps of work round the house in the morning we went to see Sherlock Holmes, which was very entertaining but had very little to do with the 'real' one. Good fun though and having a child free day while Jack was in daycare was very relaxing !

Might sign off now as we are up to date really.

I wan choo to show me the way

had a good weekend. Saw lots of my best friends, spent time in a pub, went to a bbq, and for the religious types went to a christening as well. Oh plus the listening to the Sunnyboys and drinking. anyway it is late and I should go to bed.

here are some pictures what I took on me 'oliday.


For some horrible reason, peter frampton appeared in my head.

2010 who'd have thought it

well it's January 2010, how amazing. I was alive and kicking in 1969, OK kicking was about it, but this is now the 5th decade I have lived through and for another few months I am still only 40.

Only 40.

...echo...you old fucker...old...old...old...

Good. I bought two short-sleeved shirts on the weekend, i.e. not t-shirts of which I own many dozens. I am even wearing one of these spunky hunky hey you don't look half bad in that shirts. Well, Mrs Chairman Stormy thinks so and who am I to argue.

Is this a sign of maturity? I rejected, on a rough count, around 200 shirts in 3 or 4 shops, including megashops, before I suddenly hit two shirts in one location - Jeanswest at Marrickville Metro. No I don't work there and neither does anyone I know. The girl there was very good though, as was the artistic one in JJ's Jeans who, in between serving the occasional customer, had drawn a really good skull with accompanying snakes, knife etc, she was about 16 I reckon and also did her job really well.

Surprisingly, despite being accompanied by an occasionally feral two-and-a-half-year old, who made me lay down on the floor in one shop, in order to find his feet, poking out below a rack of jeans. As if the 100% jeans shop reference in the preceding paragraph wasn't enough.

He hid in other areas too, and chewed on a few metal coathangers, and he was particular fun to share a changeroom with. I had visions of chasing him across the store in my undies, or shirtless, once he discovered that he could slide under the semi-door that changerooms seem to be blessed with. At one point...i.e. the point of no return...I grabbed his heels as he disappeared, dragged him backwards like a crocodile with a mouthful of prey, and sat him down as firmly as you can sit a small child without going from Super Nanny to Ilsa, She Wolf of the S.S.

But to cut a long and seemingly pointless story short, we ended up having a great fun trip to the Metro, complete with car rides, pizza, doughnuts, shopping, running, jumping, climbing, hiding and lots of singing and silly behaviour. Oh, and the trip to the pet shop which I think confirmed that he is getting a budgie for his 3rd birthday, he loved the cage of ten blue and white boska budgies.



me in Amsterdam in 2003



me in Sussex Inlet in 2009

Cool German WWII photos

what can I say, as a kid I used to make model tanks and planes and part of it never really left me.

they hardly got any of these into action. It's just a beautiful machine.

the guys on the ground here are looking up, thinking "well, that's this war won then"

you could ask people to pick which war this dude came from and which side he was on and get a lot of different responses.

three years earlier all airforces were still running wooden biplanes.

this is a motherfucker of a tank.
if you are in any other tank, look out.

another weapon of a machine. FW190-D9, known as "Long Nosed Dora". Fast and furious but not a lot of them. Luckily, in retrospect.

no I don't support the cause. I just like these pictures. The good guys won.