So you think you’re cultured?

Phillip Hughes: What happened?

liligans So you think you're cultured?

Tina Turner sang “We don’t need another hero” but events this past fortnight tell us she was wrong.

Society needs heroes, real or imaginary because we need someone to look up to, to venerate, to worship. It’s what makes our lives have some meaning.

And we will latch onto any event or any person who can provide us with an idol. If that idol meets with an untimely death then we will feel a common grief and the entire tragedy becomes some kind of cathartic expression.

We witnessed this kind of behaviour when Princess Diana was killed in a car accident. There was an outbreak of mass hysteria which even the Queen could not understand. Hence her initial lack of response.

It appears to me that the accidental death of cricketer Phillip Hughes and the reaction of the public are evidence that we enjoy a good cry. It brings us together and we feel better for it.

There is no question that Phillip was a popular and talented cricketer who died far too soon.

But the reaction of the public which was fuelled by the media was way over the top. It is frightening to think how we can all be manipulated by constant images of grown men crying. This was the media milking the accident for all it was worth and I felt uncomfortable with it.

I feel particularly sad for the bowler whose bouncing delivery caused the accident. How can he possibly cope with this outpouring of grief? How can he live a normal life after this event? Won’t he be tormented by guilt for the rest of his life?

We should get some perspective on the subject, but that is impossible when we are at the mercy of a rapacious sensation-seeking media.

We should offer our condolences to Phillip Hughes’ family and hope that he can rest in peace.

A Fond Farewell to Costco in Melbourne, Australia

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It is with much regret that we have decided to stop shopping at Costco.

You see, the products currently sold at Costco in Melbourne, Australia, have gone downmarket and no longer tempt us to buy them.

I am not questioning Costco’s marketing ability. They cater to the demographic which will buy their products. Consequently, there are many huge bags of rice, lots of sweets and potato chips, cans of spaghetti and baked beans, alcohol, and foods with an Asian appeal such as frozen wontons etc.

Gone are the American imports which attracted us and the Continental delicacies which we enjoyed buying.

The change in products has been a gradual one. The original Caesar dressing disappeared, dill pickles were hard to find and even a well-known American jar of mixed bean salad is now unavailable.

Apparently, these kind of foods were not attracting enough buyers and so they were replaced with very mundane products that were obviously better sellers.

I was a fan of Kirkland’s own brand of products but they seem to have been replaced as well. This is unfortunate because many of the Costco offerings can now be purchased in our local Australian supermarkets.

I find that Aldi sells quite a few of the continental products that were originally in Costco when it first opened.

Such is the way of the world. My husband enjoyed the arancini he used to buy at Costco but they also went missing the last two times we trekked to the city to buy them.

What a pity this has happened! It was great while it lasted and we used to look forward to our regular visits there. But the selection no longer attracts us and we hope that another supermarket chain will provide the tasty titbits that we can no longer find at Costco.

Give me a Thomas Kinkade home.

liligans So you think you're cultured?

They mock him and call his paintings “kitsch” but I would love to live in one of Thomas Kinkade’s art works.

I first came across his work when we visited the U.S and I became enchanted with his paintings of ideal cottages and gardens.

They are welcoming and safe and to me they represent what a home should be, a sanctuary from a hostile and miserable world.

The arty farty world hates him because he is unrealistic. He is popular with the masses and that must be bad, surely. After all, what do they know? They only know what they like, don’t they?

Perhaps it would be more acceptable were he to paint monstrous images of decapitated bodies, but if I want to see that I only have to switch on the TV News and be confronted by piles of corpses and children holding up severed heads in the manner of Jihadists.

Not surprisingly, I have had it with the real world and would much rather inhabit the world of Kinkade with its optimistic glow.

You can have your Goyas and your tortured souls. Your religious triptychs which depict sinners going to Hell are apparently not kitsch, even though they were the fashion of the day when the Church aimed to terrify the population with its threat of purgatory. These paintings were weapons wielded by the Church and I would not want any of them in my charming little abode

I remember when I studied Victorian literature at a post-graduate level, I was informed that Charles Dickens was not to be taken seriously because he was too popular. He was kitsch according to some of the snobbish professors at the University.

There obviously is an elitist element in all this kitsch business. If you manage to entertain the man in the street with your writing or your painting then there must be something wrong with your work, according to the experts.

How pretentious is that!

So give me a break from all this elitism. I want art that brings a smile to my face.

I prefer beautiful paintings, like those of the Pre-Raphaelites. And so this is where I will include the heart-warming works of Thomas Kinkade as well.

Pity that he has passed away in very sad circumstances, but nevertheless he has left us a beautiful fantasy world which I would gladly love to inhabit.

Rose-coloured glasses? Most definitely, but reality is less appealing, nowadays.

My Installation Art. Should I increase my insurance policy?

liligans So you think you're cultured?, totally absurd

Each year when we have to renew our insurance policy we discuss the value of our possessions. It’s an important discussion, after all, and one which should be taken very seriously.

Our home is replete with installation art. There is our unmade bed, which changes shape every morning . It’s so much more interesting than Tracey’s work of art from 1998 which has recently sold for over 4 million dollars. I kid you not. $4 million!

We also have our sink with unwashed dishes and a laundry with unwashed clothes in it. Think of the wealth which our modest residence contains!

On TV this morning there was a fascinating item about a heavy boulder which was being moved very carefully from one spot to another in California. This was another example of that valuable addition to the art world of INSTALLATION ART.

According to the “artist” who had the bright idea of transporting a rock for over a hundred miles and sticking it in some place for the whole world to enjoy, this artistic enterprise could be compared with the Great Pyramids of Egypt which have lasted around 5000 years. This installation will definitely last as long as the pyramids, he assures us. And it only cost $10 million to transport it!

Well, California is certainly a very safe place to deposit a rocky masterpiece such as this one.

Back to our insurance policy, however. I do have a couple of pictures on my walls. Nothing of value really, just paintings that I like. I wonder if they could be considered as works of art since the artist appears to have used brushes and paint on a canvas. A very outdated concept!

Not a single installation or transportation as far as I can assess. Perhaps I should throw them into my laundry basket and hang the whole damn thing from the rafters. Sounds promising to me as a likely candidate for the Turner Prize. Of course I would have to sell this masterpiece because the insurance premiums would be prohibitive.

Never mind, there’s always Ebay, isn’t there?

The Right to Defend Yourself

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It would be perfect if nobody had weapons. It would be perfect if nobody attacked anybody else. It would be perfect if peace reigned forever and ever and we all stood around expressing our love for one another. Wouldn’t it be wonderful?

We would even sing songs about it all. Hey hang on a minute! Didn’t someone imagine such a world and didn’t we all sing along with him?

Ironically, poor John Lennon was shot to death and we all grieved for him. His song fell on deaf ears,

Some of us believed that it was the fault of the gun in the murderer’s hands. If we could only take away all the guns then we would all be safe.

Wishful thinking and deluded, in my opinion.

Alas, when I look around at the world I seriously doubt that this is ever going to happen. Yes, it’s possible to take away the guns from the moral people, but the evil ones, the crazy ones, the determined ones will always find a way to find weapons and threaten those of us who mean no harm.

It’s the way of the world and always will be, I’m afraid.

Even if we all sincerely promised to disarm and signed agreements in the U.N (lol) with one another could we in all honesty trust those who want to destroy our way of life? Could we believe them when they claim to have disarmed?

Are we really that naive?

How journalist Sarah Ferguson easily keeps up with Jones

liligans So you think you're cultured?

I have just watched Lateline on the ABC during which Tony Jones was his tediously repetitive self and I couldn’t help but compare him with his wife, Sarah Ferguson.

Sarah has taken over from Leigh Sales on the 7.30 Report on the ABC and since then she has shown herself to be astute, determined but always courteous. Her diction and presentation are faultless and she is well-informed on the topic of her interview

Compare this with the rudeness and lack of panache of Tony Jones. He is like a broken record, going on and on and not giving the person he interviews much time to respond. It is no wonder that Clive Palmer told him to shut up the other night.

How sad it is that an interviewer is so enamoured of the sound of his own voice that he drones on for ever.

In my opinion, a successful interviewer is one who treats the interviewee as a welcome guest rather than as an interruption to his own monologue.

The audience wants to hear what the guest has to say. So bringing out the salient points of a discussion are the primary duties of the interviewer.

In this respect, Sarah Ferguson outdoes her husband by a mile.

Think twice before you have a Synvisc injection

liligans So you think you're cultured?, What Pisses me off

The reason I am writing this is because we are all being bombarded by news of procedures that may benefit us medically. This has always been the case throughout history. We have a pain and we want to get rid of it so we are open to suggestions from legitimate or illegitimate purveyors of the miracle cure.

Nothing new in that, of course. Snake oil or modern supplements are often one and the same.

My warning is about the hyaluronic lubricant which is being marketed under various names for injecting into an arthritic joint. Synvisc is one of them which claim to replace the loss of synovial fluid which lubricates the joint.

Granted that in some cases the injection has helped, although reading up on it makes one wonder how much of the cure is actually placebo.

In my case I paid the $700 and endured the painful injection in the hope that it would get rid of the pain in my knee. I did some reading on it and the specialist told me that there was an 80% chance of improvement.

In medicine these stakes are encouraging. He told me that 20% of patients get no improvement.

So what did I have to lose apart from the money? I would be no worse off and there would be a good chance that I would be better off.

Well, as it turned out, following the initial few weeks of painful swelling which I accepted as part of the experience of getting rid of the pain, I ended up ith much more pain than I had started with.

I wish I had never had the injection.

I wish I had done more research and found the articles in which they are questioning the genuine benefits of such injections.

The statistic of 20% of no benefit didn’t mention that the procedure could actually cause more pain and you could be worse off.

Had that been mentioned then I would not have taken the risk.

My final point on the subject is that if Synvisc lubricants are so beneficial they would be subsidised by Medicare. After all, knee replacements for seniors are an expensive drain on the government.

Consequently, any procedure that postpones such operations must surely be a bonus for the government who have to face the pitfalls of an aging society.

As with everything in life there’s a risk, but when it comes to medical treatment the stakes are terribly high.

As someone said, “did you know that the word “gullible” does not appear in the dictionary?”

If you rushed to your copy of the dictionary, have I got a panacea for you!

The hypocrisy of the Grand Prix in Melbourne, Australia

liligans So you think you're cultured?, totally absurd

As I sit in my home in Melbourne and listen to the whirring of the racing cars going round and round in circles, I can’t help but scoff at the hypocrisy of the entire farce.

We are told incessantly that we should cut down on carbon emissions. We are taxed to do so. Polluting the air is bad, apparently, but not when it comes to an event such as the Grand Prix. Here we have powerful engines churning out poisons for about four days. The noise is bad. The atmosphere stinks of petrol and yet all is forgiven because it is a special event which will put Melbourne on the map.

Well, it does that for sure. It confirms that the Victorian government has Fifty Million Dollars to waste supporting an event which does not even make a profit. It stands for nothing but hypocrisy about protecting the environment etc.

Not being a genuine Victorian I obviously don’t get it. The Grand Prix is about fashion show-offs, drinkers and voyeurs who hope that some of the cars will crash. And let’s not forget the gambling.

It reminds me so much of the events in Ancient Rome when the Emperors used to put on shows to amuse the rabble in the Colosseum. It seems as if nothing much has changed since the First Century AD.

The Daniel Morcombe murder and a twist of fate

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In 1997 I was commissioned to review a TV program called “Front Up” for The Courier Mail newspaper. This program was screened on SBS and I admired what its producer, Andrew L. Urban was doing. So I interviewed him about his program and promoted it unashamedly.

During our interview Andrew explained how he believed that everyone has a story to tell and that is why he would stop people in the street and see if they were willing to talk frankly about themselves.

And yes, he was right. People are quite happy to talk about themselves if they are approached in a relaxed and non-confrontational manner. Andrew told me that he relied on “an educated hunch”, a degree of openness which would encourage a friendly conversation.

“Front Up” became very popular because it was about ordinary people rather than celebrities.

So who would have imagined that two years after my interview with Urban that Brett Peter Cowan, the paedophile who has just been convicted of murdering Daniel Morcombe ten years ago, would appear on one of Urban’s “Front Up” episodes?

In it, Cowan appears relaxed and affable, the sort of man whom you would introduce to your parents. He talked about his hard battle with drugs and that he’s over all his problems and that he has found God… blah blah.

Alas, poor Andrew Urban had no idea that he was talking to a convicted child molester. How ironic it is that what was intended to be a show about ordinary people should have accidentally stumbled upon one of the most monstrous criminals in Australian history.

“Le Week-end” or perhaps “Le Weak-end”- movie review

liligans Films

We chose an early morning session on Saturday because we didn’t fancy battling the crowds who would want to see this latest film about empty nesters.

You see, Melbourne people do not rise early to greet the dawn. Anyway, when the two of us entered the theatre we doubled the audience. So that was a good decision on our part as I’m quite crowd averse.

Sadly, this was the best feature of our visit.

I had declared in previous film reviews that I don’t want to see any more films about aging, but here I was again, hoping that this time there would be some sort of optimistic outlook about this business of getting old.

“Le Week-end” is about a senior couple going to Paris for the weekend to recapture their joie de vivre. He, a professor(played by Jim Broadbent) is sick of work and she (Lindsay Duncan) is fed up with her life and bored with her husband.

The stage is set, as you can guess, for a miserable search for excitement. Is Paris how they remember it? What do you think?

Lousy accommodation, constant quiet bickering, complaints about their useless offspring who is sponging off them and wants to move back home.

Then they meet up with a bright and effusive character who knew the Prof in the old days at university. Other reviewers have admired Jeff Goldblum’s acting and I am usually a fan but this character is so manic that he’s frightening. I suppose he’s the foil for the perennial “misery guts” portrayed by Broadbent. But things are really not that great for Happy Jeff either.

The film plods along with mumbling from Broadbent and a bit of sadism from Duncan until it peters out at the end. It’s a weak ending. Nothing is resolved because it’s so true to life that everyone realises that nothing will change for this couple. It really can’t, can it?

After leaving the theatre and deciding to enjoy a gastronomic treat of chargrilled calamari WITH chips just to make up for the melancholy of “Le Week-end” I thought that it reminded me of “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf” with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Minus the passion.

And, in a way, that lack of passion was even more nihilistic.