Why I envy librarians
Serious about writing
Innocent until proven guilty
Innocent until proven guilty is a statement that has always bothered me because of the use of ‘until’. Until means ‘ continuing up to a particular point of time, then stopping’ therefore ‘innocent until proven guilty’ implies that it is only a matter of time before the accused person’s guilt will be revealed.
There is power in words – didn’t someone once say ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’? If we changed the statement to ‘innocent unless proven guilty’ it could bring about a change in perception about the accused person.
And that’s a nice short addition to my twig after an absence of months!
April Fools’ Day
What a lot of fun we had on April Fools’ Day at school. April 1st was a great excuse to get away with all kinds of mischief. We could even play tricks on the teachers! I used to think it was only kids that had fun on April Fools’ Day but when I first heard from my father that even the ABC radio plays tricks on April Fools’ Day I was delighted.
And apparently in 1957 the BBC played a wonderful trick on their television audiences. They broadcast a documentary about spaghetti crops in Switzerland featuring a family from Ticino carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest. It showed women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry. Richard Dimbleby explained how each year the end of March is a very anxious time for spaghetti harvesters all over Europe as severe frost can impair the flavour of the spaghetti. He also explained how each strand of spaghetti always grows to the same length thanks to years of hard work by generations of growers. Apparently some viewers in England were so impressed they rang the station asking where they could obtain their own spaghetti bush. You can view the program on the BBC website at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm
I like the idea of a day when everyone joins together to have fun, to play tricks on each other and indulge in childishness. Wonderful. April Fools’ Day takes place not long after India’s fun day/s called Holi (Festival of Colours) which usually happens in March. People let loose in the streets with coloured powder and everyone gets splashed with bright colours. Everyone is fair game and the usual social restrictions are ignored. Everywhere you look you see people with colourful faces, hair and clothes; even the dogs are rainbow coloured. It’s a day of fun and harmless mischief.
I believe Holi is enthusiastically celebrated in many areas of Australia, although sadly not in my suburb. So nice of the Indian people to migrate to Australia and bring us another fun day!
The letter H
Now we are getting the new HD television channels I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for Australians to learn the correct pronunciation of the letter ‘h’. However, to my disappointment I heard a Channel Ten commentator saying ‘haitch’ just the other day.
Many Australians, and to my frustration many of my students, pronounce the letter as ‘haitch’. When I open up the Macquarie dictionary to the ‘a’ section and point out to my students that the spelling of this letter is ‘aitch’ they are astounded. Believing ‘aitch’ to be the correct pronunciation I have constantly urged them to pronounce it that way. I had always followed the lead of the teacher who corrected my pronunciation and insisted on ‘aitch’. However, this morning I decided to investigate the letter ‘h’ more thoroughly.
A brief search of the internet revealed that the ‘haitch’ pronunciation occurs mostly in Australia and there was some indication that ‘haitch’ is a legacy from the early convicts and immigrants who were Irish Catholics. I then looked under ‘h’ in the Macquarie Dictionary Third Edition and found this:
The name of the letter ‘h’ is based on French ‘(h) ache’, in which the initial ‘h’ is not pronounced. In imitation of the French the English name is commonly ‘aitch’, but this means the name does not contain the sound of the letter. Those who pronounce the word as ‘haitch’ are in a sense restoring its original purpose. Certainly there is no reason to castigate people for pronouncing it in that way, although some do. The link between this pronunciation and Irish Catholics in Australia is often claimed although there is only anecdotal evidence to support the claim.
In other words the French do not aspirate the ‘h’ in their pronunciation of words and for that reason the French call it ‘aitch’ (hache) but because in English we do aspirate the ‘h’ it actually makes better sense to call it ‘haitch’. So what all this really means is that ‘aitch’ and ‘haitch’ are equally acceptable.
That means I have to get off my High Horse and let my students, and anyone else, say ‘haitch’ whenever they jolly well want to. Bummer! I do hate to be wrong but it’s my own fault I should have done more research instead of simply following like a sheep.
Indian Delights
Yesterday I spoke to Sukhjeet, my Indian nephew and the memories of my visits there came flooding back. There’s a lot to remember from India but most of all I remember the aromas; turmeric powder, chilli and ginger from the spice shops, incense from the temples and burning coal and pine from outdoor fires all permeate the air to create their own distinctive pungency. And always there is the aroma of cooking food; curries, tandoori chicken and chapattis. Hhhmm! If you’ve ever walked past an Indian restaurant you’ll know what I mean.
At Rock Garden, Chandigarh
The memory of those aromas turned my thoughts to my friends from Goa, who now live in Melbourne and whose house is deliciously, enticingly aroma rich. A year or so ago they realised that Aussies love Indian food but do not want to spend a lot of time searching for ingredients and labouring over the cooking process so they started a little cottage business called No Worries Curries. They blend all the spices you need for a particular dish and package it along with a very quick and easy recipe. Well, the business took off like a rocket. People appreciate the simplicity and convenience of what No Worries Curries offers as well as the freshly ground, no preservatives spice blends (not to mention value for money with most blends at only $4 per packet). My favourites are Butter Chicken and Masala Dahl. Yummy! Melbourne people are lucky ‘cos No Worries Curries is at Southbank on Sundays.
22.7.10: The other day I cooked a No Worries Curries chicken korma and it was delicious. Instead of the yoghurt suggested on the back of the packet, I added mashed pumpkin to give the sauce a thick consistency - a home grown pumpkin! Why don’t you try it?
When I go to India I usually go to Chandigarh to visit my Indian family. Every time I am in Chandigarh I visit the amazing Rock Garden; a magnificent creation of acres and acres of sculptures, statues and mosaic courtyards with natural grottos and cascading water linked by rocky arches established by Nek Chand. The photos on their website do not do it justice; you cannot see any of the magnificent water features or get a sense of the winding walkways and arches.
Literary Hoaxes
I was watching the video podcast of Hoaxes episode of the ABC First Tuesday Bookclub which sadly confirmed what I already knew from my own experience and anecdotal evidence from other Australian writers. Publishers in Australia are rarely interested in writing; they are interested in gimmicks that sell books. In Australia that means your writing CV simply has to state you are Aboriginal, a refugee or recent migrant, a well known sportsperson or a media personality and your book will almost certainly be published.
We know there is a prejudice against white Australians in the mainstream Australian publishing world and Leon Carmen (and others) proved that when he wrote My Own Sweet Time as the autobiography of an Aboriginal woman, Wanda Koolmatrie. Not only did he get his book published almost instantly, despite previously failing to become published under his own identity, but it also won a literary prize (1996 Dobbie Award). His second book, again submitted as Wanda Koolmatrie, was also accepted for publication and that was when he revealed the hoax. He is still unable to get published as himself, a white Australian. John Bayley, who posed as Carmen’s literary agent was informed by a producer that she would not look at a script written by a white Anglo-Celtic male! Blatant racism but at least she was honest. I suspect she would say the same about a white Anglo-Celtic female.
The show focused on the authors who engineered the hoaxes but it was really an exposé on Australian publishers. The publisher present, Michael Heyward, boldly stated that it is ‘not routine to question the identity of your authors or the integrity of what they write’. Why on earth not? Surely they have a responsibility to ensure and authenticate the quality of the goods they sell!
I am gob smacked, flummoxed and disheartened about Australian publishing! Maybe it’s time to leave home!
Music and me
Lady Bump 45
My first twig for March! Not sure where the time has gone but one minute it was February and the next here I am at March 11th! One of the things I have been doing is having fun rediscovering some of the music I used to listen to because I have finally worked out how to convert my cassette tapes to CDs.
In my dusty collection of cassette tapes I found Peggy Lee, Piaf, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone (a hot favourite), Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, John Sebastian, Axiom, Mamas and Papas and others. How nice to be in touch with my old favourites again. There is an even dustier pile of LP and EP records but I guess I would need a record player to be able to convert them to CD and I’d probably have to go to an antique shop to get a record player!
I found an old EP with a song on it I used to love; Lady Bump. I remembered it as a fun and very lively song that I used to writhe to (in the privacy of my room) so I decided to check it out on YOUTUBE. The song was there and it is indeed fun and lively but seeing Penny McLean sing it was a disappointment. In my imagination I had seen the singer emanating vivacity and rhythm but alas Penny McLean was rather robotic. Now if Kylie performed Lady Bump I’m sure that would a treat to watch; not that I am a Kylie fan but from what I have seen she is a performer with charisma.
Words
Yesterday while chatting with my friend Suzi we invented a new word- at least I think it is a new word. Suzi and her husband and I were discussing words and how some words are ‘hard on the ear’. My example was Australis and Australia. They are similar words and yet I find Australis an unattractive word to hear while Australia is pretty to listen to. Suzi’s high level of intelligence was confirmed when she agreed with me!
Anyway I mentioned that I had a quirk called hyperosmia and felt comfortable about the fact that the word hyperosmia was a ‘pretty’ word. Suzi suggested that if hyperosmia meant abnormal sensitivity to smells then there must be a word for abnormal sensitivity to the sounds of words and after some general hilarity and prompting she came up with ‘hyperbibliosis’. Works for me!
On reflection I thought perhaps ‘hyperbibliosis’ would translate as abnormal sensitivity to books (rather than words) so I looked a little further. The Latin for word is ‘verbum’ so I guess we could call it ‘hyperverbumiosis’ or we could use the Greek ‘eirein’ meaning to speak and then we could end up with ‘hypereireinitis’. Not sure that I want to ‘suffer’ from something that has the word ‘bum’ in it so I might settle for ‘hypereireinitis’ at this stage.
Water and Books
Target 155
The Victorian government sent information packs out to households on how to monitor water usage. In our house we have just finished our first week of monitoring. I was dreading the result thinking we would be way over the target of 155 L per person. Actually our daily average was 64 L per person. How cool is that!! I notice that currently Melbourne’s average daily usage is 195 L per person. Our house is a star!
In our water pack was a cute little timer (egg timer style) for monitoring the length of showers. It has a round suction pad to be attached to the shower door but it kept falling off. Finally I decided to attach it on the outside of the door where there was little moisture and that seems to work; it only falls off on odd occasions now. Timing my showers brought another surprise. My shower is always way, way under the target 4 minutes; less than two minutes. However winter will be a challenge because that’s when I am more likely to linger in the shower – because I don’t want to leave the warm water and step out into the cold atmosphere.
Today I am storytelling at Springvale Library; my first session there for 2009. These library sessions are always a lot of fun for me. On the way back I am going to call in to Borders at Chadstone with a bundle of children’s books for the bushfire appeal launched by Noni Hazlehurst. My heart breaks for those children who have lost their books. As a child reading books was a supreme joy for me. The few books I had were precious treasures and to be suddenly and irrevocably taken would have caused me deep bereavement.
It is impossible to replace the books that have become personal through hours of interaction. A child develops a relationship with a well read book and even though the physical representation of the book can be replaced a particular much loved and much used book can never be replaced. Children who love books will feel the loss of those books intensely and it is a loss that will be felt in the coming months when they settle into some sort of routine without their book companions. Giving books to help the children cope with this dispossession will help a little.
