Soccer, shopkeeps, and the sisterhood of men.

Please note: This post was written on the day Australia conquered the world (i.e. tied with Croatia in the world cup).

Tim Cahill, man of the people, hero of all matches.

With seven Socceroos with Croatian heritage and a good few Croats calling Australia home, divided Aussie loyalties when it comes to soccer has been a hot topic of conversation for me, and various other assorted news media and stations, over the last few days. Now I am Australian, and my primary European heritage is Dutch – so with Gus at our helm, and Aussie boys on the oars, I have no desire whatsoever to jump ship and support a more of an overdog Euro team. Not all Aussie ethnic identities meld so perfectly with the Socceroos, however, and the Croat-Australian conflict was only the start. Come Tuesday, those who feel both Italian and Australian make the difficult decision about who to support – and thus begins my narrative:

THE ITALIAN FRUITIER: I rely on the large Italian fruit store that I occasionally frequent for several things. Among their number are pseudo-reasonably priced veggies, firm mushrooms, a fruit-stacking hunchback who scares me, and a friendly wink from the less Quasimodo of the staff. Not so this morning, however, as I entered the shop to high running tensions. Australia had just effectively ruled Croatia out of the cup, and secured a place to play Italy. An older fruitier and his younger counterpart, usually so friendly, were to deep in conversation to acknowledge me as I selected myself a fine head of broccoli.

Young Fruitier: “You know, my head is fully Australian… but my heart, my heart is in Italy.”

Old Fruitier: “Well yes, of course. But I want Australian soccer to progress, I would like to see them do well.”

Young Fruitier: “Well of course you say that, I might say that, but come Tuesday I know that I will be supporting Italy, wanting Italy to win.”

Old Fruitier: “But the boys did so well today, and I would like to see them continue.”

Young Fruitier: “But we are Italian, you know. Surely you want our team to go forwand!!??”

Fiffles picks apples and rosemary and beans out with care. Smiling to self, she is completely ignored by increasingly fiery fruitiers.

Old Fruitier: “Now listen, of course, I was born in Italy, you were not. I know what it is to be Italian.”

 

Young fruitier acknowledges this point with a head bob, and a wave of the palm forward hands.

An artist's rendering of an Italian fruitier, 1580

(likeness to present day Italian fruitiers = medium)

THE IGA WORKER: On the topic of people working in stores… I am brought to the nice connection that exists between people – you know, when kindly strangers hope the best for you and you for them etc.

The other day I was in IGA, purchasing a package of crumpets at the request of assorted people. I couldn’t see these bready treats, so I asked the man stacking the bread shelves where they were. As he was looking I located a small pack of the traditional rounds, so I thanked him, told him I had found some, and started off.

As I was cruising the next isle, I heard the steady pat pat of quick approaching footsteps at my heel. I turned around to see the shelf stacker looming up on me, waving a cellophaned bakery good.

Shelf Stacker: “I have some square ones here, on sale, you might prefer them.”

“Square whats?” I wondered, “Crumpets?”

Fiffles: “Oh no, these are fine thanks.” I smiled at him in appreciation of his giving chase.

Shelf Stacker: “But these are only 85 cents!”

He was speaking somewhat frantically, waving those cubed twist on an old crumpet in my face. Now 89 cents is not to be sneered at, given that the crumpets in my trolley were retailing for a good two dollars fifty or so.

Fiffles: “I’ll take them, thanks very much!”

We grinned at each other, his quest to save me a buck or two accomplished, and my faith in mankind restored. When I returned home, crumpets in hand, to the waiting breakfast throng, everyone was happy with the squares, and impressed with my steal.

To conclude, people are bizarre.

This popular breakfast food has been given a new lease on life! Squint until this picture is blurry to get an idea about what marketing executives are sadly not calling 'Cubepets'.

THE HEALTH FOOD STORE MAN: Back to the present. Having finished with the fruit, I then went to the health food store in search of pure Olive Leaf Extract. I approached the front counter to be greeted by a man who looked like Jesus, but was probably not.

Fiffles: “Do you have any olive leaf extract?”

Health Food Store Worker Resembling Jesus: “Oh do we?”

Now smiling to himself in an odd sort of a giggly way.

Health Food Store Worker Resembling Jesus: “Oh yes we do, and I can give it to you in any number of ways.”

Giggles continue.

Fiffles: “OK… thanks…”

 

 

I could have taken it any number of ways, but I eventually chose orally.

RANDOM NUMBERS: And now, for a final countdown:

3 – The number of different soy based products I brought today in a veggie fuelled, protein supplement mad frenzy.

2 – The number of pink, penis shaped, novelty ‘fluffy dice’ that I have seen hanging from a rear view mirror today.

1 – The number of times that I embarrassingly called Harry Kewell “more Australian than Bradman”, encouraging well deserved scorn and derision from my nearest and dearest.

Harry Kewell, a man who without a shadow of a doubt is less Australian than Bradman, and probably Vegemite.

Really, George Harrison, this is going too far – I have enough prophets.

Due to, I presume, the human drive to explain things, justify existence, and have certainty about life after death, people throughout the ages have turned their sweet little heads to prophets for answers. These prophets are, loosely speaking, men masquerading as gods, and you may recognize some famous faces from a recent (and past) bestseller, The Bible. Examples include Ezekial, Jerimiah, and others.

Biblical prophets formed a line of communication between god and man, and one of their main purposes was to forewarn humans of earth-bound difficulties. In the modern age, jeans, t-shirts and cellular communication not being as romantic as robes and parting of the seas, many people are driven to outsourcing for their prophecies. Not so me, however, as I am the lucky holder of several personal prophets – some visiting me with regularity, others making a one-time appearance. Two visitations spring particularly to mind as examples of each.

MY GUEST STARRING PROPHET: In May last year, just after Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen kicked his racist and regal bucket, I happenened to be driving to uni. It is my fashion, as I have mentioned, to Volvo happily to my place of employ. As I was driving thus, whose ghostly visage did I see careening along in a beat up Ford Cortina, but that of Bjelke. It was not the strong and young Petersen of the seventies, however, but rather the old and liver-spotted Joh of the wheelchair.

What does Joh’s presence mean? I pondered to myself, as I Volvoed past him.

Sir Joh, as he appeared to me in late 2005.

A few days after this, Bjelke-Petersen appeared to me again, this time crossing the road at a set of lights. I knew what the stop sign meant, but what did he signal? Was there something he wanted of me?

At uni racism and discrimination are my research focuses, and it is additionally a personal campaign of mine to oppose civil liberty violations. Maybe Joh had repented in his death, and picked a humble Ford as the chariot of his tolerant and inclusive post-mortal message? Conversely maybe he had come to try and stop me from spreading my left-wing hippie bullshit any further?

REGULAR PROPHET: A more regular and consistent prophet of mine is a student that I tutored early last year. He was certainly the oddest boy in any of my classes. He is an exchange student from mainland China, but now lives in Australia – when I taxed the class to write me a research based essay he instead turned in a creative writing piece about love, life and death. I see him around uni, in town, along my street, whilst driving… everywhere! He walks like he is floating, knees bouncing up as his reefer-clad feet seem to avoid ever touching the ground. He wears a light coloured t-shirt tucked into long shorts that he pulls up right to his chest! For me he signals reflection, and the need to look for meaning in things.

The other day I was having coffee with a friend at uni and my prophet floated past.

“Quick!” I bellowed to my companion, “It is the boy who is my… I mean it is the lad who I tutored…. I mean a messiah… Quick!!” But it was too late. The prophet’s black head was bobbing away through the crowd, leaving my fellow coffee drinker staring at me bemusedly.

RECENT VISITATIONS: On Thursday afternoon I was in Cooroy, walking to my car, laden with groceries. As I crossed the road I saw George Harrison, wizened and hairy, whip past my on a bicycle. I think in doing so he may have been sending an environmental message – ride, don’t drive!

George, minus his guitar, and plus a bike, appeared to me on Thursday.

But George Harrison was never the man I expected to see. You know when someone you know sees a demi-celebrity or the likes (perhaps Sandra Sully at the shops, that sort of thing), they bounce up to you excitedly and ask,

“Guess who I just saw!!???”

In cases like this my answer is always the same.

“Alf from Home and Away?” I ask, enthusiasm never dulled by fact that this has never been the case.

I’m not really sure why I want to see Alf from Home and Away, why him and not the publicity mad Harold from Neighbours?

The man I hope will bear my next prophecy.

But I just do.

The end of the World as I know it – it’s the end

The other night, having finished a satisfying dinner, I sat down at my kitchen table to check my e-mails and catch up on a bit of work. My table faces the window into my little townhouse backyard, and I sat there, peering into the blackness trying to think of things I could feasibly look up on the web that would aid and abet me in my procrastination quest.

My trance-like reverie was interrupted by an unusual sight outdoors – two bright little diamonds winking at me through the window. Now before I danced with glee, and collected those jewels from outside (eventually using them, probably, to fund my travels on an archeological dig to the Middle East), I became aware that they were attached to a furry, amorphous shape. In truth, those diamonds were the winking bright eyes of a cat.

I turned back to my computer and bashed out an MSN message on the keyboard, to my cute and curly companion,

 

Fiffles: A cat is outside my sliding door, and it is watching me SO SO SO intently.

Curly: It is probably Satanic.

Fiffles: I suspect as much.

And a moment later:

Fiffles: Or it could be the reincarnation of a dead relative of mine, trying to give me a message from the other side.

Curly: Perhaps.

And a moment later again:

Curly: Either way, the safest bet is to kill it.

 

Naturally I considered his suggestion, but eventually decided to let the feline live.

But it brought to mind thoughts of general supernatural and natural eeriness. Last month there were a couple of prophecies and conspiracy theories out there claiming that the world’s end was nigh. Whether by tsunami, or general fire and brimstone I know not. However, by whatever means, judgment day did not transpire this May.

Yet wait! Let’s not be over hasty. Just because the world did not end LAST month does not in any way mean that it cannot end THIS month. So let’s add up the signs.

Well to start with, we have a demonic (or possibly benevolent) ‘cat’ making dark visitations to me at a late hour. As a result of this we can reasonably assume that I have been chosen as the receptacle of messages from the other side (italics added for ghostly emphasis). Thus it seems sensible to examine MY life (and MY life only for I am the messiah) for small inconsistencies and incongruities that may indicate global chaos.

Things I have recently seen that indicate the world is ending:

- On the way to uni the other day, I drove past a man who was walking like an ape, arms swinging gorilla like as he plowed across his lawn. Now my common sense told me that he was searching the ground for beer bottle caps and cigarette stubs after a party at his on the weekend, but luckily my doomsday paranoia told me otherwise. A MAN WALKING LIKE AN APE, PEOPLE!!

- John Howard being Prime Minister of Australia 12 years running. Has he succeeded in this term unaided by the dark arts? I don’t think so.

- And finally, as a particularly conclusive and irrefutable sign, bananas have achieved an astonishing $10 a kilo price tag. Even at a supermarket! That is a dollar a banana or more, OR MORE!! And remember, this banana extortion outrage is the result of an ominous natural disaster.

Is my argument watertight? Yes, I like to think so.

So without further ado, fear for your life.

To truly love a bird

A Green-Bridge is being constructed at my university, linking the campus by road to afor-separated suburbs. The verdure descriptive does not, I am told, give clue to the paint job of the completed bridge, but rather the environmental message it sends (only buses and pedestrians will be allowed to cross). Anyway, the building of this worthy connector has necessitated the closing of a road that I travel everyday to uni, forcing me to motor a detour each morning.

 

The detour is one of those windy roads that reminds me of engineering students (probably because it is near the engineering faculty, although I am making no assumptions), and has more than its fair allocation of pedestrian or zebra crossings.

 

As I was driving through these roads this morning I saw a little duck, standing nervously at the end of one such pedestrian crossing. Now a duck’s legs are short, and my Volvo is long, I think that I could have made it over the crossing before the duck hit the road. But conditioning was too strong for me, and the force of habit pulled the car to a halt at the stripy strip.

 

“Well go on!” I yelled at the duck, waving my hands in encouragement, as another car pulled to a sharp stop at the duck’s perambulation.

 

The duck honestly seemed to listen. He (or she) looked both ways, and then carefully waddled across the pedestrian crossing, never deviating from the road-rules sanctioned path for a second.

 

Wonderful things, birds, really. I like it when they act like humans, or when humans act like birds for that matter (the miracle of flight anyone?). Seeing the sweet little duck’s strange behaviour this morning brought to mind a couple of other poultry interactions I have had, one of which I will describe below.

 

One time, again at uni, I was sitting quietly on a bench outside my lecture theatre. I was enjoying an apple in the ten minute break afforded to me by the Nazi-lecturer. As I sat there, a crow flew by, and then dropped down beside me.

 

I looked solemnly at him, and he back at me. Now a crow’s gaze can be quite intense you must realize, so it was with unwavering care that I broke of a piece of my apple and dropped it softly on the ground in front of the crow.

 

The crow considered my gift, and then finding it acceptable, began to eat. We both sat there for the next little while, that crow and me, munching on our fruit and shooting the breeze with one another. He waddled around me (yes, I have used that word twice, but what word can so adequately describe the stunted walk of a bird!) pecking away, and I felt at one with this beautiful black bird.

 

Birds are my favourite animal, I feel a special kinship with them. The magpie, so cheeky! The Noisy-Minor, a perpetual skally-wag! The butcher bird, so regal! It all started with my pet Budgerigar, this personal love of the feathery kind. But I have to say, once you have yourself, truly loved a bird, you will know what I mean.