What’s In A Name?

Ari, Wolfgang, Archie, and Rafael, grandsons of thehobartchinaman.

Their surnames are 來 or 潘 . [Interested readers will use google translate to good effect here]

That’s two German, Greek and Spanish first names, combined with distinctly chinese surnames.

In fact, they’re just kids I love.

So what’s in a name?

The Bard* gave Juliet a great line in Romeo and Juliet :

Scented Rose

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Simultaneously, names become irrelevant. I suspect perfumed rose grower’s sales rocketed,

Unscented Rose

while unscented varieties sales tanked.

Names though are striking back.

Whatsinaname is an Aussie promo company started in 1990.

In 2010, South India’s Advertising & Digital Marketing Agency followedwith What’s In a Name 

Even in thehobartchinaman’s home town we’ve got Whatsinaname Tasmania down Harrington Street!

The ‘so called “Covid-19” virus keeps getting add ons.

There’s the Indian variant, the Kent or British variant and the South African variant.

Got me thinking?

Whatsinaname?

Sure each has the word variant attached, so y’all can say :

Covid – 19 Indian variant, etc

Viruses like to be named nicely, they like to know where they came from!

The grandkids first names hark from European lands, their surname Asia.

First described in China, seems to me the virus’s name might better reflect it’s back story

Its could have been for example:

Wuhan Virus – Kent variant

Somehow, I think I missed the boat.

thehobartchinaman has previously written of the Bard in :

*Sunday Dinner Date. https://wordpress.com/post/thehobartchinaman.wordpress.com/4795

*Twerking and Dignity. https://wordpress.com/post/thehobartchinaman.wordpress.com/4795

And finally in :

Nippon 26 : Bruce. https://wordpress.com/post/thehobartchinaman.wordpress.com/322

A thatched hut that belonged to the 17th century haiku poet Mukai Kyorai. Mukai was a student of Basho Matsuo, one of Japan’s greatest poets. Basho even composed a few poems here

In this post from Kyoto, thehobartchinaman stood before whatappearedtobe, to him, a facsimile of the Bard’s home at Stratford upon Avon. But it wasn’t. He had incorrectly recalled the home of Anne Hathaway, seen below. Realising that at the time he must have been swept away in some fantasy relating to poetry and the past, thehobartchinaman stands corrected. The similarities end at dried straw.

Anne Hathaway`s William Shakespeare`s wife famous thatched cottage and garden at Shottery, just outside Stratford upon Avon

thehobartchinaman wishes to correct this error, thankyou

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Scrambled Jets?

Scrambled eggs

Gosh, is this a cookery blog.

Readers will be aware these are not usually found here!

A regime uses a scrambled fighter jet, combined with a spurious claim to a commercial airliner pilot of a bomb threat aboard his plane, to force the airliner to land in its territory.

A political oponent is removed from the flight.

The world is outraged!

Calls for an inquiry by international authorities and sanctions abound!

Will anything substantive happen?

Who knows?

One thing is sure, other regimes will watch the slothful outcome curiously.

I conjecture that this new urban form of terrorism will be utilised in future, by muscle flexing regimes to impose their will globally.

Readers are invited to muse where else in the globe this tactic will be used to challenge world order?

There maybe a cryptic clue in who’s writing.

Cheers

thehobartCHINAman

Another Geezer in the Library

Sat in the library its peaceful

Sadly though the umkempt obnoxious loudmouthed lout, about whom I once complained to library staff, plonks hisself all over a the covid wiped plastic chair.

We avoid any eye contact.

My editing is not going well. I glance nonchalantly to the left, then the right and catch sight peripherally of an older guy. He leans forward to squint at the screen.

Turning back to my own pixels, I can’t concentrate anymore.

Furtively I turn up pics on my phone and scroll through. Having had to reduce storage a few days earlier I’d deleted lots of duplicates and nonsense memories. But not the one I’m looking for. I know it’s there, a date somewhere back late last year.

Ah ha, i find it, memorise its content and glance rightwards.

The thinning grey hair comes to mind, receding hair line, shabby cardigan hanging from stooped shoulders.

I try to focus, and sneak a look back at my phone.

Surely its not him again!

The dick pic geezer.

It isn’t.

Is it relief I feel?

In this new PC age, were it the dick pic geezer, would it have been de rigueur to report him?

I couldn’t settle again, and rushed home in a moral quandary.

“Honey, I thought I nearly saw him again.”

“Saw who,” she replied,” what are you talking about?’

“Well I thought I saw the dick pic man again in the public library!” I replied.

“How’d you know it was him, you know anglo’s all look the same to you!” she joshed.

“Well that’s right ,” thehobartchinaman retorted, “but I checked.”

“You checked!” she blurted incredulously.

“No, no I didn’t go over and look at his screen or nothing as insensitive as that!” I taunted, but I checked.”

“You checked, what’d you mean you checked?

“I looked at the pic I’d taken last time, and I could tell it wasn’t him.

“What! You took a pic of him? When!”

“Last time when I saw him salivating over the dick pics last year,” I said timidly.

I’d thought it inappropriate that in a public library where all and sundry could glimpse his screen he should be reviewing dick pics.

She was aghast. Her hubby had taken a pic of a man who was using a public computor to review material which was better done, if at all, in the privacy of his residence.

Reminded me of that time, seems an age ago now when I’d got my first warning for photography

https://wordpress.com/post/thehobartchinaman.wordpress.com/2134

Important News!

Pondering what to scribbled I trolled through so called news feeds

Covid, India Covid response, Palestinians v Israelis, Cyclone in India, all newsworthy.

And there it was

https://www.msn.com/en-au/lifestyle/smart-living/this-simple-trick-will-get-you-fresh-mcdonalds-fries-every-time/ar-BB1gFGwR?ocid=BingNewsSearch

Having wasted my time reading this, I’ve now wasted yours.

Sorry.

Melbourne Burning!

A Tribute to the DC3 and Arthur Boyd

Melbourne Burning, purchased by David Walsh for AUD 3.2 million. It is “one of Walsh’s favourite works”.
The painting is the collection of the Museum of Old and New Art.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61581945

This iconic painting is best viewed with the soundtrack below playing, at significant volume.

DC3 Iconic Melbourne Band

To stand before the painting at the Museum of Old and New Art [MoNA], with earphone blasting the DC3’s is one of life’s most serene moments.

Safe to say, I’ve done it more than once, some may say obsessively.

MoNA is Hobart’s premier attraction.

Hobartian’s love David Walsh MoNA’s owner. He has put us on the world stage.

Do yourself a favour and listen!

Here’s the lyrics:

Melbourne Burning – DC3

No one knows quite how these things start
One or two yobs turn crowd into mob
Smash the TAB suddenly all bets are off
And everyone’s looking for something to lob

Down King Street they stop fighting each other
Went on a looting trip- we all know the script
They’ve all got previous and unspoken grievances
Strip club town looked like the Gaza Strip

Some reveler climbed up on the spire
The flat-chat ambo’s left him hanging in limbo
The maul in the mall set it on fire
Some kid got glassed by the Myer window

Upturned cars by the Dockland bars
Both ends of the Burnley tunnel were sealed
Kids were attacking with bits of cladding
From the boarded-up side of the Melbourne Wheel

Melbourne Burning
Melbourne Burning

We were all watching Masterchef elimination
Channel 10 apologized for the interruption
There was talk of a curfew, there was no information
The AFL boss complained about fixture disruption

Gangs from the estate moved in the looter’s wake
There were spot fires all over the Melways
From Marriott Borders to Taylor’s Lakes
And hoon cars taking back the freeways

Melbourne Burning
Melbourne Burning

A goth got off the night driver one stop too far
Got chased by a car for calling them bogans
Family First skin heads bragged in some bar
They’d covered covered Birrarung Marr with white supremacist slogans

The Sunni community was blamed by their neighbours
Cos some Shi’ite got helped with his self flagellation
Extremists came out of the woodwork overnight
Point the finger, preach escalation

Tamils in Doncaster blamed it on Sinhala
Serbs fought Albanians in Fountain Gate
Some Kahanist rabbi in Balaclava
Wanted to claim a new theocratic state

Zanu blamed Zapu, Tutsi blamed Hutu
Centuries enemies invoked old enmities
Some nut called to Balkanise Braybook
Park Orchards was torched by warring South Sudanese

Where is Melbourne Burning
Where is Melbourne Burning

Melbourne burning in the corners of lives
Melbourne burning in the hearts and the minds
Melbourne burning in the deep dark parts where memory lies
Melbourne burning in the name to the pain at the back of your brain
Where there’s someone to blame
There’s always someone to blame

Melbourne Burning
Melbourne Burning
Melbourne Burning
Melbourne Burning
Melbourne Burning
Melbourne Burning

How much has changed since 2011?

Meet Sfouf

“smear tahini on the cake tin [ 23cm ], by hand.”

I’m not sure which part of this recipe instruction caused the most alarm.

Was it::

smear tahini

or

by hand.

These are not words expected in the same paragraph, let alone in the same sentence.

Imagine, smearing tahini by hand? Go on imagine it.

Feel the smooth sesame oil, under your nails, coating the cuticles, in the gaps between your fingers, under your ring.

Is it possible these hands will ever be clean again?

But the aroma of the roasting sesame on the smeared baking tin in the oven is mouth watering.

As the slivered almonds on the surface toast to a golden brown, the cake rises.

Forty minutes later it’s tastily crusted with the smeared tahini, smeared by hand, yum.

A perfect sfouf.

Vale Couchsurfing

We’ve lost a friend.

For the past ten years or so we welcomed folk to our home, in a spirit of friendship. Attracted by a philosophy of paying it forward, traveller’s stayed with us at no cost.

With them we shared their travels, hopes and dreams, tested solutions to problems they might have had. They aged from eighteen to seventy. They came from lands far and wide.

Our minds were expanded.

When we travelled we likewise stayed with hosts, all through Japan and Europe. Our memories are of the fine people we met, and the extraordinary places we saw with them. Our travels, and hopefully those we hosted were significantly enhanced by the experience.

As of this month the now monetized site has been started to charge fees for all. Formerly run as a not for profit, the current owners have used the Wuhan Virus as the pretext for these changes.

We wish them well for the future as we leave.

Couchsurfing.com we enjoyed our interlude with you.