Bits and pieces

View of vineyards in the Venetian Hills.

I haven't posted for a little while here, mainly because I haven't had much to say. I was summoned for jury duty last week, thankfully was not picked, but it seemed sort of stressy anyway, because it was out of my routine. Then I had to go back to court on Thursday for a pre-pre-hearing tutorial, regarding the pre-hearing next week of the appeal about the proposed pre-school. It's all quite depressing, we don't really know what kind of tricks the developer and his lawyer will pull in court. We're going to get a lawyer too, which of course costs money. It makes me so angry that this selfish, greedy, wanna-be-rich man (pre-school owners get fat subsidies from the government) can come into a peaceful neighbourhood and put ordinary people through this. We had a woman from another suburb come and talk to us. She lives next to a pre-school and her experiences with the noise problem were horrific. Unfortunately, few studies have been carried out on the impact of pre-schools sited in residential neighbourhoods; everyone seems to assume they are a good thing because they involve small children, and who doesn't like small children, right? 
    This woman was told by Noise Control that she could not lodge complaints against a pre-school, even if the noise exceeded the permissable decibel level because pre-schools are a "public good". The problem is, most pre-schools now are being run as commercial concerns for private profit, so should be subject to the same constraints as say, a block of retail shops or a small factory making widgets. Very noisily.
  So this and the jury service have sort of knocked me off my psychological perch. Added to this a team meeting at work, at which I realised once again how very eccentric and un-mainstream I am. Not a team player at all, I have no patience with all that team stuff, where I have to pussyfoot round other people's agendas and feelings and personalities and negotiate. What a waste of time! Shit or get off the pot! (I sound like Lucy in Peanuts.)
  So today has been a much needed Coddling Day, spent in bed reading Ira Levin's A kiss before dying, sort of trashy but engrossing, and sleeping a lot. The weather has become very cold now, so I excuse my laziness by telling myself how much electricity I'm not using. And not paying for.

Dahlia imperialis this afternoon in the garden

A little out of focus because the flowers are 10 feet up in the air.

Flag waving (with apologies to my Australian readers)

Our esteemed Prime Minister has decided that it's time to change the New Zealand flag. Why? Because it embarrasses him to be mistakenly seated under an Australian flag at diplomatic shindigs, as the rest of the world neither knows nor cares that our flag is slightly different from the Australian one. The Aussies have one more star, and our PM is a bit miffed at this. He's decided that we're going to have a new flag, and there will be a referendum to decide if the rest of us agree with him.

The whole exercise will cost $25 million (that's just the referendum, not the cost of actually producing and distributing new flags, with poles, changing all official documents, etc, etc.)

They've even sent us all a card, inviting us to state "what we stand for". This is called "The Flag consideration project". If you read the wording, you'll see that there is a fait accompli at work here, typical of this government. They assume that the referendum is over, and that we have said yes, and that all we need to decide now is what form the flag will take. "Your name and contribution (hopefully not a financial contribution, we've already done that through our taxes) will help build our national flagpole..." It will have to be a very large flagpole to contain the names of all New Zealanders who have contributed.

Ridiculous. New Zealand is a small country that could spend $25 million on many other things, but this is the PM's personal project; this is how he wants to be remembered, as the PM that changed the flag.  My response, not well considered but honest:

Of course, there are now many attempts at a new design, both earnest and humorous:

Sorry, Aussies

This is the PM's favourite. It also happens to be the logo of the All Black rugby team, and I'll be buggered if I stand up and salute that. It has also been pointed out to Our Glorious Leader that it resembles the flag of the ISIS Caliphate, not really something we want to be associated with. And since black is the colour symbolising death in the West and white is the colour symbolising death in the East, it's not really a very life-affirming flag.

All we can really be sure about is that the government will cock it up and we'll end up with a flag none of us want or like. I close with a quote from Dr. Samuel Johnson, that I hold dear to my heart and mutter to myself whenever I think of my Prime Minister:
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". 

Pics

Jiro on his blanket, dozing off in the sun

Yuletide camellia making a great show

Not much to write about today. We've had some beautiful weather here over the last week, the last gasp of autumn. As you can see, the camellias are particularly nice now. We have the last roses and the first camellias out together. The garden is a mess, but I'm enjoying just sitting in the sun and reading. I've just read Molly Keane's "Good behaviour" and throroughly enjoyed it, and a coffee-table type book called "I am dandy" about modern dandies, men who like to dress extravagantly, with obsessive attention to the detail of their clothing and grooming. I don't know about some of the men's costumes; mustard tartan waistcoats with pink socks don't really do anything for me, but the whole point of dandyism is to be noticed, and they certainly do get noticed. I can see the appeal of a life dedicated to aestheticism, an attempt to get away from the modern world into a world of one's own creation. I've also seen a doco on youtube about modern people who live 'vintage' lives, recreating the 'thirties or the 'fifties in their homes and clothing. The modern world is left behind in a whirl of nostalgia for so-called "better" times. I don't know if I'd pick the 'thirties to go back to; depression, civil unrest and rumblings of war? I'd not want to leave behind my washing-machine to spend a whole day once a week washing, as my grandmother did. Boil the copper overnight, then wash, wring, starch, blue, and rinse and wring again. No, thank you.

Still life

Spent part of the morning fiddling around with an arrangement for a still life. Adding things, taking away, moving things into and out of the light, then photographing the results. The quinces look great, I love those round, full shapes. This arrangement above was the last one I did; I liked it at the time, but now I think it looks a bit busy. I like having my table by the window like this. I can spread out more than in my summer painting room, and keep warm and cook things while I work, so it will be more economical power-wise.

Rather annoyed tonight. I was just at a critical stage in the meal preparation (grilled sausages and fried tomatoes, not a meal you can leave while you socialise) when there's a knock on the door. It's someone trying to sign me up for something. He was rather nice, a young German man, but I had to tell him that "this is not a good time; I'm cooking!" "Oh, well, I can come back later then?" "NO, you can't - what are you selling anyway?" "I'm not selling anything, I just want to give you some popcorn and some movies" Yeah, right. You want to give me something? For free? I don't think so. I think he was going to sign me up for some crappy Sky deal. And I am annoyed. Not just at being disturbed by a door-knocker, but I'm annoyed that he made me annoyed! There must be a name for this sort of double-whammy of the emotions, blest if I know what it is.