Category Archives: family

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Sicily: Baroque but Physiologically Perilous

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Ape taxis are distinctive fun. They’re a scooter with a tray and cabin. In Italian, Ape means bee and not primate and is pronounced AH-peh. A nod to their industriousness, it’s a companion vehicle to the Vespa which indicates wasp. Designed and manufactured after the second world war, they helped Italy rebuild and are suited to the narrow, twisting lanes of the cities. How cool is this? The mere sight of one wobbling past is instantly cheering.

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Pedestrian streets return cities to their citizens. In Palermo and Catania, they’ve wrestled control back from vehicles. This is best seen at Palermo’s Quattro Canti. A Baroque square, it hosts buskers, weddings, gawping tourists, and probably thieves. Strolling down cobblestoned Via Vittorio Emanuele towards the harbour we pass The Navy, a darkly tempting bar.

Cobblestones — those evocative European symbols — are delightful to contemplate and photograph. However, they are horrifically medieval upon which to walk any distance. They’re romantic but physiologically perilous.

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The highlight of our Sicilian trip was Saturday. Venturing into the Mercato Ballarò, a famed food market, the noise is physical. Shouting and selling, music and meat sizzling on open grills — imagine tending these in a Mediterranean summer! The slender laneways heave with traffic and sensory assaults. Claire and I squeeze through together, gawking at the stalls groaning with non-refrigerated octopi and giant tuna and arancini. Orange juice — squeezed as you stood there — cost less than the 4 euro we were almost slugged in Catania for a tiny cup.

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Unbeknownst until too late, right next door was the Tatum Art Jazz Club & Ristorante. Opening on weekend evenings, we could’ve swung by for a Talented Mr. Ripley hour — minus the messy murder. Instead, 9pm on Saturday was Eurovision o’clock on the TV. Cue: much wailing and moaning and overwrought vocals plus cartoonish imagery and bombastic music. It was largely irony-free. Representing the Antipodes was our the Australian popster, Delta Goodrem. But what fun to see it as it happened — on the continent itself.

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With abundant love, Claire always secures atmospheric accommodation. In the Historical Centre of Palermo, we had a seventh-floor balcony from which we looked out at the Church of San Giuseppe dei Padri Teatini and its yellow and green dome. Our rooftop colleagues were wheeling and squawking gulls.

Giggling, Claire said, ‘They’re laughing at some very funny jokes.’ I think they were. What joy to sit on that narrow ledge with a Birra Moretti and a limoncello and plates of pasta with pistachio pesto (PPP in certain elite circles).

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The Sicilian capital is now among my favourites. Its insistent energy, compelling history, and painterly cityscape demand this. However, it’s also home to what we named the Sad Fountains of Palermo. Near us is one called the Fontana Pretoria or Fountain of Shame — think marble nudes on a ghostly building site — but the grimmest example is in the otherwise delightful Piazza Marina. This fountain was, I think, a dribbling garden hose and a horse — lame, bemused, and in a dying bush.

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Often, passing in a train or on foot we’d spy aged men leaning forward on a balcony. They’d be peering out wistfully if not glumly, neither smiling nor frowning. The lines between private and public lives are blurred here. Are they seeking company or fleeing it?

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Sicilian parks are grass-less but loved. This is the opposite of some London parks which are beautiful if entirely ornamental in that gruff signs forbid any human use. In transit to the Cattedrale di Palermo we bisected the Villa Bonanno. It’s unkempt with weeds, parched dirt, and irregular litter. However, it’s well-patronized and bustling with people sauntering, talking with spectacular animation, and eating gelato. Often, all three at once.

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Scampering through a golden twilight square on Sunday evening, we found a crowd bunching outside a bar. One loose circle chattered and drank with fearsome energy. And around what were they gathered? Yes, that’s right! A couple of green wheelie bins! Some were resting their beers on the plastic lids while they yelled joyfully at each other. This is why I love Sicily.  

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Three Candles in Santorini

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The Holy Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist is in Fira on Santorini. It’s a still, bewitching hour on a Thursday. Our final night on this striking island before we fly to Sicily. We’ve stolen up and across along the bumpy, twisting alleys from our apartment to this church. Sunset imminent.

It’s been decades since I regularly visited St Roses in Kapunda. We’re not going to mass. Claire leads me in. We’re just going to quietly sit and think.

Claire gathers and lights three candles. They glow with warmth and with faith. A candle for her dad, one for her mum, one for her sister Fran. They offer much beyond light.

Despite my Catholic childhood, at first I feel like an intruder. Church was only for set times, otherwise the door’s shut. Claire leans over and whispers, ‘In Turkey I was told that Muslims have no ceremony or mass when in a mosque. They simply pray.’ In the darkening pews, I nod. She continues. ‘There’s no assistance from a priest or religious person. It’s a singular, private time.’ Claire’s always teaching me things like this.

Is that what we’re doing now? Using this church for reflection, for gratitude, for remembrance. If churches can be for spirituality and not formal religion, then I think so. I’ve not sat in a church like this before, and it’s peaceful. I wonder if I could cultivate a new, informal relationship with the Catholic church. This might be the gift Greece gives me.

We stroll around to the Three Bells of Fira. We peer down on the Mediterranean, way below on the bluish, deepening Caldera. The cloudy skies mean there’s few people here on what feels like the brink of the world. On clear summer evenings in a month or two, it’ll be heaving like a music festival. Again, we speak little. There is no need.

Up and down laneways on the cliffside, we then arrive at Volkan on the Rocks. The resort has an open-air theatre, and the audience is at their tables with headphones on. Six nights a week it screens the Abba-inspired film Mamma Mia. We look down at them. In this location that’s neither day nor night, but both land and sea, it could be diverting. We walk on.

A moored cruise ship hovers below, a colossal modern wonder, all steel and sleek lines. From it dance music erupts up and into the Greek heavens. We imagine those on the decks, clutching drinks, milling about. Then, a smaller wooden vessel, a ketch, glides into view, pop melodies also bellowing up from the silent sea. It slides beneath us to the cliff and disappears into the velvety night.

Dusk approaches. In amongst the endless, squealing wheels of travel, the stillness of our church visit now feels as an instructive lingering, a wonder of rapt silence.

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Brettos, Plaka, Athens

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Slipping in off the cobblestones, Claire and I are in Brettos. It’s the Plaka bar that’s nearly as ancient as the Acropolis.

Two walls are lined with vividly coloured bottles, backlit into a festive and wistful glow. At the rear, a bold wooden bar anchors the room; the place is theatrically staged yet quietly welcoming while the city outside thickens into evening.

It’s Saturday night in Athens. Brettos is the size of a modest lounge room and is intimate in ways that most Australian boozers fail: too much space and harsh light.

Michael Brettos opened it in 1909 as a distillery — now relocated. Tastings remain: olive oil, ouzo, wine. However, it’s rare that I have a swig of olive oil when in a pub. There’s excellent table service and the staff leave your receipt coiled in a shot glass.

We claim twin stools by a kaleidoscopic wall. This affords us slight elevation and vision over the crowd, so we people watch. All are well behaved and happy to be here — devoted to a good evening and each other. Being here makes us grin. Nearby a couple of Scandinavian girls break into Greek spirits-inspired song. It’s a joyous moment although they’re no Abba nor Nana Mouskouri. The Greek capital’s a long way from Stockholm.

There’s an agreeable sonic bed of chat and laughter which is neither too loud as to make our conversation difficult nor too quiet so there’s constant and involuntary eavesdropping. Vintage pop music plays in English — at just the right volume. It, too, is archaeological. We hear ‘I Try’ by Macy Gray from her album On How Life Is and it underscores the effortless coolness of this place. Not having heard this bluesy soul in decades, I vow to play it later. I do.

After a day of traipsing about, my local beer tastes like exotica. Claire’s cocktail’s comforting. It’s a snug coda to our time in Athens. The airport bus leaves Syntagma Square early tomorrow.

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On watching 2001: A Space Odyssey with my boys

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Alex and I watched Kubrick’s magnum opus one Sunday afternoon when he was in year 9. The other night Max and I did too. Not only a film, it’s a cultural icon, and is representative of the rich, examined life I want them both to enjoy. Max asked great questions and found it puzzling and provocative.

The next morning while he was asleep, I watched the DVD of extras with its series of documentaries and I found myself taking pages of notes — part observation, part response. What follows are a few of those reflections.

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The famous jump cut features the spinning animal bone. The slow motion drags us all into the poetic arc and the bone is concurrently a tool, weapon, and art. It is replaced by the space station. In a single cut, the infinitesimal holds millions of years. We are forced to leap across a chasm of history. This invites contemplation on the aspirations and achievements of humanity. The presence of the monolith with its 1:4:9 ratio invites us to consider that an external intervention may be responsible for our evolution.

When Dr. Floyd is travelling to the moon, he does so as a commuter who is often asleep. He never looks out the window as the view has become mundane to him. Ironically, Floyd’s lack of interest in his journey provokes awe in us: imagine being bored by the majesty of space! What a life it must be, to nap on your way to the moon. Or is Kubrick warning us not to be seduced by our own cleverness, and to retain our innocence and wonder? At various points, Max leant forward from his chair.

While profoundly visual, the film also functions as an opera. Strauss’s Blue Danube was chosen as it conjures unsurpassed beauty, and Kubrick wanted us to also see space as joyful. This, and the other music, form the film’s architecture. It slows the action and makes us behold the exquisiteness of space travel and the machines in which we push out into the universe. It is a tranquil prayer, as all prayer should be.

Kubrick also allowed silence to act as its own instrument. This is most telling when Bowman uses an explosion to re-enter Discovery One — there is no sound in space, so we hear nothing. We’re conditioned to expect a large accompaniment of noise but the lack of it heightens the drama. Silence enhances our response.

The score is singular with often only one sound at a time unlike the dense and complex noise common in cinema. The dominant, disturbing breathing of the space-suited astronauts can be interpreted as rhythmical or even musical, and it draws us into the character while evoking empathy and fear. It’s tempting to see its influence in Darth Vader’s breathing — but here Bowman is prey, not predator. Max and I spoke of the legacy of 2001. He recognised its influence in Star Wars and Project Hail Mary. I told him he should next watch Interstellar.

Taking advice from Carl Sagan, Kubrick decided to not show the aliens responsible for the monoliths — located on the African veld, lunar surface, and above Jupiter -— but only their unseen influence. He wanted to move away from the science-fiction of the 1950’s with its unconvincing humanoid aliens, preferring wisely to not ‘show the face of God’. Their appearance is not relevant, it is the impact they have, represented by the monoliths. This is like the first hour of Spielberg’s Jaws when we don’t see the full shark and this amplifies our terror. Even now when swimming in the shallows I know the worry is not what you can see but rather, what you can’t.

The final scene with Dave Bowman in a neoclassical bedroom is inspired by the Dorchester Hotel located near Hyde Park in London. The notion being that the aliens would want him to feel comfortable as he undergoes the transformation to Star Child. He is now foetal, yet preternaturally alert and serene. Bowman is about to be born into a form beyond the physical in which he’ll exist as pure consciousness and light.

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Like the film’s black monolith, I hope 2001: A Space Odyssey promotes a life of curiosity and contemplation for Alex and Max. I cherished the chance to invite them into this luminous world and wish that it might be a catalyst for a small, continuing evolution in both.

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Waiting Under the Bucket

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Steering away from Becks Bakehouse, my bland sausage roll begins its sluggish transit. I turn up the Mississippi bluesman, Elmore James, so Max and I can hear the chugging genius of Dust My Broom

I’m gon’ get up in the morning
I believe I’ll dust my broom.
I’m gonna get up in the morning
I believe I’ll dust my broom.

Our trip to Victor Harbor had begun.

It was time to talk against the rhythm of (hopefully) agreeable activity, to gently explore Max’s inner and outer worlds, to scrutinise his present and point an encouraging telescope towards his future. We go nowhere new. Sometimes the best excursions are to known places.

Granite Island is everybody’s favourite isle and we’ve circumnavigated it often. On the ocean-side I realise I’ve not looked at the rolling waves, rocky cliffs, or blue sky, extending above us. I am immersed. We are talking and walking.

We stop at a gnarly tree, years ago its horizontal trunk the setting when Alex slipped while climbing. His tumbling then straddling generated much hot grief. Max and I laugh at the image.

Our holiday cabin is agreeably spartan, so we sling in our stuff and venture to the waterslides. Hopping out of the pool, I point to the big bucket, tilting slowly, thrillingly on its hinge. ‘It’s been a while since we stood under a bucket,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’ Max follows me there.

I can see him there as a five-year-old — smaller, impatient, bouncing with limitless energy. We step underneath it now. There’s no one else waiting. The mechanism teeters as it fills. It takes longer than I remember. ‘It’s going to go,’ Max says. But it doesn’t. Not yet. Then it does — all at once — a hard, cold weight of water, and I let out a yelp I didn’t mean to make.

A late afternoon drive to Goolwa wharf and its bars and cafes. Max remembered a school excursion here to ride on the old paddlewheel ship, the Oscar W. A riverfront German bar is selling litre steins of beer for $25 each. The straggly-bearded bartender asked, ‘Can I get you one?’ I decline and later say to Max, ‘One of those bad boys and I couldn’t drive home!’

We pulled up outside the Port Elliot townhouse which hosts my annual writing retreat. I wanted to remind Max of life’s possibilities. Then a lap of Horseshoe Bay. The swimmers had all gone. The short jetty we’d leapt from that cold January day was empty. Max said, ‘I like this beach.’ I smiled, ‘Me too.’

With shadows stretching by the games room and the camp kitchen we hit the ignite button and barbecued our dinner. Park dwellers scurry past us. We devour the meat and token salad.

In our cabin Eminem rapped as we scanned the rules of backgammon. Max likes chess, so I thought another strategic, quietly played pastime might suit us both. Accompanied by the regular percussion of rattling dice, we enjoy a couple of lingering games. Neither he nor I is especially competitive and so we play kindly, even cooperatively. The scoreline is 1-1.

Throughout there’s easy talk about cars, footy, travel. Max asks, ‘Would you go to Berlin or Munich?’ I offer what I can. He nods, carefully. I fear he’ll soon be in Germany.

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Running along the esplanade in the windless dawn, I feel a melancholic gratitude. Max is asleep back at the cabin. We’ve had a sparkling series of chats against this coastal backdrop.

Parenting, though, guarantees a background anxiety. I try to picture the next time Max and I might escape like this, just the two of us. But I wonder how many chances we’ll have to huddle under a tipping, giant bucket.

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Right Then, It Was Perfect

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I entrusted the itinerary of a warm Saturday afternoon to Claire.

Walking towards Moseley Square past Colley Reserve and the Beach House, we caught the scent of salty air and summery promise.

Claire’s first stop was the Bay Discovery Centre, housed in the billowing white of the Town Hall. How had I never been? My excuse is I’m certain there’re Parisiennes who sullenly avoid the Eiffel Tower too.

Inside was the kitsch and the considered. We saw displays featuring pioneering aviator Jimmy Melrose, a local history of forbidden beachwear with the bikini only allowed a few short decades ago — racy Brighton before coquettish Glenelg.

Also, a section dedicated to objects found on the ocean floor. A wall of vanished keys, jewellery, pocketknives.

Unforgivably, I’d cheerfully ignored this museum since last millennium.

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Claire now steered us south. Easing off Jetty Road in Brighton we arrived by the Windsor Cinema. It’s functional rather than Art Deco beautiful. The cook/cleaner/usher/ barista/projectionist explained, ‘We had trouble with the first feature so your film’s about half an hour later.’

So, an opportune intermission with a shared coffee and melting moments biscuits. The third of these tempted us and Claire said, ‘Let’s have half each.’

Right then, it was perfect.

We settled into the Windsor for The Senior. Watching a middle-aged Texan chase a lost college football dream felt like an odd choice for Claire, yet there we were — her gift of endurance for a genre in which she has no earthly interest. Knowing I’ve an interest in the sport, my kindly wife picked the film for me.

I enjoy, as Paul Kelly observed, how moments of sporting grace can be found amidst danger. When a goal or wicket or touchdown is conjured from the most despairing of situations. As the most critical member of any team in any sport, the quarterback can create in astonishing ways.

Being set in West Texas, there were compulsory mentions of war and religion, and these remain the same thing. It had a predictable plot of redemption — personal, family, marital — and these all occurred for our good ole boy but there was a warmth to the story we both liked.

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Monday was Alex’s eighteenth birthday. On the phone I asked this:

‘I know you’ve got parties and things planned but what do you want to do on your actual birthday?’

I imagined he might want to go out to dinner with his girlfriend Harriet or head to the city with some friends. To my delight he announced he’d be happy to go to the Broady, have a pizza and his first legal beer.

Table 9 and its multi-generational party were ahead of us in the queue. They ordered multi-course meals and lavish drinks with glacial urgency. Aunt Maud’s turnout was bigger than any of us expected. We got served after a prolonged fashion.

In the beer garden Alex and I took our table by the ill-fated frangipani. Under the pergola a sloppy clot of blokes sipped Guinness. With relaxed animation we chatted of his weekend; university offers (Flinders and the VCA); how Harriet’s dad is taking him to see The Beta Band; his road trip to Sydney to hear an avant garde Japanese guitarist; the Pink Floyd vinyl both Harriet and I bought him — Wish You Were Here and Relics.

I relished his company and our soaring hour vanished into the indigo sky. Alex is curious, grateful, and seems to have a growing toolkit of what I hope he’ll need. I’m delighted that he voluntarily seeks support — what Richard Ford, in The Sportswriter, calls ‘the illumination and warmth it mutely offers.’

I dropped Alex at his girlfriend’s. With Three D Radio for company, I drove home through our sparkling seaside suburb.

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The Horizon and the Rearview Mirror

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Coming through the door, I stalled, disoriented by the scene.

I was at once acutely proud but also stricken with dread. Here we were in the foyer of Services SA — a bland government office, all beige, take a number, credit card or cash, Sir? — and outside it was Saturday morning.

Our agenda was motoring.

Frozen in the doorway I stared again. Alex and Max were hunched over a wooden bench, both six foot two and affable with easy nature and blond foppishness. There was an orderly murmuring across the bureaucratic space: productive snippets of dialogue, folks taking care of business, transactions underway.

Max was completing his form. ‘What’re block letters, Dad?’ I told him and with his respectful and deliberate writing he continued. At his right shoulder Alex worked through his paperwork with that same Labrador eagerness he’s carried since he was small.

I flipped between encouraging words and my thrumming denial that we’d arrived at this place. My boys were here, and while the scene felt familiar — like a re-run of an old TV episode — it was also unknowable. Alex and Max were buzzing with laconic excitement — I was happy but forlorn at how time had brutally evaporated.

Documents finished, we took our queue numbers from the cheerful staff and claimed our seats. A large screen tracked our progress, blinking along with robotic announcements: ‘C45.’ Five minutes later, ‘C46.’

It was much too early and much too late.

Waiting, we cycled through topics of interest: the boys’ work, school for Max, their friends.

All the while my internal commentary ran: Have I done my job here? Is now the time for moral instruction about their responsibilities, soon to descend like netting? Or do I just tell them to check their blind spots?

Pushing through the doors into the dazzling light, we eased across the car park. Both towered over me in their gentle ways. Max held his papers in his hand. His phone app was now loaded. He would soon learn to drive.

Alex’s car was waiting for us. He’d already swapped his L plates for P plates. He was on the road. They were, again, with these welcome and unstoppable advances, on their way. We had all become older.

Alex drove the three of us back to Glenelg. ‘Thanks, Dad,’ hung in the car’s interior. Their worlds had just expanded to a new, adult horizon. Mine had become, somehow, smaller.

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To Alex and Max, on our Hobart Holiday

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Dear Alex and Max

If Bali was about tropical warmth and Sydney was about the mesmerising beauty of the harbour, Hobart was something else entirely — a trip defined by the vertical. From the bonkers sub-zero winds atop Mount Wellington to the windowless caverns of MONA, we spent our days either climbing or descending.

There’s something generous about arriving in a city on a Friday. Irregular seagull cries above our heads — oddly rare in Glenelg — heightened the maritime atmosphere. On Elizabeth Street, we explored Tommy Gun Records from which Alex emerged with the vinyl of Spiritualized’s classic album Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. You’re certainly an audiophile or crate-digger! How you spoke about its musical and cultural qualities was astonishing. I also liked our first trip to Banjo’s bakery — which originated in Tasmania. Max’s comment that, ‘There’s nothing here I wouldn’t eat’ is a truism.

Down by the Brooke Street and Elizabeth Street piers, we strode about. Admiring a giant ocean liner at Macquarie Wharf no. 5, Max told us he’s planning a cruise once school is done. I’m always heartened by this kind of aspiration and the widescreen and global nature of your hopes. Pepperoni pizza from Medici — conveniently located on Murray Street for all your Italian cuisine needs — and inhaled in our Allurity Hotel room was an excellent conclusion to our first day.

Half of the Apple Isle squeezes into the Salamanca Markets on Saturday mornings, all there for gin, juice, and scallop pie tastings. Max and I hung back while Alex bought himself some outrageously overpriced (artisan) biscuits. Aboard the MONA ROMA fast ferry, we took in the River Derwent — low-rise bungalows on modest hills, the jaunty angles of Bellerive Oval’s light towers. After sightseeing at ground level, then came our descent into the subterranean playground of the museum.

I loved watching you both interrogate that place. It’s a confusing, jarring, and often brilliant maze. Whether we were traversing the colossal concrete war — evoking, for me, the brutality of a concentration camp, the sparks installation, or the Fat Car Porsche, I appreciated how you engaged with both heart and head. We talked about what constitutes art and what does not. Another highlight was the psychedelic band Spooky Eyes and their boisterous set on the MONA lawn.

The Uber drive up Mount Wellington was unforgettable. Terror always does this to me. Leaving the gentle suburban streets, we watched the trees shrink until there was only ancient, shattered rock and a sky that felt far too close. Standing at the summit, looking down at the tiny toy-town of Hobart below — the three of us were, momentarily, the highest beings in the city.

Hiking down was a test of more than just our legs; it was a test of our resilience against that piercing Tasmanian wind and for me alone, the fear of tumbling into the abyss and becoming wallaby food. Watching you both steer between the boulders — Alex leading the way and Max offering the dry commentary that has become his trademark — I was struck by how appreciative you both are of the wilder parts in this world.

Battery Point provided a genteel contrast. Wandering those handsome streets with the sandstone cottages and a southerly sun on our faces, it felt like we’d stepped into 1800s Cornwall. It’d been a bakery trip, and our grand final was at Jackman and McRoss, surely a Michelin-starred pie shop! With table service and desserts for both younger Randalls, this was a triumph.

Pausing in Arthur Circus, you both jumped on the swings and suddenly, it was a decade ago in any of a dozen playgrounds. For the final time in Hobart, we’d another vertical moment.

Thank you for liking the steep climbs, and the strange art. You both have a knack for turning a simple walk through an old suburb or a trek up a mountain into a shared event. It’s not just about the destination; it’s about the moments in between.

And this, my witty, kind, dear boys, is all I can ask for.

Dad

xx

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50,000 Residents of Corny Point Can’t Be Wrong

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Woodsy was from Kadina and moved to Kapunda. We hung out. He was always bumping into people from Corny Point. We’d be at a Gold Coast theme park, clambering off a rollercoaster, and Woodsy would spy a bloke from there. Or walking through Kings Cross in Sydney, he’d run into two more. Always spotting somebody, he’d tear off to chat and upon his return Lukey or Chrisso or I’d inquire, ‘Corny Point?’ — and Woodsy would reply, ‘Yeah.’ And then tell us all about it. After a while, I wondered if 50,000 people must have lived there.

Claire and I stayed in Marion Bay and drove to Corny Point. The first Friday of this year seemed perfect for this. I expected the township to be by the beach. Instead, it was inland, at the crossroads — caravan park, CFS, community church.

The Corny Point Cricket Club is also in the middle of town. Two sprinklers gallantly try to brighten the grass around the pitch. There are cosy clubrooms with old wooden benches and a couch in its alcove. I imagine the clatter of a bat being flung by a disgruntled batsman. Then, a spurt of applause for a crisp drive scurrying over the baked outfield — someone encouraging, ‘Yeah, good shot, Blue.’

A neighbourhood book exchange sits by the cricket oval entrance — a windowed wooden box on a stand. We see these in many towns during our holiday. How great to have one right by the cricket ground? Claire and I flick through the collection. You could select a historical fiction title, park beneath a tree, and with the first innings underway, lose yourself in a few chapters, only glancing up when the thud of ball on willow disrupts your sleepy immersion. Later, just after tea, you could amble into the clubrooms and say, ‘I’ll have a shandy, thanks Fred.’ Cricket was always the most literary and dignified of sports — even here, in dusty Corny Point.

Parking on the beach, we absorb the panorama. The sand is crunchy beneath our toes. We’re both instantly delivered to our childhoods. The salty afternoon breeze is resuscitating. We wade about, the water shimmering. Claire remembers a holiday in Cooboowie. ‘It was one of the few times I remember Dad swimming,’ she offers. The wide and clean sand takes me to a place too. When I was ten, Mum, Dad, Jill, and I went to Port Vincent. I recall my plastic bucket of tiny crabs, scooped from the balmy sea. At Corny Point boats glide in. A tractor tugs out a fishing vessel. With the promise of fish, pelicans gather patiently. It’s among the best beaches I’ve visited.

The Howling Dog Tavern is named for a mention in Matthew Flinders’ journal. It was five-ish, so we veered into the carpark. Ours was the smallest vehicle there. Happy hour, and a noisy crowd’s in. The new owners dart about behind the taps, eagerly dispensing refreshment. With a Pike’s white and a Pale Ale, Claire and I take a pew on the veranda — where the ceiling fans bother away the flies. Folks drift in from the caravan park, or on Saturdays, from the cricket oval. For the hundredth time, I ask Claire, ‘What’s the difference between a pub and a tavern?’ We still don’t know. I wonder how many people in the buzzing bar know Woodsy. I’m sure at least one or two.

Driving out, I scan the crossroads one last time. I don’t see Woodsy, or too many of the 50,000 residents, but I finally understand.

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Five Sentences, in Reverse Chronological Order, about the Queen’s Head

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Vamoosing from our front-bar nook, we carry the lamentable lettuce cups out with us and I then drop Claire at the Gov, where she’s interpreting for Josh Pyke, who — recalling what she told him at his gig in April — offers a heart-swelling shout-out about our wedding and the role played in it by his exquisite song Sew Your Name.

Pausing our celebration amidst the pubbish murmurings, Claire does a gallery walk around the bar studying the sepia Adelaide Oval Test-cricket photos, and as we speculate about life a century ago for these bowler-hatted, stern-faced types, I try to orient the oval for her by pointing at one grainy image and saying ‘That’s north,’ which proves unhelpful when she replies, allegedly, ‘You know I find compass references troublesome.’

Devolving ever deeper into late-capitalism, a telling symbol of this is that the only youngsters in pubs are often those pulling the beers; tonight is no exception, though our barkeep is convivial as we order a bowl of wedges — gladdening and homely in their aroma — and a delicious-sounding plate of lettuce cups.

Returning bar-side, the aroma of deep-fried calamari wafting past our noses, we claim our second and final drinks — Claire’s now-established espresso martini and my Pale Ale — and linger over them at a secluded table beside the — is November 14 premature? — Christmas tree; before this, we’d opened our night with a white wine and a pint of Heineken, which I always forget is essentially European VB, though without its charismatic nose or middle-palate length.

Ambling through the brisk air into the Queen’s Head (my choice for this month) past a footpath table of chaps relaxed into their late-Friday residency, having parked our RAV4 on gently undulating, village-like Kermode Street after a ten-minute automotive crawl up Montefiore Hill — itself preceded by collecting Claire from the ghostly TAFE on Light Square — we begin the sixtieth edition of Mystery Pub.

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As Childhood Slipped Away

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You’re among the last of the 250-odd students to cross the stage. It’s the 2025 Brighton Secondary School valedictory event and I’m in Section E of the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Adjusting my suit jacket, I browse about at the parents, siblings, and grandparents. Cologne pushes at me from a neighbouring dad. The jazz ensemble now hushes and we’re ready.

Our social contract is that we wait good-naturedly for our child to have their moment and be formally farewelled. I elect to clap each graduate while surveying their year 8 and year 12 photos, projected onto twin screens.

The sudden ruthless truth hit me this morning as I drove down Port Road, past the Entertainment Centre and saw the ceremony advertised on the colossal display. The height of the digital lettering was striking and the idea of you finishing school and entering the adult world became suddenly tangible and undeniable.

A long hour into the presentations and I’m impatient to see you. I repeatedly glance to the right of stage, hoping to spy you into the theatrical dark, searching for your blonde mop. But the unbroken procession of students persists.

Finally, your home group is announced. I can just see you in the wings: tall, cheerful, casual. Your turn approaches. An amplified voice says, ‘Alex Randall.’

I watch from Section E. Entering the stage, your long legs are relaxed and you’re respectfully laconic. I note that you’re purposeful but not panicked, in reaching centerstage. Years of drama productions have taught you to luxuriate in this, to add an extra beat. As a school student, it’s your final bow.

Now firmly under the spotlight, you arrive alongside the principal, Mr. Lunniss, and pause, beaming your easy smile. You almost look like you’ve just been told a small (Dad) joke and find it bemusing. Next to the angular, retiring educator, you establish your affable presence on the stage. There’s no arrogance in your stance, only a natural, infectious joy.

As you take your souvenirs — a navy-blue book and programme — my evening’s most poignant moment arrives. As your Dad, sitting in the vast auditorium, it sparks an inner welling and a hot tear for it shows heartening regard, and gratitude. It’s a hope-inspiring gesture, likely undetected by most in the audience, on this evening of goodbyes and celebrations.

You’ve told me you’ve no relationship with the principal and this is better than you being marched habitually into his office where he peers over his glasses and despairingly asks, ‘What have you done now, Randall?’ Instead, the reality is far more gracious. Beneath the arena lights I’m thrilled when Mr. Lunniss hands you the official gift of school stationery and you nod acknowledgment at him.

I instantly recognise this voluntarily offered thankfulness as a buoyant symbol. It’s gladdening. I wish for a dazzling adulthood in which you possess a sophisticated grasp of the silent machinery required to make life bend to your happy will.

Such was the equivalence that I could imagine you and the principal at a front bar: ‘Alex, your shout.’ It’s also, any witness would attest, a courteous transaction between two men — but with it away rushes the last of your childhood and in Section E, I’m an anonymous, hushed spectator.

The entire village has invested in you Alex, and some now watched on and could smile to themselves at the illuminating role they’d performed, the kindnesses they often extended, the gentle hands placed on your shoulder. It’s been an acutely elevating instance — a bright, cloudless dawn. A single, fleeting nod on a wide stage — and just like that, your school years are done.

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The Light Around Dad’s 82nd Birthday

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Those of us who drink red raised a glass to our patriarch. We enjoyed a glug of the 2006 Rockford’s Basket Press Shiraz — purple, velvety, immediately seductive. Dad, Claire, my nephew Mitchell, his girlfriend Alisha, and my son Alex all nodded their approval as Sunday lunch settled in with warm ease.

Under my sister Jill’s veranda, the cold November rain pushed in rudely — the kind that makes you reconsider going to the footy. We traded stories of Balinese dangers with cobras and scooters (Claire and me, imperilled), Kuta escapades (my cousin Ben, curious) and brazen prostitutes (Dad and Mum and my Uncle John and Aunty Liz, bemused).

Then, naturally, we drifted to Kapunda stories: antics in adolescent cars, the burning rubber of Uncle John’s Ford Zephyr (allegedly), and my HQ Holden versus the high-school fence (guilty, Your Honour). The following morning, I had to front, in glum succession, the school headmaster, the local Senior Sergeant, and of course Mum and Dad. All before breakfast.

A tickled Alex outlined his gap-year plans — Europe and the Stans: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. I was suddenly distraught. Here was aural proof that he would soon be in the other hemisphere, an alien time zone, and forever vanished into adulthood.

Lunch was superb: lamb shoulder, roast chicken, and salads — vermicelli my standout — all made by Jill, a self-declared lover of cooking. She finished with a classic country pavlova piled with whipped cream and strawberries.

Still around the table, we sang Happy Birthday to Dad. I now remember that Americans don’t do the Jolly Good Fellow coda, which has always struck me as the spirited, fun bit of the tradition — the tune barrelling home, people lifting their volume and arm-swinging gusto. Ideal for the tone-deaf like me.

The previous afternoon, I’d gone in search of a shiraz, declaring that Dad’s birthday deserved a generous red and wandering the aisles of Dan’s, I spied some plonk that reminded me of an ageing bottle on the rack in the spare room. With that I left the store empty-handed, rushed home, rescued the dusty Basket Press Shiraz, and told Claire, ‘I was keeping it for a big occasion — and surely Sunday qualifies.’

It was instantly the best glass of wine I’ve ever had — and I hope everyone else felt the same. Context is everything, and it was superior to the Grange I’ve tasted on a couple of occasions. I reckon past a certain age, birthdays narrow into the things that matter: the closest people, engaging wine and food, and old stories we’ve all heard before — and will gladly recite again, with delighted ritual, next year.

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How Good’s Grand Final Week?

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Siren sounds.

Somehow, we’ve pinched it by two points. Somehow, from directly in front, Redleg Tristan Binder’s kick swung late, like a Terry Alderman outswinger. Moments later, ‘We’re From Tigerland’ blasts out around Adelaide Oval. Despite finishing second, we played and won like underdogs.

Somehow, we’re in the Grand Final.

*

Mum and Dad live in the Barossa. Mum barracks for Sturt. Dad and I are Tigers faithful. This Sunday night, someone’s having disappointment for dinner. Sitting on the veranda, I ring.

Dad says, ‘We’ll really miss Max Proud.’ Matty Snook was Dad’s perpetual favourite.

I say, ‘Gee, it’d be great if Hosie, McBean, and Reynolds all have a day out. It’s been a while.’ We dissect Jonty Scharenberg’s enormous last month.

*

The City-Bay Fun Run is also Sunday. Usually, it coincides with the preliminary final. I formerly ran the twelve kilometres, but now I do just the six from Kurralta Park in the interests of, well, my interests. I’ll again wear my 2023 premiership guernsey. It’s a magnificent running top and attracts quips from cheering onlookers lining the (mercifully downhill) Anzac Highway route.

‘Go, Tigers.’

‘Come on, the Bays.’

And from a tiny, white-haired lady, ‘Go, you good thing!’

*

We all dig out old scarves and ancient yellow and black caps this week. For me, I’ll enlist a premiership stubby holder to chaperone me through. Like a sommelier, I pick each up in turn, study it, and turn it gently in my hand. Which vintage to savour? The 2023? The 2024? I settle on the superbly aged 2019. I inhale and it smells like victory.

Grand final eve eve eve (Thursday) and we wander around Jetty Road to admire the decorations. Yellow and black streamers festooned in shop windows and across pub bars. Balloons bouncing on business facades. Tigers roaring.

Touring the holy trinity of B: Barb’s (Sew and Knits), the Broady pub, Butcher — SA Gourmet Meats (formerly Brian’s) I drink in their displays of communal celebration. Duck in the footy club for a brisk beer to appreciate the buzz — and under the darkening sky, scrutinise training and try to gather some heartening signs.

*

My wife, Claire, is a (mostly) lapsed Norwood fan from a big family of Redlegs supporters — her Dad introduced me to the idea of Port being labelled, ‘The Filth.’ Over beef curry one night she wonders aloud if it’s boring how Glenelg’s into a fifth grand final in seven years. I remind her of the conversation I once had at The Wheaty listening to her brother’s band: Don Morrison’s Raging Thirst.

It was with an old friend and mad Centrals fan. I said, ‘Your mob played in twelve consecutive grand finals, Smacka. Did it ever lose that excitement?’ Smacka instantly replied, laughing like a pirate, ‘No. Never!’

We’re with him.

*

When we win a grand final, my tradition is to swing by the Elephant and Castle (West Terrace) on the way home and buy a Coopers Sparkling Ale stubby (for whichever holder’s riding in the front seat). Here’s hoping that around 6pm Sunday I’m veering through the drive-through for a fourth beer.

I anticipate its zesty hoppiness.

*

Sunday afternoon drive into the CBD. Trust my secret (free) car park’s available. Kimba friends Mozz and Kathy will be with me, so I’ll ask them to not breathe a word of this clandestine location. Then, the thrumming anticipation when crossing the Torrens footbridge.

We’ll sit in the Ricciuto Stand. Looks like it’ll be showery. Max Proud is out — sadly his remarkable career is done — but with significant upset Sturt captain James Battersby has not so much walked out as run out to Oxford Terrace, wailing and blubbing. Both teams need to absorb these seismic events. Our last three finals victories have been by a combined eight points. They’ve been gripping and frantic. We’re underdogs, again.

And then, there’ll be that enlivening, hot-blooded moment when all the energy of the players and fans explodes.

The opening siren.

*all photos courtesy of the author

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Sausage Roll Review: Live N Let Pie

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Sitting outside this small bakery in the brisk and dazzling afternoon, I take in the view across to the Goolwa Shopping Centre. A key tenant is an especially attractive Foodland. Over-sized and ridiculous vehicles — ‘trucks’ in the US of A — crawl in and out of the car park.

I study my sausage roll. Mum used to make sausage rolls — with help from my sister, Jill and me — and the best job was to make indentations on the pastry with a fork. I was always amazed how these little rows of bumps were still there when they’d come out of the oven. It’s virtuous to preserve a sense of wonder, even when beholding freshly baked, meat-encased foodstuffs.

Glancing at the commercial real estate to the south, I note it boasts a Smoke Mart. I consider swinging by but then decide against buying Dad a novelty glass bong for Father’s Day (this Sunday).

My roll is enormous and I’m immediately suspicious. Munch. Look up again at the Smoke Mart. Munch again. Tasty and surprising. Look at sausage roll gizzards.

Capsicum. Oregano. Pepper. The new holy trinity of additives.

The bakery’s name is a pun on the theme song of Live and Let Die, the 1973 film and eighth in the Bond franchise, starring Roger Moore. Written and performed by Paul McCartney and Wings, there’s been five decades of controversy around this grammatical howler-

But in this ever-changing world in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry

Yes, (at least) one too many inclusions of in. Redundancy city. Maddening. Did this bloke write ‘Hey Jude?’ Covering the song, other artists have repaired the lyric. Macca himself is unsure. This, during an interview-

He starts to sing to himself: “In this ever changing world. . . . ‘ It’s funny. There’s too many ‘ins.’ I’m not sure. I’d have to have actually look. I don’t think about the lyric when I sing it. I think it’s ‘in which we’re living.’ Or it could be ‘in which we live in.’ And that’s kind of, sort of, wronger but cuter. That’s kind of interesting. ‘In which we live in.’ I think it’s ‘In which we’re living.’

As I continued my lunch, I thought about this a bit more. The shopping centre was still there. I wondered how many glass bongs had been sold in Smoke Mart since I sat down with my engorged sausage roll.

There’s a dog bowl out the front of the bakery. I like this. Should you feed a sausage roll to a sausage dog?

Mancunian types, Oasis, have reformed and are touring. I think the Gallaghers are funny in a scowling way. Clearly influenced by the Beatles, one finally met Paul McCartney and asked what he thought of this, he replied, ‘It were fookin’ great. How amazing to meet your idol! I mean, Wings are my favourite fookin’ band.’

My sausage roll was highly satisfactory, and I considered if the Gallaghers eat them. Macca’s a vegetarian so probably not. Did Bond ever throw one at a villain and fell him? Unsure, I drove off past the shopping centre thinking of grammar, dogs, and post-Beatles careers.

I needed to clear my head. Father’s Day would be here soon.

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The (Claire Louise) Beverage Compliance Manual

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Congratulations on your appointment as Claire Louise’s sommelier, barista, mixologist (oh) and general drinks help. Of course, it’s not really about beverages. It’s about knowing someone’s favourites, their rhythms, their fussy preferences — and loving them not in spite of them, but because of them

To assist you in your duties here’s a (brief) list of requirements.

1. Green tea. Taken regularly throughout the day. Any number between 4 and 7 cups. Teabags must undertake multiple tours of duty. Tea strength, as Goldilocks knows, should not be too weak nor too strong but just right.

    2. Coffee. Taken morning (one at breakfast) and afternoon (also one). As per tea should be moderate in strength. Sometimes, the afternoon one is purchased from a café or the evil Scottish corporation (drive through, not walk-in) and must be nice. As in a nice coffee. A chocolate muffin might accompany the later. Pro tip: Half the muffin is to be taken home and graciously offered to the husband. This, too, is nice.

    3. Water. Above all else this cannot be yukky. Filtered water that has fallen as gentle, nice rain in a country location is best. Do not buy in plastic bottles. Repeat. Do not buy in plastic bottles. Unless circumstances demand. These may include hikes in Europe across especially rocky terrain like the Cinque Terre.

    4. Orange juice. Taken in a small glass upon rising. Must be diluted (not overly) to allow for ease of consumption and to avoid citrus shock. NB- this is in stark contrast to #9.

    5. White wine. Must be cold but not too cold. 8 degrees Celsius seems ideal. Fill to (Rodney) line if using glass acquired* from pub. Do not add ice, regardless of outdoor temperature. But it’s nice to ask.

    6. Red wine. If using glass acquired* from pub fill to just below the Rodney line. No, I don’t know either. Add a single magic drop—no one really knows what it does, but it feels important.

    7. Sparkling white. Occasionally taken as first drink in pub. Only one glass and this is described as nice.

    8. Sparkling red. Despite early enthusiasm, this is now shunned. No loss.

    9. Brandy. In order to obtain your mandatory Cert IV, the Brandy unit must be passed at a minimum B level. Large, wide-mouthed tumbler. Substantial ice cube. Ice first to allow for spirit-cooling. How much brandy? Covering the brandy and ice, but not really, only conceptually. Then add new coke not pre-opened coke for it’ll be flat. Then again, the new coke will demonstrate a disappointing lack of fizz (see enshittification). Take care to not over-fill the tumbler to leave room for coke-topping to alleviate the intense brandy hit. To support you with this, a range of face-to-face and online groups are available such as the Brandy Assistance Division (BAD) who meet every month on the second Tuesday and 1 – 800 – BRANDYHELP has proved useful to some.

    10. Gin. Similar to but not quite the same as #9. Probably less spirit but with the addition of botanicals — though don’t let Miss overhear you saying that word, a dehydrated lemon wheel — don’t let Miss overhear you saying that either, mint et al.

    11. Cocktails. No genuine insight. Just make ‘em strong. Unless 10% ABV, don’t bovver.

    12. Pimm’s. (correct use of possessive apostrophe, thanks) See #11.

    13. Beer. The sole exclusion. Simple rule to remember.

    14. Hot chocolate. Taken mid-evening (mostly during the southern hemisphere winter) around 9pm. Sometimes as early as 8.30 and as late as 9.30. Never a giant mug’s worth. Regardless of the temperature, microwave for an additional 30 seconds (minimum) but do not allow to boil. May be accompanied (irregularly) by treats.

    15. Baileys et al. Taken occasionally, mostly on a Sunday. Often with an ice cube. Do not be alarmed when, days later, you find a glass with a barely-there centimetre of (diluted) milky beverage hidden away (in seeming shame) on a low fridge shelf. Sometimes poorly sealed with a sad square of cling wrap.

    I wish you well and trust you’ll enjoy this lively and exciting role.