Category: General Musings

“He would say that, wouldn’t he?” Not only did I close the last post with a line that only 50 plus year old readers would be familiar with, but I accredited it to the wrong woman. It was actually Mandy Rice-Davies, a friend of Christine, who uttered the immortal line “He would say that, wouldn’t he? Mandy was in court and when the defence claimed that Lord Astor had never paid to have sex with her she uttered the memorable line. The quote entered the English language and basically says nothing objective comes from sources with a vested interest. Mandy Rice-Davies My older readers are now smiling with the memory and the younger ones are wondering what the hell I’m on about. Stay with me. A Sydney reader, Terry M. pointed out my error and started me Googling to refresh my memory. Ah! Now I remember. In 1962 Christine Keeler, a striking beautiful young woman, had run away from home at the age of 16 and become a showgirl at Murray’s cabaret club in Soho, London, where she was employed “to walk around naked”. John Profumo was the British Secretary of State for War, married to actress Valerie Hobson, educated at Harrow and Oxford and had everything going for him other than his pronounced zipper problem. Christine met Mandy Rice-Davies and Stephen Ward, a fashionable London osteopath ,who enjoyed sketching the rich and famous and the three of them often spent weekends at a cottage belonging to one of Ward’s friends, Lord Astor. So did Profumo. Getting better, isn’t it? Profumo and Keeler had a short but torrid affair that most probably would have been ignored by the press except Christine had also slept with Eugene Ivanov, a patriotic Russian who was a naval attach? at the Soviet Embassy – he was also a spy . . . Back in Albany, WA, aged 15, I was undergoing my penultimate year at high school. A task made very difficult by hormones and testosterone bubbling away forcing maths and English into the background while I tried to come to grips with girls. In 1962 we didn’t even know what a girl looked like sans clothes. There was a magazine called ‘Adam’ that had women in suggestive poses but all fully clothed. The only pictures available were hunted out in the school library under ‘Travel’. The odd National Geographic had pictures of foreign woman in various states of undress with a naked, upper torso shot here and there. There, I’ve said it. My sex education was based on the National Geographic magazine. It could be said that men of my age were terribly disadvantaged in that we spent years of our youth imagining woman to be built like PNG Marys. The suckling pigs threw us a bit, but we learnt to ignore that. Albany is a port and I do recall a couple of us talking to sailors on leave and one of them flashing a set of ‘dirty post cards’ The memory is dim however, as the flashing was just that, a flash, and that type of thing needs protracted study. And then along came Christine and that photo in the chair. It was sheer pornography to us as it was very obvious she was NAKED! The press filled in the gaps and we were never the same. WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

John Profumo has kept a low profile since the sensational events of the 1960s, mainly occupying himself with charity work. He was named Commander of the British Empire in 1975 for his charitable work. After the scandal broke, the Naval attach? Ivanov was called back to Moscow and never heard from again. Keeler lives quietly in North London, and says she still feels “bewildered” by what happened. Rice-Davies is a grandmother and lives in America.

Mandy Rice -Davies is also quoted as saying;

My life has been one long descent into respectability.

in connection with reports that she was on social terms with Sir Denis Thatcher, husband of ex-prime minister Margaret Thatcher. My problem with women, maths and English eventually resolved itself but not for some years. In my writings in another venue I recorded this in 1964

We had four days off early in 1964 and three of us chose to go to Sydney. For all of us, all boys from the bush, the thought of maybe a million girls in a 30 or 40-square mile paddock must clear up the virginity problem.

It didn’t.

Quote from Bunker Mulligan in a post on Dissappearing Blogs

Thirty plus years ago Staff Sergeant Billy Webb assured me I had absolutely no reason to have an ego, and the only one authorised was his.

I know the feeling, Forty plus years ago Sergeant King suggested the only reason he was allowing me to pass Corps Training and go on to a Regiment was because he wanted me out of his hair. Damn, there was a long line of Sergeants in those early days who failed miserably in recognizing my talents. (In my later years the long line may still have been there but military ettiquette and a natural desire for promotion may have tempered their comments)

LETTING communities know pedophiles are living among them is a bad idea, a prominent New South Wales civil liberatarian says.

Community leaders such as school principals and politicians were not responsible enough to use the information properly, NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Cameron Murphy said.

The man rapes three children, is convicted and serves 14 years. He refuses to undergo any rehabilitation in prison. He is eventually released from prison and then gets 15-month sentence for failing to tell NSW’s Child Protection Register he had a job that gave him access to children. On the face of it I can’t see any signs of Ferguson being a changed man but the civil libertiy people are all up in arms about mothers and fathers demanding their civil liberties. You know… freedom for their children to play and move around the community without being molested.

Opposition Deputy Leader Jeff Seeney, whose electorate includes Murgon, called on all communities that became home to Ferguson to protest so the Government would tighten the laws. Mr Seeney said 519 serious sex offenders had walked free from Queensland prisons in the past five years without completing rehabilitation and they should be put into institutions indefinitely.

The father in me wants him dead. The citizen in me wants him in a position where he can’t molest kids. If he has shown no remorse and refuses rehabilitation then can’t we keep him secure at Her Majesty’s pleasure until we, as the citizens, through our law courts, are satisfied that he wont offend again. Some of these people rape and murder, are convicted, spend time in prison and are then released. They then rape and murder, are convicted…… Do Civil Libertarians notice this cycle. Does it feature in what they say about the rapists liberties and what do they say about the victims liberties? Not much I would think and Cameron Murphy says school principals and politicians are not responsible enough.

Have been very busy this week trying to overcome Spam mainly from texas-holdem.terashells.com. If any reasonable person knows more about these turkeys could they send round a patrol and take them out. Come on..are you listening over there at Midland, Texas. If anyone has an answer to help an old soldier please leave a comment.

I have included an Iraqi blog titled Friends of Democracy specifically dealing with the elections later this week in Iraq. All readers of an open mind might like to follow it through to the elections. Those who only seek negative views about Iraq so as to bolster their anti Bush/US/Howard agenda should best stay away. Remember your creed demands you ignore the truth or at least to spin it negatively. Via Bunker Mulligan

A report from England publsihed in today’s Australian suggests a huge proportion of Airforce women are sexually harrassed. I take all such reports with a grain of salt as the first question is – What defines sexuall harrassment? In my day, everything up to hearing the words NO was OK and it was known colloqually as trying to score but I get the feeling that under today’s rules a good morning smile can be upgraded to a leer with associated mental undressing with little proof required.

ALMOST half the women serving in Britain’s Royal Air Force had suffered from sexual harassment, it was reported today.

More than 1000 of the 2500 women surveyed internally by the RAF had been victims of sexual harassment over the past 12 months, reports in the Independent on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror said.

I simply don’t believe it. Maybe ten percent of this is harrassment and inapropriate behaviour. It’s been my experience that most men are reasonble when dealing with the lifelong pursuit of the pleasures of Venus and know NO when they hear it. Life goes on. Men try and women mostly accept their approach. Some blokes come on too strong but mostly they end up accepting failure and try elsewhere. My Corps, Infantry, have a perfect record on this type of behaviour. It could be due to a total lack of women in the work place but I’d like to think it’s because we are gentlemen of the old school. It’s life’s major game-play and someone suggests fifty percent of this is harrassment or inapropriate. No way!

The Common Koel Bird – bludger and user! Its storm season in Brisbane and every afternoon the noisy Keol can be heard coo-eeing around the suburbs. Locals call the Koel, or Eudynamys scolopacea, the Storm Bird as his call generally precedes a storm. Actually, it also follows a storm and if the storm wasn’t so noisy you could hear him calling during the storm. But let’s not spoil a good suburban myth. I was all set to blame him for all the storms that have been stopping me finishing my current project. However, after checking out his form I find he’s not really telling us a storm is on the way – it’s all coincidence. He arrives from PNG each summer storm season and his call is a mating call. But you knew that didn’t you? That’s all well and good; you can’t knock a bloke for trying to get himself some nookie. It’s the bit after I don’t like. After mating these birds look for some other dumb bird pair and land them with the egg. The hosts baby-sit the egg and then rear the Koel chick until the chick itself notices that it’s a different breed. You’d think by this time the male host would be asking his hen some pretty searching questions. But no, the Koel chick uses up all their time and energy and then just flies the coop. He heads north to PNG and joins with all the other bludging user Koels. No questions asked. What a con. How stupid do the host Mum and Dad look now. I’m trying to build a deck on one corner of the pool and it has to be done by Saturday when the family gather for a 21st party. It actually should be finished before I fly to Vietnam on Thursday. The job was planned to start a week or two ago and did but the day I started digging out the turf, 6 December, the heavens opened up. 160 millimeters or 6.3 inches later and the rain slows. My friend and helper, a builder, doesn’t work on wet days as in I’ll be there Monday IF IT DOESN”T RAIN Like – Sorry Sarge, I don’t want to patrol today – it’s raining. Bloody civilians. The rain stops and the sun comes out creating a sauna effect. My son comes over and we busy ourselves securing the beams and then start bringing in the cubic metre of crusher dust that goes underneath the decking, wheelbarrow load at a time. Under the patio, the temperature reads 30 degrees C. I take the thermometer and lay it down on the pool coping where we are working and then later, when we have smoko (cold apple juice) I check the temperature – 55 Degrees C or 122 Degrees Fahrenheit. Instant de-motivation. Minutes after I see that temperature, I hear the Koel herald a storm. Suddenly I don’t care if it is a suburban myth, I don’t care if he is a bludging user and I don’t care about him getting his way with some Koel chickie bird. I just want the storm. Can’t work in the rain. It pours and we are forced to stop work. The temperature drops, the pool overflows for the fourth time this week and the job site reverts to a swamp. I’ll have another go tomorrow.

Saturday afternoon and evening at the famous Breakfast Creek Pub with out-of-towner Tim Blair in attendance along with The Chief Bastard, Murph and Todd from A special kind of sauce, Paul from Paul and Carls daily diatribe and Matt Marty from The Rat Pack. Also very pleased at last to meet Arthur Chrenkoff who stayed sober for the whole event. The final phase of Athur’s Australianisation is yet to be completed but we will work on him having a drink next time. Tim accuses me of spilling a full schooner in his lap and then denying it. I thought it was only half a schooner – if I had known it was full I would have reacted in a more extreme manner. I mean those bloody things cost 4 or 5 dollars each. At least I didn’t spill Tim’s chardonnay.

Nick Leys, in todays Strewth colum in the Australian, takes Cairns Mayor Kevin Byrnes to task over dressing up as Arafat for a charity function.

CAIRNS has been rocked by debate over the past week after mayor Kevin Byrne thought it would be a good idea to attend a charity debate and lunch dressed as Yasser Arafat ? just two days after his death. Byrne defended his actions as just a joke, but a local businessman of Palestinian descent is far from laughing.

Just two days after his death is not an exact date as we all recall nobody wanted to declare Arafat dead until they found his PIN number for all his stolen billions. Nick has the whole town ‘rocked‘ but all he quotes is one Cairns resident.

John Hawash yesterday lodged a complaint with the anti-discrimination board, saying the mayor had “made a fool” of all Cairns residents. “This problem has to be rectified. It’s done damage to the city. There are investors coming from the Middle East to Cairns and this sort of thing will scare them away.”

The type of Middle East investor that is ‘shocked’ by fancy address that lampoons Arafat should stay in the Middle East and we shouldn’t have anything to do with them. I should declare an interest here. Kevin Byrnes is an ex Infantry Major from my Regiment and his Chief of Staff is likewise, an old friend from Army Days. When I phoned for an indepth analysis of the ‘shocked’ city I found my friend absent on a holiday in China and Kevin busy getting on with his Mayoral duties. Great to-do about nothing but it does give Nick Leys a chance to put Conservatives in a bad light. You’ll just have to do better Nick.

How does anyone expect the Palestinians to ever become a functioning nation. I mean the last time I saw anything like the chaos of Arafat’s funeral it was a mob of drunken soccer hooligans They can’t even mourn decently. Shots fired in Arafat’s mourning tent. Someone insulted someone else and the AK54s start rattling as they would if wielded by idiots that fire the bloody things in the air like a child in the first place. The Jeruselum Post reports;

At first, Palestinian police and soldiers fired off entire magazines in an attempt to keep the mourners from enveloping the helicopters. Then they seemed to do it for the celebratory effect.

Totally lacking in any form of discipline others join in the decidedly dangerous practice.

Masked gunmen joined in the manic gunfire which only ceased two hours later.

Palestinian officials later said that nine people were wounded, one critically, from the gunfire. Hundreds more were treated for various injuries, including falling off walls, trampling, and dehydration ? aggravated by a blazing sun and the widely-observed Ramadan fast.

Nine people wounded! Hundreds injured! Masked gunmen! At a funeral, for God’s sake Remember the pomp and ceremony of Churchill’s funeral; The heart felt sadness and that little boy saluting his father at Kennedy’s funeral; the reverence of Menzie’s departure and then witness the stampede of primeval adulators and idolaters of the murdering thug Arafat at his final circus. These people have a very long way to go to statehood.