Eleventy's Dreaming

Citizen Shane

G’day Possums,

Now that the dust in the burrow has settled on “the trip” and even though much less was shot than last time, I'm well into what seems an interminable “post-process” and able to reflect on what are becoming the salient memories of those six weeks.

Jardin de Plantes, Paris The Inspiration for Saint Sa'ens', "Carnival of the Animals"

The Cathedrals seen in Britain; Wells, Exeter, Southwark and the local churches all had a liveliness probably because they are used extensively and are not dank, damp spaces. Also the fact that the architecture being a century or so later in most cases and “English Perpendicular” has found its soaring, full formal restraint which is so different from the “Flamboyant” of French Gothic.

Wells Cathedral Chapter House Stairs

At Wells Cathedral I was hard pressed not to attempt to channel the spirit of Frederick Evans when confronted with the stairs going up to the Chapter House and had a twinge of regret that I wasn't lugging around a Field Camera with tilt and shift movements. It was only a twinge, as the gear I had bagged weighed in at 7 Kg and most was often left in the car for discretions sake. I had wrist straps for both cameras and they proved very useful in that the camera was always “at hand” and not flailing around your neck or protruding a lens in front like some priapic tourist in Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita.”

Scotney Castle

The gardenswere beautiful: Sissinghurst, Scotney, Trebah and the delightfully warm Lacock Abbey and even the walk to Petworth House but then nearly every French Village is a picture in itself and Versailles (apart from the selfie-hordes) has that expansive dignity and a singular charm in the Petit Trianon.

Versaille

Sissinghurst, Petworth, the Wallace collection, now administered by the State were all from immense private wealth, whereas wandering through the castle at Vitre or the ramparts of Dinan you’re conscious of a formidable awareness of Nation and region and even though The Victoria and Albert in London has a large Artwork Neon sign in its foyer telling the masses “This belongs to You” the Opera Garnier in Paris seems more publicly owned.

Petworth

Perhaps it was because the British renounced their Commonwealth, returning to a forelock tugging monarchical system whereas the French embraced Republican Liberty, Egalite’ and Fraternity that restaurant food and service is generally so much better in France?

Sissinghurst

Jardin des Plantes, Staircase

Wombat Droppings

A chronicle of the demise of Egalitarian Oz and its embrace of Fascism.

Rabid-the-Hun, leader of the ruling rabble, this week refused to deny that when he said, “…we are open for business,…” he meant the business of people smuggling.

It has come to light that in the free enterprise spirit some refugee boats have returned to Indonesia after thousands of dollars have been given by Oz Immigration to the captains of those vessels. This is irritating to those Military and Police in Indonesia who are complicit with this trade, as it will force them to lower the prices for the asylum seekers and pay their captains more. A real win-win for people smugglers.. ahhh, the talent of the ruling rabble.

Coming at the same time as Rabid was floating the idea of sending more troops to the hell-holes from where many of these refugees originate and mounting another four pronged assault on the Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs for suggesting that the Indonesians might stop listening to us on other matters if we continue violating their territory, his Treasurer Joe “Eleventy-Toyota-Killer” Hockey had us all “in the aisles” with his profoundly original observation that we will all need a good job if we wish to buy a house.

Eleventy ignored the fact that there are five people for every job at the moment and that self-employed and contract workers are not welcomed by the banks for home mortgages and that $100,000.00 university debts and a privatised health system and lower wages were not really a recipe for community building.

Pryor Cartoon, The Saturday Paper 13-6-2015

The $390,000.00 a year Free Speech Commissioner and ex Liarbril, ex “Coot-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe” (aka IPA), Timmy “Twat-Freedom-Man” Wilson popped his head up this week, too. At the Sydney Geriatric Institute he apparently opined that the judiciary should not be the ones dealing with human rights as this could be left to his mentor George “Bookshelves” Brandis or even “Dodo” Dutton but only after they’ve finished assaulting his boss, Gillian Triggs. Timmy didn’t see much use for any thing like a Magna Carta either… other than as a tourist attraction for lefty wimps.

It has yet to be ascertained what proportion of his $390,000.00 remuneration this thought- bubble was worth.

Peta "Bloody-Idiot" Credlin

Full of this spirit of Democracy, Rabid-the-Hun’s advisor, Peta ”Bloody-Idiot” Credlin was reported as telling a press photographer to delete the files she had shot of her. Having of late been less visible monstering her ruling rabble colleagues, this was a welcome return to form that we have missed appreciating in person; although if Rabid’s pronouncements on housing prices, wind farms, marriage equality, security and environmental matters are anything to go by, she is still showing equivalent acumen in her advisory role.

“Dodo” Dutton was at his rollicking charming best, too when the bullying Sydney radio noise Ray Hadley played him a song about Green’s Senator Sarah Hansen-Young’s adventures of being spied on by Wilson Security when she visited the refugee concentration camp on Manus Island.  Hadley has to be congratulated in getting a laugh from the dour faced Dodo even if it was, as another of Hansen-Young’s colleagues Larissa Waters said, “Sexist claptrap!”

It is interesting to note that with all the expensive Royal Commissions going on and nothing of import coming from them that in Queensland and Victoria the new governments are uncovering some very interesting messes that were allowed or were fostered by the previous Liarbril regimes in transport, education, sport and law… and I suspect that the vicious attacks on Gillian Triggs or anyone else who contradicts or opposes this ruling rabble will have similar treatment meted out like that of Hansen-Young; after all, look at the way Gillard was treated by these “adults”.

Much as I said there was a stench in Victoria which is now emerging…. this federal rabble are so  “on-the-nose” in so many areas and the corrupt stink is coming from the very top.

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane.

Versailles, Petit Trianon

Watts Chapel